Is it fair to say GM will eat a lot of money on battery warranty work?

Clearly the actions of a company with a screw-the-buyer mentality. In this case, presumably they were within their legal rights: Since their intention from the start (IMO) was to fight the CARB rules and then destroy the cars, they (I suppose) wrote the lease agreements so as to deny the lessees the right to buy the cars, and the lessor has the right to charge the lessee for damage.

But when their intention in taking the cars back is to crush them, charging the lessees for the damage really shows what SOBs the people at GM are. Their attitude is to squeeze every dime out of the customer that they possibly can.

And with that sort of an attitude, one expects they'll try to squirrel out of any warranty obligation (as they've done elsewhere) and charge lessees for anything they possibly can. So if they can charge for "excessive" battery wear, they will.

They don't need to be competitive. They'll just beg another bailout. The executives who make the decisions at GM don't care whether their salaries, bonuses, and golden parachutes come from profits on sales, or from taxpayer bail-outs.

 

So, if I understand the battery situation right ...

One day in the not too distant future, Volt owners and leasees may
awaken, stumble groggily into the kitchen and say,

"Is that my favorite, apple wood smoked bacon, I smell cooking?"


The forbearing spouse waving to the departing firemen replies,

"No, that's flame blackened pig in a poke, GM style."

And that's when the fight starts.

 

FWIW, I just heard on CNN that the NHTSA has opened an investigation on the Volts' fire potential. Currently there are no recalls.

DBCassidy

 

Today's news states that GM will buy back Volts from owners fearful of a fire.

 

I heard that on the radio driving home tonight and thought "I was wrong, they won't have warranty claims on the batteries, they will all be returned by disgruntled customers before the batteries age"

 

That seems highly unlikely that the Chevy Volt has the highest owner satisfaction survey performed by Consumer Reports.

Chevy Volt tops Consumer Reports latest Owner Satisfaction Survey

 

Prius had 93% also. I remember it being tied with the Corvette in the past. It doesn't have to be high volume car to score that high. I believe Prius was the exception.

BTW, the survey was taken prior to the battery fire and most of the owners only had the Volt for a few months.

 

People are usually very happy with a new car if nothing has gone wrong with it yet. It's a "new toy" and still exciting. A better test is to ask the question a year later. Also, the people willing to pay the price of the Volt are pretty much exclusively seriously dedicated to the concept. (Same thing with the Tesla. Same with people who were willing to accept the shortcomings of the Zap Xebra. Same with people who were willing to trust the relatively new technology of the Prius in its early years.) These people are going to give very high initial satisfaction rates.

The Volt is unique. It's the only REEV you can buy, for now. High initial satisfaction rates are to be expected.

I doubt that anybody is going to turn their Volt in because of these fires, or the charger cord issues. But as more things go wrong, satisfaction ratings will decline. And at the present price, I doubt it will ever get much market share.

 

I bet Tesla can fix all the issues with the Volt and retrofit with a new battery IMO. "Powered by Tesla" would inspire confidence for people to consider this car again.

 

I don't believe Tesla is interested in hybrids.

 

Shhh!! It's not a hybrid, it's an EV! Until there was the first garage fire, then the media called it a hybrid. But it is an EV.

 

Okay. I don't think Tesla is interested in EVs with gasoline engines.

 

I suspect a few might...

In some households, I could see the primary driver/proponent not having any fear/problem but let's just say that some other member of the household might. Some folks just don't listen to reason or logic about topics they don't understand...

 

That depends on what part of the article you focus on. Me? I perked up when I read THIS part:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203833104577072823183908422.html

Who'da thunk . . . . that GM would be admitting they are considering it an error to not have built the Volt more like the Leaf. It kinda reminds me of GM having to admit that they blew it - letting the Prius stomp their guts out in the world of reasonably priced mpg champions.

.

 

Ok, who is going to buy a new Volt if GM is offering buybacks? Really!

Is it safe to say that these headlines will cause sales to go flat, stop the assembly production line even before they would have had a chance to recall/fix the problem.

 

Only if they didn't put a lot of engineering resources preventing the gas engine from starting. Emission is another area with lack of engineering.

Bragging right engineering may work for the hype but it comes back to bite.

 

OTOH, the buyback offer could be seen as an unconditional money-back guarantee: Buy a Volt, and if you don't like it we'll buy it back.

And if people don't sell their Volts back to GM now, GM could turn around and say: "See! We offered to buy them back but owners like and trust the car so much they preferred to keep them."

In the end, I don't think it will be the battery fires or the melting cords that kill the Volt. I think it will be dismal sales due to the extravagant price tag and the very narrow market niche. And I suspect that that's intentional.

Tesla built the Roadster specifically as a niche car. They planned to build 2,500 of them and then switch to the larger-market, but still modest-volume luxury EV, the Model S. But GM always touted the Volt as a mainstream car. Then they priced it out of the mainstream.

 

I'd take the Volt over another VW any day.

 

Sort of like how someone would take pink eye over the bubonic plague.

 

i venture to say that the "buyback" will be special cases only and will soon expire as soon as this "fix" is installed. the fact that GM has no idea what the fix is means

1) they are lying, already know what the problem AND fix is

2) there is no issue

3) know what it is but is hoping the NTSB wont find it and can blame it on "other" outside causes but will offer a "fix" playing it off as being the "concerned" vendor