Here is a news report from 12/12/2008. Obama has won - the Senate GOP is fighting to kill the bill Bush negotiated with house democrats & Obama transition team. Why the Senate GOP scuttled the automakers' bailout | McClatchy So, finally what Bush & Obama teams decided was for Bush to use the TARP to fund a loan to GM (& Chrysler) - which would last a couple of months until Obama would take office and had time to figure out what to do.
Well its been announced that the Low Emissions Package in CA will not carry an increased prices. ( A volt dealer posted this at No additional cost for "Low Emissions Package" The HOV access and no added price should help the california sales a bit.
What about low emissions for everyone else? There's history behind the SULEV & PZEV emission ratings for hybrids you may want to consider... .
It was once common to have two different emission packages for federal and Carb states. I suspect that the Volt will have the same emissions for all. If it doesn't raise the cost, then it likely isn't a major addition. Plus, more states are Carb now, with possible benefits beyond Ca HOV access.
California emissions now means a 10 year warranty on emissions control equipment which somehow includes hybrid batteries. Toyota changes the warranty, I expect gm to follow this.
I would agree on the warranty varying, many manufactures do that (our Subaru warranty varies by state). My first hope is the GM has the improved emission package for everyone next year (for free). If not I just hope GM offers the PZEV option in other states, even if its a priced option as Subaru does.
AT-PZEV should have been included from day one. Volt does not qualify in New York's Clean Pass program. Hopefully, New Yorkers would be able to order that package with no additional charge.
That's the usual SOP if there are different engines for emissions regulations. I still think GM will just make it standard for all. Simpler for a lower volume vehicle that way. They also wanted it from the beginning, but actual test protocols weren't yet finalized by the time they had the product ready.
I always thought of PZEV as rather a government joke. How can something be partial zero, but not really zero But the volt came from day one with the AT portion. The PZEV requires Sulev, which is super ultra - low emissions, but the volt came out just barely under with ultra low emissions. PZEV also requires that warenty, which we all know makes a car much greener. They also were supposed to be flex fuel. I think that still didn't make it. I think it was a problem with the non-turbo version of the cruze engine, and they just didn't have the time to fix it, so the fix is coming this year. Either way I doubt non at-pzev hurt year one sales, but getting this finished ticks a box that should help 2012+ sales.
The volt is only ULEV because they only take the "worst" case of CD or CS, not a milage-based weighting and the way the test is run. In CARB testing the car always generats emissions in its last "CD" mode. If it had been weighted with EV miles as zero and CS miles at a small fraction it could have been rated much loser. But CARB tests assuming you will abuse the vehicle so uses the worst case test. It did hurt volt sales in 11 as I know folks in CA that said without the HOV (which requires AT-PZEV) it was not worth it. They were leaning leaf when I last talked with them but had not pulled the trigger.
While I totally agree it is a bad rule, GM did know these rules going into the volt launch. Given the logistic problems that some here don't think existed, I do not think GM could have redesigned the engine/fuel tank to pass and sold more volts than they did in 2011. If you are saying if the rules were different but the incentives the same, well yes that may be right. Those folks leaning leaf for hov, may go any which way this year.
I agree I don't think GM could have redesigned it a lot faster to get many more sales and they did the right thing by getting us a Volt sooner rahter than reiterating. My Volt has now started < 50 times, in 4000 miles since middle of august.. so I'm not terrible worried about the emissions. The rules for CARB EREV emissions testing were known before Volt launch but maybe not long enough for GM to go back and reiterated on the design after the changes in the rules.
And At the start of this month I referred to the 45k goal as "a hilariously insane sales target for the Volt in this climate" I maintain the belief that the Volt's tenability is in jeopardy.
The timing of this article makes its reporting extremely misleading. The probe is now closed, and the reports from dealerships were during the probe. It also does not do any leg work to find out if the california dealership in question is just waiting for the AT-PZEV cars. I'd call this sham journalism. Then in the next paragraph. Did they ask if the dealers were now ordering? No, that wouldn't follow the story line. Don't know what tenability means in this context, but given the negative press, and some outspoken anti-volt chevy dealers, the numbers are way to high. Perhaps chevy will build to demand. I expect this to be well over 20K US sales, which is plenty to keep the car in show rooms, and a next generation volt to be designed. It will probably be like first generation prius dealers. Many won't want the car, nor sell it. If positive word of mouth gets around people will order it anyway. If there is negative word of mouth it will stay with low sales.
Whatever of reason, there doesn’t seem to be much inventory movement, based on the counts from my local dealers... PHP: 11/27, 12/11, 12/18, 12/26, 1/01, 1/08, 1/15, 1/22, city 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, Amery 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, Annandale 4, 3, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, Anoka 7, 6, 6, 7, 6, 12, 12, 12, Bloomington 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 4, 3, 3, Brooklyn Center 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, Buffalo 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, Cokato 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, Eden Prairie 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, Faribault 1, 2, 2, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, Forest Lake 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, Fridley 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, Hastings 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, Hudson 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, Lakeville 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, Maplewood 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, Monticello 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, New Prague 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, North Branch 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, Princeton 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1, Rogers 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, Roseville 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, Shakopee 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, Wayzata 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, White Bear Lake 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, Zumbrota
Last Friday I went to a Chevy dealer and checked out the Volt (it may be my ticket back into the HOV lane...). They have 24 on order for March and more to follow.
The story is not about the probe, although that maybe one reason dealers who were already reluctant to stock the volt before, are even more so since the probe. The questions you raised, probe, AT-PZEV, are irrelevant to the fact that the story is about dealers refusing their allocations. It does not make sense to decide a story is not true without any evidence. Fire concerns have definitely hurt the Chevy Volt plug-in car | Hybridcarblog
