2nd Generation Volt under $30K with tax credit?

Hopefully GM can cut the price. Most can't afford $42K. If a government owned company can't lower its price, no one can.

 

This is encouraging - let's hope reliability pans out. Then if they address the cost issue, it could be a real contender. I know there are still quite a number of us Priuschatters that want the Volt to succeed. It's good for everyone if it does...

 

i want the volt to succeed and would consider purchasing one if it met my needs as well as any of the other offerings out there. but nothing in the article gives me a good feeling about cost cutting. smaller batteries and less expensive motors spell potential trouble for extended ownership. i'm not saying it can't be done, just not excited that they havn't proven anything longevity wise and they're already talking about potential quality reduction. and, when is this 'second generation' due? they just started shipping the first two months ago!

 

It may become more like a PHV Prius.

 

Seeing is believing ?

 

I have to say there is not much news in these things.

The leaf and volt both have slow roll outs. The leaf diverted cars from US to Japan and thus undersold the volt. None of these numbers mean much until production is ramped up and pent up demand from the hand raisers is satisfied.

The second article is pure dribble. The CEO has asked to ramp up production to 120,000 units, but this is not an easy task, so 2012 production numbers will be between 50,000-120,000 depending on how easily suppliers can get going and production ramped up. I would bet it is closer to the lower number given the caveat that GM does not want to kill quality on the ramp up. Production of 120,000 in 2013 seems likely though and this would drop some costs. It is doubtfull that GM will drop the EV range, these rumors seem to come from magazine pundits and bloggers. But battery costs can definitely come down with volume. Electronic accessories also will drop in cost especially if rolled out in other gm cars. I hope that the CEO's cost cutting does not go to the bad old GM bean counter measure of putting low quality econobox materials.

The plan since 2008 has been to drop costs in the second generation, so no really news in this cost cutting information. At least the discussion has shifted from "will the volt be built?" to "How strong will sales be in the second generation?" Definite progress.

 

So they'd shrink the battery. It would then have, say, the electric range of a PHV Prius but still cost more and get massively worse mileage when running on gas. Oh, and it has only four seats. Yeah, that sounds like a winning strategy.

 

Depends on what you see.

We've heard rumblings about the "deliveries" being counted as "sales". I did this search on autotrader. It revealed 164 Volts were available for sale. Huh? Wasn't the entire inventory already spoken for this year? If so, what's with that and accelerated rollout to other states?
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That's a lot of Volt. I have not seen a successful sale on ebay.

 

A new round of hype *already* ?
I think I'll start a new, equally unfounded thread "Volt headed for early demise?"

 

Yeah, a survey at gm-volt.com a few months ago made it very clear that actual sales was going to be a tiny fraction of those voicing some level of interest. Inability to obtain an HOV sticker in CA sealed the Volt fate for now.

 

The thought that GM is already contemplating making the Gen I an orphan is pretty sad. It reminds me of my windows mobile 6.5 phone. 6 Months after its introduced, and Microsoft was already committed to shoving its head under water while still in its infancy. Incredible the way companies are run now days.

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I believe GM will cut the price for the second version......

But it will be too late. I am sure the tax credit will be lower by then and it may be a wash or WORSE.

Right now with the way the credit is done..... The Leaf is the biggest bargain of them all. Both the government and Nissan are taking a loss. That loss is your gain, a maybe $40,000 vehicle for a net of $25000 or less depending on state.

 

The Leaf will be the same way. Within two years there should be new versions. These cars will not have the long product cycle of the Prius because there are too many advances being made. The early buyers are getting large tax credits so they should not do too bad.

 

People must remember that these credits as specified now will run out. These cars cannot trust that $7500 will always be there to knock off the sticker. Now Obama recently said he wants to have not a $7500 tax credit but a check-in-hand to the buyer at time of sale, but especially with the deficit where it is I think we cannot rely indefinitely on having the gov footing the bill to hugely. Without that credit the leaf is over $30k but the volt is over $40k. Neither particularly attractive but over $40k for a volt would murder it. So battery prices just have to come down, but they're fighting hard against increased demand.

 

At the rate the Volt is selling, if a repub congress does not kill the rebates they will last decades. If my memory is right, 200k cars per manufacturer.

 

In this case hype would not be good, it would reduce sales of the current Volt for one that is not available for years. I do not see them working to generate this hype.

 

^^ True. But I think their overriding fear is having the Volt vanish from the news. And btw, another negative side-effect of this future hype is people considering this generation Volt will become ever more aware that they are buying a car that will not be supported due to tech obsolescence, and secondary markets for parts and salvage will not appear. Put another way: no low cost lightly used batteries for these owners.