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Chevy Volt Meets High Resistance, GM Suspends Sales

Posted by timothy on from the get-it-resistance-ha-ha dept.

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.

2 of 599 comments (clear)

  1. A Joke by chill · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:A Joke by recursivedescent · · Score: 5, Informative
      Hmm, looks like none of the other ~7000 Volt owners read /. Had to go and create and create an account to provide at least one pro Volt response here. I bought my Volt in December, the pessimal time to get an electric car unless you live in LA or Florida. Yep, cold weather knocks a good 5 to 10 miles off the range. Even so, I really like this car. Growing up my parents had Pontiac station wagons, and I never thought I'd spend a dime on an American car, so I've owned a Saab, a Subaru, a VW, and a Toyota (Prius).

      I work out of two offices, my primary one which is a 36 mile commute, and another regional office, which is an 84 mile commute. Generally I go to my primary office 4 days a week. In cold weather, I'm on the gas engine maybe 2 to 3 miles, but if it's warm I'm electric all the way. I'm on gas for about 44 miles on the longer commute.

      I'm getting around 109mpg. Since early December, I've bought around $60 in gas. It's hard to tell due to the mild winter, but I think my electric bill has gone up around $25/mo.

      Sure, I could have bought a cheaper car, and I'll never save enough in gas (well, unless Iran destabilizes the middle East and we end up with $10/gal gas) to recover my cost, but I actually like driving the Volt. It's not a sports car, but it's not sluggish either. 0-60 is 9.2 seconds, but the instant torque from the electric engine makes it feel much faster. In "Sport" mode, it does 0-30 in 3.0 seconds.

      And it's made by Americans who seem to have figured out how to make a car that's as fun as any import I've owned. GM has plenty of problems, but maybe some of the cool Volt engineering will seep into their other cars.