Senator Blutarsky does an extensive analysis of the finances of the Chevy Volt and concludes:
THE BOTTOM LINE: even with generous assumptions, the first generation of the Chevrolet Volt will consume about $1 billion in federal tax credits, and STILL result in an economic loss to GM shareholders in excess of $600 million over its lifetime.Without the subsidies, the cumulative loss would triple to $1.8 billion.
One always can quibble with this sort of analysis, but on my read I didn’t see any obvious invalid assumptions or errors that would lead his conclusions to be way off.