Having taken a time out from a NATO summit in Lisbon on Saturday, President Barack Obama touts a new hybrid electric car which General Motors plans to roll out in Europe next year.
After declaring in Washington that U.S. taxpayers would get their money back for saving GM in the unpopular 2009 bailout, Obama found himself acting as salesman-in-chief for GM Opel’s Ampera model. The Ampera is a plug-in series hybrid that can travel 40 miles on electricity alone, scheduled to be on production in 2011.
He touted the Ampera as an example of GM technology and a car of the future at the convention center where he was wrapping up a two-day summit. He also told the news that GM will start selling the Ampera in Europe next year.
GM was re-floated as a public company and returned to Wall Street on November 18 amidst heavy investor demand. The U.S. government estimated that it would cost 1 million jobs if ever GM and its industry would collapse and would have reduced the U.S. GDP by 1 percent. The White House saw the bailout a successful turnaround and sought to take credit in the action made.
However, Obama’s Democrats gained heavy losses in the November 2 congressional elections, due mainly to the public anger over the bailout, along with rescue packages for Wall Street banks.
Thanks to the $50 billion government rescue, GM recovered from near-collapse and has begun trading in the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange last week.
