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Chevy Volt Meets High Resistance, GM Suspends Sales
Hugh Pickens writes "The Hill reports that GM has announced to employees at one of its facilities that it is suspending production of the Chevy Volt for five weeks and temporarily laying off 1,300 employees. Back when GM launched the beleaguered electric car, it boldly targeted sales of 10,000 in 2011 and 60,000 in 2012 but GM only sold 7,671 Volts in 2011 and just 1,626 so far this year. 'We needed to maintain proper inventory and make sure that we continued to meet market demand,' says GM spokesman Chris Lee. 'We see positive trends, but we needed to make this market adjustment.' Although President Obama promised he would buy a Volt 'five years from now, when I'm not president anymore,' the Volt has come under criticism from Republicans in Congress because of reports of its batteries catching on fire during testing. Ironically, the shutdown comes as gas prices are soaring, exactly the time when an electric car should be an easy sell." If it's still true that GM was taking a loss on every Volt sold, perhaps this is a blessing in disguise.
The Volt costs $40,000 before tax rebates and only gets you 35 miles on an electric charge. Then 35 MPG city/40 hwy (gas) for 375 miles.
The Toyota Prius starts at $24,000 and goes to $30,000 for their top end. Mileage is 51 MPG city/48 hwy for approximately 600 miles.
So Chevrolet's market was people who have lots of money, are willing to spend it with abandon, want a car, but don't really need to drive much. In short, semi-rich idiot hipsters.
I think they probably just saturated their customer base.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Aren't Fords made in the US ?
The ford focus is quite a nice and fairly popular car.
As far as I know, the mk1 Focus was developed/built in Europe in 1998, and then Ford US built it in 2000, too, with some changes. The mk2 Focus was developed independently in Europe/US (US model was very different from Europe model and only a restyled mk1). The mk3 Focus was a joint development between Ford US and Europe, and is built both in US and Europe. So the Focus is not really a good example of a good car developed solely in the US.
I just bought an American made car last week, a Honda Odyssey. It tells you on the window sticker these days where stuff was made. Assembled in Lincoln, Alabama USA. Engine constructed in USA, Transmission constructed in USA. 70% of all parts for it come from the USA, 15% from Japan, and the rest from "other".
That's good enough for me to call it American.
While Volts sit in dealer's lots gathering dust,
I went to the local GM dealer, and while they had one, they said it wasn't for sale. And if I wanted to buy one I'd be put on almost a year long waiting list. He basically said they were near impossible to get so dont bother right now.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
The Volt is not really a "38k" vehicle in standard vehicle terms of quality and fit and finish, it's a $20k vehicle with $18k batteries. For comparison, the Chevrolet Cruze, a non-electric car which is built on the same platform as the Volt, is a 20k vehicle.
You can lease a Cruze under similar terms as the Volt for $200/month less. So, yes, if you're spending $200 on gas and the electricity in your house is free, you pretty much break even. If you choose to buy instead of lease, $200/month over 36 months is comparable to the difference in depreciation between a 38K car and a 20K car. So you break even there too.
Either way, you have to drive at least 20k miles/year to spend ~$200/month in gas for it to be financially worthwhile to go with the Volt. And you're not driving a car of any better quality or fit and finish than a Cruze.