Another example of why Chevy will never really make it

I agree with you on that one, the MPG reported so far on the Prius PHV has been underwhelming. In order to get >100 MPG, it has to be driven like a homemade lead-acid EV, rather than like a normal car. There's not a great difference in gallonage between 50 MPG and 70 MPG -- i.e. saving just 6 gallons over 1000 miles. I burn that much gas when I take a truck and trailer load of scrap to the junkyard. The Volt has some faults and criticisms, but it does show what it is going to take for a practical high mileage plug-in hybrid: A big battery, and a big electric motor.

 

I agree that the comparison to the Prius was over-hyped and that GM's new CEO, Dan Akerson, once said something stupid about the Prius.

The Volt is an inherently more expensive car than the PiP because it has more than 3x the battery capacity. That's either bad or okay depending upon the driving pattern of the individual owner.

The architectural design of the powertrain sets higher requirements (full power EV capable battery pack) that result in a better driving experience but a higher price. The design is at the beginning of its marketplace life cycle -- batteries are just now reaching the energy and power density and price point to make the car practical. It is like the large screen flat-screen panels of 5-10 years ago. They worked for some people but most bought a cheaper design. This will also be true of the PiP but to a lesser degree because it is blended and can use a smaller pack.

As automotive Lithium batteries improve from the large scale manufacturing and major research investments made by government and industry, the pricing will drop and the benefits of the Voltec or EREV style of powertrain design can be spread across more cars and car sales. Blended designs with smaller batteries will likely last longer than CRTs and projection TVs did after the introduction of plasma and LCD but I expect EREVs to be a substantial fraction of total hybrid sales in 10 years when hybrid sales themselves should be far higher.

Volt, and plugin sales in general, will take several years to gain traction just like initial Prius sales both because of price and because most people are slow to adopt new ideas and want to see early adopters drive the car successfully for a few years before buying into a new kind of car.

 

GM is not a single point of view.
I think Lutz and the Volt team were aiming for a great car with a long term vision that is great. I have no doubt many in GM don't share that same vision, but could be convinced that it they get a good car and its just two expensive to be mainstream but is good for the image and helps get people into other cars its a good investment. And maybe it will take off, but if not, at least its a halo.

Its not quite bait and switch. Customers don't really know exactly what they want and getting them to come in to see what the Volt is about is not baiting. The Corvette is also a power-oriented Halo for Chevy, but corvette shoppers probably end up in a camaro not a cruze. Volt shoppers end up in a cruze eco. (And to the previous posters saying that's the Cruze 40mpg but regular.. ALL EPA testing is done using premium, so the Cruize's 40 was on premium, its just happy to run on the lower grade at lower performance).

Bait and switch is a more worse deception. Consider the
Bait-and-switch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia definition
First, customers are "baited" by advertising for a product or service at a low price; second, the customers discover that the advertised good is not available and are "switched" to a costlier product.

I'd say this is more lure and satisfy. Lure them with a great product only to find its more expensive ethan they wanted and switch to the cheaper product that does satisfy their requirements.

 

I don't think this is a Chevy problem as much as this is a GM/UAW problem. For decades now, they've had a cavalier "anything goes" type of attitude - push it out the door, and it will sell. Which worked for years when GM, Ford, and Chrysler owned the automobile business.

I got the chance to drive a 2005 Chevy Cavalier the other day. There's simply no other way to describe it - it's simply diabolical. It's the worst car I've driven in my entire life. I talked to the owner afterwards and was appalled to hear that the underbody had been re-welded twice. Seems that every time she drove through a puddle, the puddle wound up in the upholstery. And it's been through two fuel pumps in less than 100,000 miles and seven years, one of which was defective and died within a week.

The brakes were spongy. The accelerator pedal was anything but linear, even the slightest press resulted in a jackrabbit start, not to say anything of the transmission shifts. The steering is vague, the suspension is bouncy, and the electric windows work intermittently at best. There's an odd humming noise coming from the engine block, which I -think- is the alternator, or perhaps a belt. The HVAC fan makes a funny squeaking noise when it's turned on. The car shudders violently at anything above 62 MPH. And I'm convinced the back half of the suspension was built out of cardboard.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not holding up an economy car to any exemplary standards here. But I'd expect GM after forty years of competing with Japanese imports to at least get better, and approach Toyota in ride and build quality. They haven't.

Remember the Toyota Cavalier? Yeah, that didn't work.

The Toyota Cavalier And The Truth About Japanese Import Barriers | The Truth About Cars

And to be honest, it just caps a long history of truly terrible cars that GM has produced over the years:

Chevy Vega.
Buick Skylark.
Chevy Chevette.
Chevy Citation.
Cadillac Cimarron.
Oldsmobile Omega.
Any Oldsmobile diesel.
Cadillac's 8-6-4 setup.
Pontiac Aztek.
Saturn Ion.
Chevy Nova (Nova translates to "no go" in Spanish)
And on and on and on...

Don't get me wrong, every car company has made it's fair share of flops - nobody really caught on with the Toyota Previa, and the T-100 didn't have a V8 engine, so it couldn't compete with Ram's and Chevy 1500's. But Toyota learned what its' customers wanted, and responded with a few years. Now the Sienna dominates the minivan market, something which up until a couple years ago, Chrysler owned with its Town and Country. Whereas GM kept pushing (and arguably, is still pushing) bad product.

They may have gotten marginally better by importing Korean subcompacts when they can't get the job done themselves (the Chevy Aveo comes to mind - a rebadged Daewoo Kalos), but it isn't a permanent solution (and in any case, the Aveo had a larger engine which delivered less power and less fuel economy than a comparably-priced Yaris or Fit).

Here's an interesting read on how Detroit got into the jam it's currently in:

News Archive - Bloomberg

 

...this makes sense to me if Toyota is heading toward making the plug-in standard on all Prii and basically you have a "plug-in-lite" concept where you can optionally plug-in or not. One would hope price comes down to standard Prius cost and then nice to have the option to flex fuel.

 

That's a bit of a stretch. The Dodge Caravan is still the sales leader of minivans. Honda's Odyssey usually bests the Sienna in sales. The Town and Country has experienced a come back, and is up to number two from four. Which leaves the Chrysler brands with half of all minivan sales.
Minivan Sales And Pickup Truck Sales In America - February 2012 - GOOD CAR BAD CAR
In plans of differentiating the brands, the Caravan will likely be phased out. Even if all Caravan buyers don't switch to T&C, Chrysler will still dominate the market.

As to #1 minivan besides sales. It's up to who you ask.
Minivan Throwdown: The Experts Can't Agree on #1

 

You realize the Nova was also a rebranded Toyota Corolla? I do admit I had some pretty awful corollas that I drove though. I had to put sheet metal under the floormats since there were holes in the floor. They were old cars though.

 

Chevrolet can do whatever they want because they have a rich uncle that will bail them out again if needed.

 

Is this true??? That's downright stupid! Premium gas should only be used in engines designed for it. Testing a car using fuel other than what's recommended by the manufacturer makes no sense at all.

 

Its what I've read. Don't know if its true ;-)

Measuring Fuel Economy

 

The EPA test uses its own alcohol free blend that can't be found at any gas station. Makes sense that they have it at a high octane. Cheaper to make and store than multiple octane blends. Using 93 in a 87 octane rated engine should have little or no difference in the test results. The energy content is nearly the same. The reason for a consumer not to do it is that it's a waste of money.

 

From what I understand the higher octane blends can be run leaner. Most engines will automatically adjust to different fuel octane. There was an issue once recently with a vehicle that would not and they had to do a recall ECU flash so that consumers could run regular gas in the premium only vehicle.

 

There is no conspiracy to fail. Volt is 1st generation technology for GM. It's expensive and perhaps even more so than they orgininally hoped. Certainly cancellation of the 2-mode hybrid (loss of volume for shared components and cancellation costs to the suppliers) and the appreciation of the Yen has had a big impact. They knew the Li battery was the big cost gamble. The technology works, but it is much more expensive than the target cost. Gas prices have never hit the $5-7 range people were predicting when the Volt was conceptionalized. New management does not want to lose $10,000 on every car sold. GM has always had the mantra that alternative technologies should not require performance excuses be imposed on the customer (quite misguided in my mind - early adopter accept tradeoffs for benefits they value). Traditional powertrain technology has made bigger leaps in efficiency, economy and emissions than was probably predicted - and for reasonable cost (reasonable compared to vehicle electrification technology for sure). Perhaps the Volt is just ahead of its time.

 

Running lean does generate more heat. I guess with the higher octane being more resistant to knock, the engine can go leaner. Lean mixtures do produce more NOx though. So the manufacturer has to balance that with fuel economy on the EPA test when programing the ECM. I don't think they'll gain enough favoring economy. to make the practice worth it. A premium compression engine sees about 1 to 2 mpg between regular and premium octane. The economy advantage is in the cylinder compression allowing more fuel energy to be converted to kinetic, not leaning the fuel mix.

Their partners may have backed out, but GM is still selling two-mode trucks.

 

I meant the FWD 2-mode which became the basis for the Volt. The FWD has nothing in common with the RWD 2-mode used in the trucks - so there is no cost leveraging potential there.

 

I keep reading this, but I keep not believing it because I keep not seeing any evidence of it other than people writing about it in automotive blogs and/or forums. It makes little sense to me, so devoid of any mathematical support of the argument from dealerships or GM I just don't buy it.

This argument is also unique to GM, appearing to me to be an effort to excuse away poor sales, as if they're ok because the car serves a greater good. I've never once heard anybody state that Nissan's Leaf is a halo and attracts people in who end up buying a Versa, for example. If its sales suck, the car sucks, period, no sugar-coating.

It did a good job as long as price of the vehicle doesn't matter. But money always matters, and that's why the car isn't selling. So in this sense it did not leapfrog. I can't imagine any of us don't believe Toyota could have come out with a plug-in Prius many, many years ago that offered better range than its current PHV if it didn't aspire to make an economically competitive vehicle. But it did, so it stuck to the Prius. The problem with GM is they just didn't, and so they don't have an economically competitive vehicle. And the same argument applies to the PHV. It's also just too damn expensive.

I came VERY close to buying a 2002 Chevy for a hair over $14k @ ~10% interest just over a decade ago because at the time I had zero credit and needed a car. I literally counted my lucky blessings for years after that fact that I never pulled the trigger on it.

 

The leaf is a halo car. There you have heard someone say it. If you were not aware of that it is a failing on your part. The sales are similar between both models.

You are also completely wrong. GM was the only company to actually have a hybrid that made economic sense in the mid 2000s. The only one. That includes Toyota. Guess what it did not sell well. People buy these for reasons besides straight cost benefit analysis of fuel saved and the purchase price of the vehicle.

 

Cruze + Sonic + Volt sales are higher than expectations. The question is would they sell as many cruzes without the volt. I expect not, but we do not know.

2011 Nissan LEAF

Not solely means Nissan are partially doing the leaf for a green halo.
The Nissan Leaf is also a halo product | Hybridcarblog

First part is right, but I've got to bite. Which hybrid did gm build in the mid 2000s that made more economic sense - as in value to the customer - than the gen II prius.

 

Money matters in scaling to the masses, less so in developing/providing out radically new technology/products.

Investing in the future does not have to be cost competitive today, only on a sustainable path to overtake the existing technology. Better performance with a path to reducing costs is often enough. The prius did not become what it is because it was cost competitive when it launched.

More expensive but better "value" is often the path of "disruptive innovations". This is where I see the EREV technology today and where it is going. An order of magnitude reduction in gas usage, with lower operating costs is compelling. For me the TCO of the volt, is better, so it IS an economically competitive vehicle with better value. (Well as much as any car purchase can be). For those with very different driving patters it mat not be much better, but its still close. Unfortunately few people in the market think interms of TCO or longer term, so for the short sighted is may not seem economically competitive.


Value, not cost, matters in being a sustainable product. The EV technology will eventually dominate, just a question of timing. It may still be too early, only time will tell. Lucky for me, I have mine already so this is more an academic discussion.

 

Sorry it was developed then. It was the only hybrid that saved enough fuel to actually make the marginal cost increase over a comparable vehicle worthwhile in the short term. Now more hybrids would break even, but as I said it is irrelevant. The Silverado hybrid sold horribly even though the payback period was quite quick on it. I guess many of the people that like to drive pickups did not understand the lifetime cost, or they were afraid of driving a vehicle that said hybrid.

So people don't base these decisions on economics, otherwise they would drive used corollas or something However the Prius family has certainly gotten more cost competitive recently with gas prices staying high and there being a wider variety to choose from.