Another example of why Chevy will never really make it

You are not reading correctly. People are not stating GM wants to fail, they are stating that GM wants electric vehicle technology to fail. Think an altruistic company like GM, along with Chevron (big oil) wouldn't do that?

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_Corporation"]Chevron Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
look down to the "Blocking of NiMH battery technology for automobiles," a.k.a. Cobasys. Exactly what Daniel said.

How about the EV1? OK, that will take a bit of research to document. They didn't sell them, they crushed them because they really didn't need the money, one executive even stating that the amount of money involved was nothing to the CEO. Exactly what Daniel said.

Research the C.A.R.B. and GM and Big Oil's actions there.

How about the General Motors Streetcar Scandal:
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy"]General Motors streetcar conspiracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
GM, along with, what do you know, Chevron, then known as "Standard Oil", where they were charged and convicted of criminal conspiracy for their part in the scheme. Exactly what Daniel has previously said.

So who's not looking?

 

Some folks here are talking like the Volt is an electric car that has let us down. It is not, and it is not trying to be. It is a hybrid, at best, with a slightly bigger battery which allows some grid charging. If you do a lot of short trips, it's probably a little better than a regular Prius. If you do a lot of long range driving, it is not as good as a Prius. It is what it is...but it is not an EV.

I agree it is too expensive to catch on. GM should have been able to come up with a better product at a better price-point.

 

I can't quite count that high, if you include all the variations
Plug-in Vehicle Tracker | Plug In America
About 6 if you include the mainstream ones. volt, leaf, active e, imev, smart ed, karma. volt is the only one with national sales. Um that means money commitment. prius phv focus ev, rav 4 bev, fusion energi, c-max energi are all coming. Do you think gm is trying to kill them all

I see gm's self interest in at least selling plug-ins to avoid paying cafe fines. I don't believe chevron runs the post bailout gm, but if it does please enlighten me. Most anti-volt comments are made by people that support policies that will increase the amount of oil Americans use. That I can demonstrate.

Shamefull period for sure. But what year was that? GM and Toyota pushed to change the ev mandate, because they could make more money without it. At the time GM since it was not making electric cars wanted no one else to be able to. They do not control the patents this time around. Next.

Well if your crazy old uncle that is locked in the attic tells you the germans want to steal your gold like they did in the past, and shows you the gold the germans stole, it doesn't exactly mean merkle is trying to do it this time. If you note in the time of the ev1 gm did not produce the cars they had orders for, this time around they did a national roll out to make sure there are cars available for anyone one that wants to buy them. The rub this time is the oposite, lack of demand. That is what they claimed was the problem with the ev1. If you believe they are wrong this time, then you must believe they were right last time IMHO the oposite is true.

I watched the movie. I blame CARB first, GM second, the government third. Oil, I don't think they had much to do with it, other than Chevron/texico being their evil selves. If you leave the keys in the car and a big sign on it saying steal me, you can't exactly say its all the neighbor kids fault for going on a joy ride.

absolutely awful. Full disclosure, I currently own chevron stock and have consulted to them. I have never bought a gm automobile. I think you and Daniel are teh ones being delusional if you think A) Its in GM's best interest to kill the volt, and B) Its in GMs power to kill plug-ins.

+1

It is a phev, the logical evolution of a hybrid. It allows the driver to free himself from some foreign oil addiction

 

They can consider closing it longer as everybody know how's their sale when compare to Prius or Leaf.

 

And it all began to make sense.

But yes, I would "blame the neighborhood kid" if he took a car, which is stealing, even if the car had the keys in it with a sign on it "steal this car." Right is right, and wrong is wrong. Not gray like today.

"Shameful period for sure. But what year was it?" OK, it was so long ago, just over a decade, that we're not going to think about it, even though the repercussions are still being felt today. And wasn't Chevron involved in that battery suppression, along with GM? Yes, using a patent to suppress technology. But that's OK, they've paid people to work for them, so ethics are secondary.

Toyota has GM and the battery consortium that was formed to thank for their success. While GM and the Americans threw away their technology for short-term profits on pickups, Toyota and the bunch in Japan were feverishly working day and night to stay ahead of a perceived competition.

 

But Gm cannot protect gas, the market will just move without them. Hybrid is the future and alt fuels and ev the future after that, even if way down the road. Surely Gm knows this...

We will just need cheaper batteries before tesla can do a 30k ev!

High price soured Chevy Volt sales - Mar. 5, 2012

 

I first believe in personal responsability. It was CARB that put those keys in the car and the steal me sign on it. GM then called that kid and told him where the car was. That neighborhood kid is going to do what he is going to do. You could lock him up, but..... is that better for him or the parents. The kid is bad, we know that. Under the current laws of the united states that kid taking the car was completely legal. The unethical behavior was primarily in CARB! CARB people also likely took money from the auto and fuel cell lobbies. But let's not pretend, kill the analogy, if you get rid of all the oil companies how are you going to fill up your prius.

GM and Texaco, but then Chevron. I believe in the patent suit Panasonic got the right to use the technology in the end of 2010. That's why a long time means something. Bad stuff all around. Panasonic bought Sanyo creating a complete monopoly in Nimh car batteries. My point is its past history and those gm people in control are gone.

My work for chevron primarily adds efficiency and lowers polution. I am not paid to do pr. In fact I don't give positive pr to any oil companies. The world is the world though. Why would it be in the US best interest to allow monopolies in battery technology in oil companies or foreign corporations. That is why DOE this time around is trying to make sure there are competitors in batteries. This is far afield of the current volt. Do you think gm is trying to corner the market in battery technology?

MITI did a great deal too, along with slow adapting honda and Nissan. I really think this mythology of toyota doing this because they were scared of gm has been over blown. There was convergence of electronics. MITI was funding EVs and toyota found they were not viable at the time. Toyota didn't even sell the car in america in the first few years. We can blame along with Lutz and his predecessor, al gore for rejecting ford's proposal to build a doable high mpg car, instead of a "moon shot". Higher cafe standards in the clinton administration and a gas tax when gas was cheap would have also helped. This would wait until the end of the bush administration with high gas prices from opec and finally congress stepping up cafe.

 

The other side of this is repairs & maintenance. Cut the r&m and the dealers' & indy shops revenue stream disappears. In 6 years of combined ownership all I paid for was a bunch of oil changes (at longer intervals) and 2 tire patches. How much does GM & the dealer make on parts?

The manufacturer's goal is to make a product good enough to satisfy the customers expectations but not good enough to eat into future production (profits).

Hybrids & EV's are expensive. Light materials are used to achieve the performance. Carbon fiber is light but very expensive. Aluminum is lighter than steel but harder to work with. Batteries are heavy & expensive. You won't find a cheap EV with good performance.

What would YOU remove from the Volt or the Prius to make the car less expensive? The radio? The automatic climate control? Electric & adjustable seats? Power windows? The swoopy dash? The airbags?

After pulling out all those features, will you be happy buying the car?

 

I think it's A TAD premature to write the Volt's obituary. If gasoline prices rise to or even beyond $5./gallon nationwide, as some news outlets are postulating, surely THAT will spur demand among buyers able to afford $40K plus; many of them will switch from current preferred choices in that price range over to the Volt out of panic over high retail gas prices. Some of that sales growth for the Volt will indeed come out of Prius totals for those drivers best able to fit their commuting habits to the Volt's electric range in such a way that they can minimize the use of gasoline.

 

When fuel is $2.5 - $3.0 a gallon people flock to (combined) 20 mpg vehicles. This tells me that priorities other than fuel economy dominate consumer choices so long as fuel is not more than 10 - 15 cents a gallon.

A prolonged period of $5/gallon fuel will do wonders for Prius sales, but will be no where near enough for the Volt.

 

This is true in part. A flip to this coin, though, is that if the Volt isn't competitive now it won't be even if gas is at $5/gallon--not against its competitors. People will flock to more fuel efficient vehicles but there are lots of options. Heck, I only realized tonight that the Chevy Cruze actually is cheaper to run at highway speeds than the Volt once it loses its charge, that's kind of crazy. Both rated at 40 mpg (42 for cruze eco) but only one requires premium. I don't know that as gas prices go up people are going to feel particularly wealthy, and feeling as such is one of the requirements to buy a car in the Volt's price range.

Even if national average hits $4/gallon (another quarter or so), Prius sales will get strong and stay there indefinitely. It is a brand synonymous with hybrid and even though a lot people know nothing about these cars they know they're good on gas.

 

It was an awful plan. Toyota did indeed want to join, and gore was a prick for no allowing them to. If they had been involved in the moon shot, it would not have helped them. Efforts to credit the png program is like polisihing a turd. I can smell it from here.

You must also account for some other things. Higher cafe standards and a slowly rising gas tax would have encouraged domestic production of more efficient vehicles. Instead there was a plan to do a moon shot to a target that was too high. Then CARB created a new moon shot for ZEV. Both were counter purposes to create a good hybrid. The cars in the program would have cost a huge amount more than a prius and were diesels. Some of the tech from GMs pngv became the hugely expensive two-mode. Bush was right to kill and bury that turd. The problem was the next administration also did not create the right medicine in the first term. High opec gas prices instead of tax raised the pain, and in the second term cafe standards were finaly raised.

Now we have a number of commentors like daniel espousing that they are sure GM will look to short term profits and kill the volt again. Its crazy talk.Gas prices are high, and Obama has added to the cafe standards and tax incentives.

 

I can't agree with that. From what I've seen the two-mode architecture seems useful for busses, trucks, and large SUVs with serious towing specifications. I'm happy that GM developed that technology although it has been slow to take off because they have perhaps overpriced it and mostly because the buyers of pickups and large SUVs are not generally known to be efficiency or environmental early adopters.

I do wish GM would leverage their clutch-less one mode input-split patent from 1995 to start competing aggressively with Ford and Toyota in the small and midsize high combined city/highway gasoline efficiency marketplace.

 

The problem that BMW and MB had with it was the cost. PNGV was for family cars, that is why I say it was right to cancel it. A $70K diesel family car is not what the country needed.
http://www.dieselnet.com/news/2001/08pngv.php

Poor goals = failed program.

The PNGV was just a waste of money and not deal with good policies to increase efficiency. Clinton also passed the tax loophole to encourage SUVs, they claimed it was to help the farmers.
http://www.hybridcenter.org/hybrid-vs-hummer.html

There have been great advances in the electronics, and I'm sure someone can come up with a less expensive truck hybrid. The HSD and flywheel electric motor in hyudai/bmw/infiniti etc cars seem to be the two technologies appropriate for compact to midsize cars.

Let's see what happens. IMHO they will try to refine voltec and make every hybrid car a plug in, but some with smaller batteries.

 

GM should have introduced the Volt as a Cadillac badge, given it that creased look and made leather and goodies standard. it wouldn't have the $40k+ for a Chevy?!? issue. As the production and cost difficulties came under control after a couple of years they could release a sub $30k Cruze version!

 

This is what I said all along. The first version had a pricey interior anyway (I just did not like it). I think the Cadillac ELR should have been the first vehicle based on voltec powertrain.

 

Volt was decided to be a Chevy specifically because only a Chevy could be sold massive to bring down the cost. That's what I remember Bob Lutz saying around the time the concept was introduced or sometimes after.

From the concept to production, a lot of things changed. The price increased and so did the weight. Series hybrid architecture was replaced with a simplified 2-mode hybrid transmission scrapped from the Saturn Vue plugin. The complexity (3 clutches) and higher cost of 2-mode raised the price even more. That's probably when 1.4L Cruze ICE was decided to use instead of specially developed Atkinson cycle ICE to cut cost.

Frank Webber left then Denise Gray and more followed. That was when we knew something was up with Volt development. When the price was announced, many people were shocked.

In hindsight, it should have started with Cadillac or Buick but they wanted to copy Toyota success with the Prius. Prius didn't started with Lexus and moved down to Toyota.

The expectations and planning for the Volt were misguided from the beginning. The want to catch up 10 years of lag in hybrid resulted in the desire to leapfrog Toyota. First gen Volt was supposed to outsold Prius and the announced specs were targeted toward Prius as well - 50 MPG on gas, AT-PZEV emission, under $30k, etc.

In reality, it turned out it is impossible to leapfrog Toyota 10 years ahead especially when Toyota continued to improve HSD. We now have Prius c at half the price of the Volt with lower greenhouse emission than Volt and it doesn't need to plug in.

 

Lutz helped drive decisions but did make them on his own. I believe it is a Chevy because its far more effective as a Halo there. People come in, to check it out, find it a tad pricy, and end up with Cruze. If it was a Caddy different people would go in, and maybe it would have sold a few more volts, but would unlikely impact the Cruze sales. Cruze sales can easily justify the Volts badging.


You may think the history to launch was weak, but many of your statements are factually wrong or based on not meeting some press-hyped unofficial statements so, its irrelevant. Companies setting goals is not the same as promising. Media playing up numbers is not promising. GM hit a lot of of its goals with the Volt and missed on a few others. Predictions 2-3 years before production are difficult, and few companies even try. Heck Toyota could not even predict key data about the PiP less than a year out.

With respect to the leap-frog, the Volt did leap pay Toyota, but a good margin. For my style the Volt is way more efficient than any Prius and more efficient than any car except a Tesla (which was just too expensive).

The Prius C has lower greenhouses gasses than the average grid, but not than any west coast state, NY, DC or other areas where it is likely to sell well. And those going green can just buy green energy and produce much much less carbon in a Volt than a Prius C.

The data slowly coming in on the PiP looks like averages of 60's for average MPG. A few have achieved 100+, Voltstats.net shows an average 122MPG, over 3.75million real world miles, with a median of 150 and more than 30% of the drivers over 200MPG. Let me know when Toyota has a car that reaches those levels of performance. Until then I, like many others, know we have hard data to back up our view that the Volt Leapfrogged the competition.

 

Are you saying that the reason GM built the Volt was so they could do a bait-and-switch on customers? I guess I could believe that. I've always felt they built it so they could claim they were "trying to do something positive" without actually having any significant impact on gas consumption, since sales numbers would be kept low by the high price. But the bait-and-switch angle seems like another plausible reason for the Volt.