The Volt: Shock and Awe 2.0

GM made a big hullabaloo last week with it's introduction of the it's electric car, the Volt which supposedly gets 200 miles to the charge beside being able to save floundering behemoth automotive companies.

My fave doomer J. H. Kunstler points out the incredibly glaring farce that the Volt will be with it's exorbitant price tag:

We're told the Volt will get the equivalent of over 200 miles-per-gallon, at less than 25 cents a charge from the plug on your garage wall, blah blah.
They estimate that it'll cost about $40,000. Do we detect a little problem right there? Like, the whole adult US population is going to rush out and buy new cars priced the same as today's Mercedes Benz? Good luck with that, GM, especially when money for car loans will be about as easy to get as a royal flush in online poker.

Peak Oil haters point to the Theory of "Theys". They will fix. They will invent something, etc. But the reality is even if there is a new technology (not to mention expensive) that requires the whole public to switch over from a current (very expensive) technology, where will they get the money to do so when there is no trade in value for the old stuff or have credit so bad that they can't get a loan for it? What a cluster this will be.

Though JHK gets a bit scary when he talks about the "pitchfork and torch" outcomes for the future:

Then, of course, there is the political problem that nobody is thinking
about, namely, what happens when a substantial portion of the public is permanently foreclosed from motoring because they've lost jobs and incomes and positions and vocations that they will never get back -- ? Do you think they'll just hike down the breakdown lanes with colorful bundles on their heads like the impoverished folk in other lands? Or will they put all those home arsenals to work? I can't wait to find out.