Crazy Volt incentives makes me want to trade

Just wondering, did you get the OK from the ARB as mentioned earlier to trade in your car? Or were you even aware of that restriction? Unless they track sales by VIN, how would they know unless you told them?

I'm having a problem quoting and then replying to posts. My part sometimes ends up in the quote. Sorry.

 

If one has insufficient income (and thus not enough tax liability), one should be able to "create" some income by shifting some money from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. When you do that, the amount moved counts as "income" and you have to pay taxes on it.

I did that for tax year 2012 but not for the purposes of buying PHEV/EV, although maybe I should've.

 

NASA found that it was driver error...

I have a friend who worked at the GM 800 call center, which is located in Cornelius Oregon. He told me countless horror stories about the calls he received from unhappy GM customers. GM's attitude was that as long as the car lasted for the duration of the warranty period, then they had done their job.

I drive Toyotas and worked at a Toyota dealer, and now a Lexus dealer because they make a quality product, and stand behind it. I've owned one GM, and they reneged on their 6/60 warranty when the engine seized about 3 years and 36k miles into the warranty. I learned my lesson.

 

I have had similar issues with my Lexus and Toyota vehicles. When you are out of the warranty period Toyota is the same as GM. If you want to turn this into a GM bashing thread, go for it, you will find lots of support here.

Since you work for a Lexus/Toyota dealer I would expect you to be a bit bias. You should disclose that relationship when you decide to bash GM.

Personally I have found the Volt to be an exceptional vehicle. I am almost 1 year into it and it has exceeded my expectations. I would buy or lease another one before I would get another Prius.

 

I've mentioned my work experience many times on here, whenever it comes up. I don't bash GM because I work for a competitor, I bash them from personal experience. They screwed me once personally, and again as a taxpayer when I was forced to bail them out. They should have been allowed to fail. I also have friends who owned GM stock and lost thousands and thousands of dollars thanks to the "bailout".


Unless you had one of the early 90's 3 liters from Toyota, I'd be very surprised if you had a comparable experience to the one I had with GM. Even so, if you buy a Toyota pickup or 4Runner with the 3 liter V6 from the early 90s, with 100K miles or less, Toyota will STILL replace the headgasket (and the short block if needed). THAT is standing behind your product, and LONG after the warranty period.

One year into owning my Cavalier Z24, I still found it to be an exceptional vehicle. Two years after that, I was proven wrong. The measure of a company is not how things are handled when everything is going smoothly. It's how they handle things when there are problems.

 

Ken,

You should disclose your employment relationship with Lexus/Toyota in your PriusChat signature.

 

It was listed in my personal details, but I added it to my signature just for you. It's not like I work for Toyota or Lexus, I work for the franchisee. If I didn't believe in the product, I wouldn't work here though. When I was getting into the industry, I didn't even consider jobs at any other brands.

 

We don't seem to have too many Colorado folks around here anymore, but last I knew they had $6000 state credit on a Volt. So they would have a great deal now.

 

Debt & Obligations dismissed. Many problems self-inflicted. Little concern for the future.

200 Million shares purchased by our government, then later than wanted sold back at a loss.

300 Million shares still owned by our government, stock prices still under the purchase price.

All that makes accepting the consequences of the circumstances GM is in now difficult. Volt was promoted as their flagship, the technology leader intended to pave the way. 2.5 years after rollout, it's barely talked about anymore. So many goals fell short, the decision to explore other options is becoming obvious. We hear about eAssist, diesel, and EV offerings instead. Meanwhile, the "Voltec" system continues to follow the very same path as Two-Mode.

There is no clear purpose or intent anymore. GM's own production is competing with itself and there's a massive product gap, no high-efficiency choice that's affordable for middle-market.

What are we suppose to expect at this point?

 

justin, were you flaming us?

 

A quick search of dealer inventory for new Volts available provides a list of 8,543.

That's a heck of a lot of unsold to worry about... especially considering there are 285 used also listed.

Just think what will happen when those amazing 3-year leases begin to expire 6 months from now.

It sure would be nice to see Volt on the path to becoming a business-sustaining vehicle, providing profitable high-volume sales like GM's other popular cars... Malibu, Impala, and Cruze. Heck, even their Equinox has much greater demand, despite being a small SUV.

The situation isn't pretty and Volt owners are getting tangled in the mess. Sure, the technology works and it proving reliable, but cost makes it unreachable for the masses. They just end up buying some other GM vehicle instead.

That worse part is we saw this coming, but hope clouded judgment. Now what?

 

panic call to bob klutz?

 

Volt 1,478
PiP 786

March Plug-In Electric Car Sales: Tesla On Top, Leaf Roars Back (FINAL UPDATE)

 

If F8L has the resources he should buy the Volt and give the PIP to your his girl friend.

 

There was a bit of a snafu when the Rep. Head of Department of Revenue removed the Volt from the list (declaring that it failed to meet the particular MPG criterion while on gas, and did not qualify as "EV" (since it has gas engine) and basically choosing to ignore its general EV nature and average MPG that puts its far beyond everything on the list). The bill explicitly revising the critieron and specifying the volt as qualifying is almost through the senate
Colorado tax credits for alternative-fuel vehicles head to Senate - Denver Business Journal

So it should be back to receiving credit (though with the changes I think it 5876 or something under 6K.)

 

That was NHTSA's job. NASA's contribution was a deeper dive into a narrower portion of the issue.

 

Thank you DrI. Do you know approx how much credit PiP gets? Do regular hybrids such as Prius still qualify?

WV had the best Plug_in incentive at $7500 but they terminated program as of Aprl 15, so I think CO now has the best.

 

I did that too, also for other reasons, when semi-retirement left insufficient taxable income. And will probably do it again, this year or next, if needed to take advantage of non-refundable PV tax incentives.

 

That's mostly because the FUD and BS attacks driven by oil interests have since moved on.

Those have been talked about for years and don't represent any failing of "Voltec".

Two-mode was marketed towards truck and SUV customers who turned out to be uninterested in hybrid technology.

In the 5 years since GM began selling two-mode hybrids in 2008 they cumulatively sold about 27,000 of them and sales have been slowing.

By contrast, VIN #41,744 of the 2013 model year just signed up for voltstats.net recently and sales have generally been increasing over time.

No, No, Yes.

I'm not convinced that GM's purpose and intent is more muddled than most other car companies around the world. The Volt was a brilliant and visionary product effort that has been winning over early skeptics. I'm also unconvinced that GM's own production is competing with itself to a significantly greater degree than with most of their competitors. But then, finally, we agree on something...

Yes, there is a large product gap around high-efficiency mid-priced cars. GM needs a high mpg one-mode hybrid car line to compete with Toyota, Ford, and others. It's silly to argue, as you often do, that the Volt should be filling that role.

The Volt fills a unique 40-mile range EREV plugin market space that GM has to itself right now. The Volt is designed at the leading edge of that price/performance curve and is well positioned to ride the wave of lower battery prices over the next several years. This is a feature and performance space that other car makers will be entering over time.