April Volt Sales:

Are we being too hard on GM?
Our fault...[/QUOTE]

I don't think so, it's there own fault. Right now they can lower the price if they want to; how? Take out the engine & gas tank & go straight EV; not everyone needs all that extra range.
Now that weight of the car is less, the range on a single charge is probably more. A car is a car it is for getting you from point A to point B in as much comfort as practical & possible. If someone wants all that high tech stuff & wants to talk to the computer & the computer talk back to them, like in Start Trek, then let them pay for it, but don't stick everyone else with it.
There are new technologies being worked on for future release say around 2015 which are the Sulfur Lithium batt. that have the potential of twice the energy density of current Lithium Ion. Enabling a car to have twice the range in miles for a single charge and cost 90% less than the Lithium Ion batteries.
I don't know but all of these high end exec's when they make these awful decisions like doing away with the EV1's when if they had stuck with it. They would have been way ahead of the Japs right now; I just loose all respect for people that act this way.
Well there's my two cents worth on the subject.

 

Some can see the entire forest.

Some don't look beyond their tree.

Some nurture a special seedling.

Some hope for growth opportunity.

Some understand forces of nature.

Some take action to prevent harm.

Some destroy their own environment.

Which are you?
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Has anyone ever crunched the numbers of how the EV1 would do with the Volts battery pack? How about the EV1 with the new EV RAV battery pack? I know that GM smashed all EV1s, burned all drawing and killed everyone that worked on the project, but couldn't we get the Chinese to make a copy of the EV1 so that we could run some tests?

 

GM is currently testing Cruze as an EV in Korea, but has no intentions of offering it in the US nor a Volt without an engine... or even one with a smaller battery-pack.

Limiting choice was a problem back then. It continued to be as new technology rolled out too, as with Two-Mode. And it appears to be that with Volt as well. How many do they actually intend to sell?
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I hope they sell a million of 'em. That will drive the price of oil down. It will also keep a lot of workers employed in auto-related industries. And maybe scare away the oil futures speculators.

 

The problem continues to be heavy investment in traditional vehicles instead. Notice how Cruze is dramatically more popular? That's the real competitor for Volt.

And of course, GM has also been investing in their ASSIST hybrid design. Now called "eAssist" rather than the next-generation of BAS, it will take away from Volt progress too.
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The ev1 was expensive to build and would still be expensive to build, more expensive than the volt.

The original ev1 battery pack was about the capacity of the volt, the last one had about the capacity of the leaf. They claimed 160 mile range for the last one but I would multiply by 0.7 to compare to current epa so 110 miles compared to the leaf's 73 mile aer. The volt type pack might allow you to pack about 40% more capacity into the volume of an ev1, which will get you to 150 miles aer. This would be in a two seat car that is much more expensive than the leaf.

There is a more expensive 2 seat ev with good range, the tesla. I think it would be foolish to try to sell an updated ev1 in this market. Or maybe the volt, leaf, tesla, imev are those updated ev1s. Those that were ev1 fans seem quite happy when allowed to drive a volt, leaf, or tesla. In 2012 GM should be producing as many volts each week as the total cumulative ev1production. Nissan is projecting even higher leaf production.

I tend to believe the phev is the future of the electrified vehicle. The great majority of miles can be done in purely electric mode, while it allows good range without the need for new infrastructure.

The crushing of the ev1 did set back gm many years on phev development and created a great deal of bad will. If gm had kept the ev1, we might be on the second generation of a better volt. GM might have been able to spread the technology by 2008, and avoided bankruptcy.

 

There is (was) an EV1 at the Tellus museum in GA...so at least one escaped.

 

I don't get it either. Much smaller number of Volts have been produced compared to Leaf. They are also easier to get.

I think GM won't ramp up MY 11 any more. We'll have to see how MY12 goes.

ps : Also Volt #3002 was just delivered - but only 2,029 sold till April end.