Forbes brings the plug-in hate to the Chevy Volt

Around six months ago, Forbes' Jerry Flint took the sales prospects of the Nissan Leaf to the woodshed, saying the electric car, "is more likely to be a sales failure than a sales success." This week, Flint's partner in green car hate, Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of Forbes, came up with a list of "Twenty Better Values Than A Chevy Volt." Apparently, no one at Forbes likes the coming generation of plug-in cars. How far they've come since honoring the Tesla Roadster back in 2006 as the year's "new car that lived up to the hype."

Karlgaard's list of 20 vehicles – ten that cost less than the Volt's pre-tax credit price of $41,000 and ten that cost less than the after credit $33,500 – covers everything from a new mid-model Lexus RX350 to a Ford Fusion Hybrid. The Fusion Hybrid is a good, efficient sedan, but it's simply not in the same category as the Volt because it lacks a plug, to say nothing of most of the other cars on the list. Karlgaard also gets the amount of the federal tax credit wrong – he writes that you, "can happily drive [a Volt] off the lot for $33,000 ... if you can ignore those guilt pangs knowing your fellow Americans have chipped in $8,000 to your new ride" – but that's less egregious than comparing a Volt to a Chevy Silverado 1500. Ironically, Karlgaard's list does include the Leaf. Oh, what would Jerry Flint think?

[Source: Forbes]