The Solyndra Saga: Part… (uh… we’re losing count): Low Voltage

If you thought the $535 million that the American taxpayer shelled out for the utter failure that was Solyndra was expensive, you may want to sit down for this one.

Crossing the wires this hour is news that the General Motors corporation will be halting production of the Chevrolet Volt electric car and laying off 1,300 employees.

The company announced that the layoff and production halt will last at least 5 weeks but is not necessarily permanent; however the dreadful sales numbers of the Volt lead some to believe that this may be the first of many nails in the coffin of this heavily subsidized program.

In 2011, the Volt barely reached 75 percent of projected sales. GM had planned to expand production to 60,000 vehicles in 2012 but so far has only sold a little over 1,500.

This bailout and jobs program thinly veiled as some sort of automotive breakthrough has been incredibly expensive. The base model Volt is listed with and MSRP of $31,645 however when considering state and federal government subsidies the cost per vehicle dwarfs the MSRP. With $2.3 billion coming from the federal government alone, total subsidies are well over $3 billion for the program. This makes the cost of each Volt sold well over $200,000.

Once again the Obama Administration has expanded the deficit funding a program that’s only as green as all the money it has burned through.