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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.
Suspending production != Suspending sales. The two mean quite different things.
Less economical than a Prius
Not as good as a Prius
Costs more than a Prius
Buy a Prius.
To use a reverse car analogy, it's Motorola Xoom to iPad2.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
It's kind of a do-nothing-well car for $40,000USD
I can buy TWO Ford Focus 40mpg cars for the same price as a Volt.
Unlike other districts, there are no subsidies for the Volt in Saskatchewan.
$20,000 buys a HELL of a lot of gasoline.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
"If it's still true that GM was taking a loss on every Volt sold, perhaps this is a blessing in disguise."
It isn't GM that takes the loss ... its every tax payer that has money taken from them to subsidize this vehicle just because some poll-itician thinks they know what is best for the market.
GM should of never received the bailout ... they should have been allowed to go bankrupt to gives companies like Tesla Motors a chance to do something better with those resources.
When you make a product for political reasons, not because there's a market, and then subject it to the market, it tends not to do well. Huh.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
How much resistance was there exactly to cause no current to flow?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Hyundai, BMW, Toyota, Honda, etc. all have plants in America. So we have those, at least. Apart from that, the coolest American car is probably the Tesla Roadster. Maybe a Jeep.
With the globalization of the auto industry - like every other industry - and the consolidation of the parts makers (down to VDO, Bosch, Walbro, and a couple of others), more than likely those "American" cars are also, German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Swiss, English, Mexican, and Canadian.
The do, and people do.
I don't live in the US any more, but I'm hardly unique (ie, there are people like me still there) who would really love to go electric since our driving patterns are ideally suited to having a small, quiet, economical electric car that you recharge at night at home. (DISCLAIMER: yes, I'm aware, you need to tow your boat from LA to NYC every 2 days while simultaneously carrying 8 people and their luggage and there are no charging stations on route... electric cars useless for everyone etc etc, no possible use case etc etc...)
However, the current economics aren't making them viable - they're just too expensive at the moment but it's a chicken and egg problem since it's early generation tech and in low initial demand.
Don't mistake slow sales of a very expensive electric vehicle as definitive proof of a lack of interest. When (if?) I can buy one for a similar cost (also factoring in fuel costs) to the 2 litre turbodiesel minivan I drive right now (53 mpg EU / 44.1 mpg US) that can easily haul 5 adults and luggage then I am sure sales will pick right up. Cracking that early adopter and economy of scale problem is not easy though. Bear in mind that I also pay around $8 per gallon for diesel in the UK and it's still cheaper than going all-electric right now (or even to hybrid).
Without significant subsidies GM would have sold even fewer cars. The subsidy is a just transfer payment to the well off. High efficiency diesel engines are probably the most cost effective option for the masses and our stupid EPA requirements keep best ones out of the USA.
Yes, it is quite stupid of the EPA to worry about nitrogen dioxide. The masses need cost-effective cars, not healthy lungs.
Perhaps you should drag your self two decades ahead. That hasn't been anywhere near to the truth for over two decades now. Sorry, but your post is just biased ignorance. The WELL DOCUMENTED FACT IS, the difference between all the major brands, until you get into the $50k or more, is so small, it generally doesn't matter which brand you buy. The biggest differences are in models, not brands. Period.
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.
You forgot "willing to drive a car that looks like total dogshit". The Prius is ugly but it looks futuristic. The volt is ugly, and it's also ugly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, but the Fords sold in Europe are actually good because... wait for it... they're NOT designed and built in america.
Domestic made Fords are crap, as they've always been, unfortunately. Only GM is on a higher level of crappiness compared to Ford.
If it's still true that GM was taking a loss on every Volt sold, perhaps this is a blessing in disguise.
This is because the beancounters have set too short a time for the RoI. Large-scale long-term investments like tooling up a car need a long-term RoI. A realistic term would be 15-20 years, given that the immediate product (the Volt) is likely going to have to go through numerous mutations before it settles on a money-making model. Expecting to make back the setup cost in a year or two means that the beancounters or VCs have lost all grasp on reality, if they even had it to start with.
My 2003 Monte Carlo has 220,000 miles on it. I did choose to replace the motor and trans (both used) at 200,000 miles though instead of rebuilding the trans when the pressure control solenoid gave out and repair would have cost as much as the replacement motor and trans together, so those only have around 72K on them. Runs like a dream and by the condition of the interior and exterior you would never know this car had anywhere near 100K miles much less 220,000. Any car from the "big three" built within the past 20 years that is worth buying these days can go 300,000 miles with basic maintenance. Cars were garbage in the 80's and I think a lot of the mentality around longevity in the US these days is still based on experiences with those cars.
"Cannot get 4 adults plus dog plus ancillaries in a Yaris."
Have multiple vehicles. I don't drive my F350 Ford or 366 big block Chevy truck unless I need to, but liability insurance is cheap and they are paid for.
Multiple vehicles allows selection of the right tool for the job.
Or rent what you need when you need it. We have a small car which we mainly use for commuting. When we need something bigger or with more cargo space (like a pickup), we rent from the city carshare program or a regular car rental agency which has surprisingly good weekend rates since they have a glut of cars from business travelers). The city carshare program is especially nice when I have to work late unexpectedly, they have cheap overnight rates and there are several locations within easy walking distance from work so I've always been able to get a car when I need it, even last minute. The overnight car rental rate is cheaper than it would cost to take a cab home.
Our occasional car rental bill is much lower than our car payment would be on a second car.
Reminds me of the time some old lady chastised me for taking jobs away from American autoworkers.
"Look ma'am, my Honda was built in here in the USA. Where was your Ford built again, Mexico?"
The volt is a completely new class of car. It's a trailblazer. The first year is always a challenge.
You can't compare a Volt to a Prius or Leaf any more than you can compare a Corvette to a dump truck. Yes, they both have wheels, electric battery packs, and doors, but they are entirely different classes of vehicles.
The Prius is still largely a gasoline-only vehicle. Yes, the plug-in version is out this year, but it only gets you 8-11 miles, vs. the Volt's 30-40 miles. .
The Leaf is electric-only. For the vast majority of Americans, it's stuck as a second car because you can't practically road-trip in it with the current American infrastructure.
The Volt seeks to address these shortfalls.
It is the first production extended range electric vehicle. You cannot compare it to a Prius or Leaf, which are two different classes of vehicles altogether. The Prius's battery pack and electric range are only a fraction of the Volt's. The Leaf is just an electric car that requires charging stations. The Volt is actually engineered for the current infrastructure reality of the US - you can get gas everywhere, and you can only charge your car in so many locations, so it's a "crossover" vehicle that can let a broader class of folks adopt to a MOSTLY electric style of living.
GM knew full well going into the project that it was risky and it caters to a VERY specific audience of "Green Early Adopters" - folks that are willing to pay a premium for cutting their petroleum footprint.
If you don't like the Volt, you are obviously outside the target demographic. The Volt serves a lot of purposes outside of selling a EREV (Extended Range Electric Vehicle) - it also helps get actual production units to start building the battery production capabilities and infrastructure needed to sustain an electric vehicle fleet. Yes, the Prius has laid some inroads here, and the Volt is another push by another manufacturer.
If you study history at all, the Insight and the Prius were in very similar positions when they came out. Both were sold at low-to-no margins and had relatively crappy first-year sales.
The First Generation Honda Insight (the first mass-produced hybrid) only sold 17,000 units over several years.
The First Generation Prius was initially sold at low-to-no margins by
There is unanimous consensus among the engineering an scientific community that we need to reduce our petroleum usage. There is also a general consensus that an electric vehicle fleet is the most practical way of achieving this goal (and this includes fuel cells which are nothing more than expensive batteries).
Let the technology bake. The battery cost is rapidly falling. Get a few model years out. You may be pleasantly surprised. If it's outside of your budget, don't buy it. It's not for you anyway. You will still benefit from the technological advances of the vehicle. You can't afford a space shuttle but you still benefit from the fringe developments of that program. These types of projects are critical to the development of our electric vehicle infrastructure. You can't convert the American fleet to electric overnight anyway, the grid would have some major problems anyway with a million vehicles charging on it suddenly; they need a few years to get that upgraded. The Volt is the first step of many.
Your numbers are way way way off. You probably missed a decimal point, it's $0.09 less (at best) per mile and not $0.90. Not counting maintenance and so on.
That changes your examples significantly.
Now your hypothetical ideal Volt candidate only saves $985.50 per year. And pays $20000 more for the car. In other words even the ideal user would lose money by buying a volt because they'd never make up the cost premium
So yes, the comparison is very simple. The Volt sucks and no one should buy one.