Best Columns: GM Volt path, Chrysler aftershocks

GM is selling the electric Chevy Volt to Washington lawmakers, says Holman Jenkins in The Wall Street Journal, after years as one of Capitol Hill’s “whipping boys.” It’s hard to be

The Chevy Volt’s target audience

General Motors finds itself unprepared for a gas-driven consumer shift to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, says Holman Jenkins in The Wall Street Journal, for at least the third time since 1958. One lesson from this is that planning your fleet on “a 'permanent' shift in auto tastes based on a quantum as volatile as the price of gasoline is nuts.” Well, GM executives aren’t nuts, so who do they expect to buy the $45,000, limited-range electric Chevy Volt when it comes out? The answer: Washington. GM is seeking “a whopping $7,000 tax credit” for Volt buyers, among other favoritism. U.S. automakers have spent years as “whipping boys” of Capitol Hill, and “the Volt is GM’s vehicle for making a bailout of GM politically acceptable.”

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