Sticker price: $41,000. Per capita income: $39,138. No worries, though. You get a $7,500 tax credit for buying one, so in effect, this baby costs only slightly north of … $33,000. Which, really, is a small price to pay for showing How Much You Care.

As a noted RINO candy-ass, I of course will be exploring my purchase options immediately.

So now that we have a fixed price, let’s recap the subsidy math. The president has bludgeoned state-owned GM to put out a plug-in hybrid vehicle that is, according to the Post, more than twice as expensive as a comparable gasoline-driven car. To entice motorists to buy these untested contraptions, the government will give each one a $7,500 subsidy, and another grand if they install their own charger at home (apartment owners of course, are out of luck, and get to subsidize homeowners with this one). President Obama wants a million electric cars on the road by 2015, and since vast cost-saving advances are unlikely to occur so quickly, it’s safe to assume the subsidy would remain, sucking only $8.5 billion dollars out of taxpayers coffers to subsidize people willing to buy a more expensive car than they actually need. Of course, GM isn’t fully on board with Obama’s vision, only planning to sell 40,000 Volts by 2013. So that’s only $340 million being taken from low-end-car Peter to bribe high-end-shopper Paul.

Of course, that’s only the direct subsidies. IBM’s vice president for energy and utilities, Allan Schurr, estimates that 80 percent of vehicles aren’t parked in the garage of the person who owns them, which means there are going to have to be a lot of public charging stations built at taxpayer expense. And the gasoline that electric owners don’t consume also takes tax revenue out of the Highway Trust Fund, meaning that if there is massive penetration of cars that don’t use gasoline, some other way will have to be found to maintain transportation infrastructure.

Fully loaded it runs close to $45,000, and apparently, “The seats are a little flimsy and the interior has a small-car feel to it.” But you can run 40 miles on the electric charge alone — take note, school-shuttling parents — and then build it out to 340 miles with a full tank of gas. Exit question: Out: The health-insurance mandate. In: The Volt mandate?

Update: From Meric1837 in the comments, heart-ache:

Lets do some math:

Chevy Volt: $41,000 (True Cost)
Honda Civic: $20,000 (Average build)
Difference: $21,000

Gas: $2.45/gal (in Oklahoma City)
The difference in price would buy 8,571.43 gallons of gas. The Civic gets an average of 29 miles to the gallon. That’s 248,581.47 miles on the price difference.

Assuming the average driver drives 12,000 miles a year, AND you only drive the Volt on the 40 mile range of it’s battery, using no gas, you’d have to own the Volt for 20.7 years to justify the price difference in gas savings. How long’s that warranty again?