People made fun of cars like the Vega and Chevette – but at least GM made money on them. And when GM stopped making money on cars like them, it stopped trying to sell them.

They got cancelled and replaced.

Profitability used to determine whether a car remained in production.

Of course, those were the Old Days – when the car business wasn't a government-supported, politically-motivated crony capitalist enterprise, as it is today.

Today, profits don't matter. Grotesque losses are embraced – probably because GM (and the rest of the industry) knows that the government – read, you and me – will eventually end up with the bill, so not to worry.

And so it is not a huge surprise to read that the financial services company UBS – doing a little due diligence, as it were – announced that GM is probably losing about $7,400 per "sale" of its new Bolt electric car.

Better double that, UBS.

At least.

The finance guys at UBS say that about $9,000 of the Bolt's $36,620 base price is accounted for by the "premium" incurred by its all-electric drivetrain; that is, by its battery pack, electric motors and peripherals. But that doesn't quite add up: $36,620 less $9,000 is $27,620 – and that is a lot of money for the shell of a compact economy car . . . which is what the Bolt is, regardless of what's under its hood.