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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.

14 of 599 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot Suspending Editing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Suspending production != Suspending sales. The two mean quite different things.

    1. Re:Slashdot Suspending Editing by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Suspending production != Suspending sales. The two mean quite different things.

      Very true. The sales number are low, and that's possible related to the cost of a Chevy Volt. I just did a quick search in my area and they're about $40,000. I'm never going to save $15k - $20k in gas over the life of the car, so buying a comparable car that runs on gasoline is probably a better value. There are some tax credits for buying an electric car, but even with those the price is still going to be far more than a "regular" car.

    2. Re:Slashdot Suspending Editing by nschubach · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not everyone leases vehicles though. I did once, and I'll never do it again. Tracking how many miles you can put on in a year and hoping you don't change jobs to somewhere further away is a PITA.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    3. Re:Slashdot Suspending Editing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's not the point, the point is that the headline is _FALSE_

      GM is _NOT_ suspending Sales.

      unbelievable sloppy editing here.

    4. Re:Slashdot Suspending Editing by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's all about flexibility. Your Cruze's overall energy cost (electricity + gas) will be much higher than the Volt for regular commuting, since the Cruze can't run on electricity, whereas the Volt can do so for 30-40 miles, which is enough for most commuters. A true EV like the Leaf can go farther, but 1) the Leaf is slow as shit, and tiny too, and 2) once you run out of juice in the Leaf, you're dead. In the Volt, you just switch over to gasoline and keep going. Then when you run out of gas after 300 miles (not too far from a regular car's range), you pull into a gas station and refuel and keep going. You can't do that with a true EV; it's limited to local driving only. So the Volt gives you the option of taking long-distance trips once in a while, even though the economy isn't as good as some smaller cars.

      So whether the car is for you depends on your usage pattern. If you mostly commute, but want the ability to take long-distance trips with the same car, it might be a good choice. If you just want to do a lot of long-distance driving, pick another car. If you want something for commuting only, and never plan to exceed 60-80 miles, then a Leaf might be a better choice. The main problem with the Volt as I see it is the price tag, which is $40k (but there's a $7500 federal tax credit too that you should take into account). However, Edmunds says the Leaf costs $35k (minus that same tax credit), so you're not saving that much going full-EV, and you're getting a smaller, slower car with probably a cheaper and more econobox-like interior (Edmunds says the Volt has the nicest and highest-quality interior they've seen in a Chevy). $35k is quite a lot for an economy car really. But the real one to beat is of course the Prius, which is downright reasonable at only $23k, though it doesn't have a plug-in option. There is a different Prius model just now coming out, with limited availability, that's a plug-in, but it costs $32k, a whopping $9k more than the regular version, though again the $7500 tax credit probably applies here; don't know if you can get that credit with the regular Prius but I doubt it.

  2. No surprise by msobkow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  3. 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.

  4. Ohm I God! by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Volt meets Resistance. I couldn't resist.

    On a serious note, GM does not have a good record with respect to embracing effective change. Its management is still intellectually corrupt, except it is no longer led by executives who came up through sales/marketing and now has had government surrogates put in their places.

    GM has never had a working grip on the obvious, and I'm old enough to remember when GM-made cars were more than half of the world's output. They no longer have a monopoly, nor the world's biggest dealer network, and only, apparently, one profitable brand of auto -- Cadillac.

    So, as I told a friend who had inherited money in 2001 -- "Sell GM short. They're going down."

    It's true again, How long must GM wait before it can return to the courts for relief?.

  5. Re:Japan and Europe is where the industry is by Siridar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Last time I went to a auto show, they had the then-new Ferrari 575.

    I waved the sales guy over from beyond the velvet rope (the unwashed crowds not being allowed to mix with the "real" customers) and asked him "how much is a 100,000 kilometer service on one of those things?"

    the reply?

    "none of our vehicles /ever/ do that many kilometers."

    Delivered with just the right amount of "how dare you even THINK about driving your Ferrari that much? For shame, sir. FOR SHAME." sneering.

  6. Re:I know, I know by hawguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.

  7. Two words by cortex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Tesla Motors

    Telsa is planning on an ~$30,000 model in the next few years. If they achieve this price point and maintain the quality of their current models, I think that they will have an all electric car that many people will want

  8. Re:Simpler than that by silverhalide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can't compare the Volt to the Prius. Reviewers who do so are technically incompetent and dishonest.

    If you go by just putting gas in the thing, then yes, the Prius comes out favorably. If you compare a Corvette to a minivan by how many passengers you can haul in it, yes, it sucks.

    You're not supposed to regularly put gas in the Volt. If you are, you're using it wrong.

    The Prius is a gasoline-only hybrid (ignoring the new short-range plug-in version this year which only goes 8-11 miles on a charge or half a typical commute). The Volt is an extended-range electric vehicle.

    The Volt is a new class of vehicle. You plug it in regularly, and ideally you almost never put any gas in it. The Prius doesn't do that.

    So if you don't want to plug in your car and you want to keep using gas, yes, buy that Prius.

  9. Re:Too expensive by Rich0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Probably because in Europe they actually use clean diesel fuel. All those EPA laws that resulted in smog reduction on cars were never applied to diesel, because of lobbying by the trucking industry. If you applied the same standards to diesel fuel as unleaded it would be plenty clean.