Mike Kelly, a Republican of Pennsylvania who was a car dealer before becoming a congressman, has a harsh assessment in USA Today of the Chevy Volt, which he calls "the poster child of President Obama's failed green agenda":
Like many green initiatives promoted by this administration and bankrolled by the American taxpayer, the electric car is better in theory than in practice; has limited consumer demand; is heavily subsidized; and has fallen short of reaching its targeted goals....the tax subsidies are largely going to the affluent few who can actually afford to buy an electric car, which costs anywhere between $40,000 (Chevy Volt) to $97,000 (Fisker's Karma).
In fact, the average income of Chevy Volt buyers is $175,000 a year, a large percentage of whom are disproportionately concentrated throughout Southern California....To put the lack of mainstream market demand for the Volt in perspective, in September, GM sold just 723 Volts. By comparison, 18,097 Chevy Cruzes, 5,246 Chevy Suburbans, and 2,171 Chevy Colorado Pickups were sold in the same time span.