Will the Chevrolet Volt be a failure or a success?

Definitely supply limited. But there are some Volts sitting at the dealers waiting for buyers - usually at marked up (gouging type) prices. Since dealers place the orders and not customers (like in Leaf), there will always be some local imbalance in Volt supply & demand.

More important question is - why is the Volt supply constrained. It has been six months and they should have ramped up by now.

Anyway, the Volt deliveries won't pickup for another couple of months since the plant is shutdown now for MY2012 changes.

I don't have complete EU/Japan sales of Leaf ...

 

It seems that 2184 Volts have been sold in the US (aka deliveries) YTD + 326 last year.

Per the production PDF, 4,488 model year 2011 Volts were produced thru May 2011. So, that leaves 1978 floating around, in transit or unsold somewhere...

 

Thanks-

Ultimately, I guess it doesn't matter who is buying them. If dealers or other commercial entities are speculating on Volts, they'll either use them or sell them as demos or certified used cars eventually. If prices are artifically high only becase of dealers right now, they'll soon drop below MSRP or even below inovice to encourage sales and the speculators will get burned in the process, but eventually people will be driving them.

I thought the Volt was a very nice car. If we had only two kids, I'd definitely consider one over our Prius, if it was selling for invoice price less the tax credit...

Competition is great for everyone. If the Volt isn't the blockbuster some thought, so what? Maybe the next generation will be. Or maybe competitors will improve upon it and produce something even better at a more competitive price. Either way, if some of the people buying Volts are those who would have been buying gas guzzlers of one type or another, we all still win;-)

 

Yeah, prices for the Volt need to really come down.

As for buying gas guzzlers of one type or another... the real crime is people buying monstrosity class SUVs (e.g. Tahoe, Yukons, Suburbans, Escalades, Navigators, Expeditions, etc.). It's very unlikely those folks would cross-shop the Volt (or Prius) vs. those battering rams of death.

Since it seems many folks make a big deal about the "payback" period (usually vs. some small, minimally equipped econobox) about judging whether something is "worth it", the numbers for the Volt really seem against it in addition to the not so good CS mileage.

 

All the goals set for 2010 clearly did not get achieved. That's the measure in question. Volt owners here understand what they bought and are happy with the currently available model... but also recognize what the next model will be striving to deliver.

Reality is, Volt loses a lot of sales to Cruze. There were 47 Cruze purchased for every 1 Volt in May. So no matter what the spin is about inventory or demand, the opportunity to capitalize on high gas prices for product advancement is being lost. This a situation the auto task-force was worried about when the expressed the "too little, too slowly" concern.

The reason for asking to failure or success question is help better understand the situation now being faced. The label itself doesn't matter when the true effort is to change production. What needs to be done to shift sales from traditional to plug-in?
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To me, it seems the Volt can be a good fit for an older couple whose kids have grown and left the house.

 

You are joking .... right?
For the first time, my wife and I have the time, money and freedom to go..... and we do. We just returned from a 5K mile driving trip to Texas. We also visit at every opportunity, our children and grandchildren, none of which live within the electric range of the Volt. The Prius has been absolutely perfect, and performed exceptionally well. Comfortable, quiet, more than adequate storage ... and 52 mpg overall. To illustrate the point, my 2010 Prius already has 40K plus miles.

I imagine the Volt only comfortably fits the commuter that works close to home, and has another vehicle for more distant travel, family vacations, hauling the camper and such. The Volt is a niche vehicle that only fills a very narrowly defined niche.... good as it may be within that limitation. In time, that will change. Range will be extended, charging stations will become readily available, and, hopefully not, driving vacations will be financially out of the question for all except the wealthy. Should that occur, then perhaps the Volt would be more attractive.

 

I think the Volt's only real niche keeping it from being more widely accepted is the niche of being essentially twice the cost of an entry level Prius or Insight. Sure, it has other drawbacks, but that's the biggest one I found. Even the issue of having only 4 seats for a family of 5 wouldn't be a show stopper by itself, since we have another car.

 

What's really going on with Chevy Volt sales? — Autoblog Green has a few interesting tidbits, some of which aren't new news (e.g. the four week Hamtramck plant shutdown in June).

 

Again bad reporting by ABG. Nothing new. They claim the following peice means soft demand - I don't see how.

The important thing with Volt is that GM refuses to disclose the number of orders they have on their books. So, we don't know whether the low production is because of low number of orders or because they can't produce more.

 

Huh? For one thing, commuters aren't a narrow niche, they are the biggest niche by far! Also, why would you need a another vehicle for distant travel? The Volt still gets 40 mpg highway, that's better than what most people currently use. Sure the Prius is better, but only for trips > 120 miles or so. If most of your driving is less than that, it's reasonable to sacrifice a small efficiency loss on the long trips when the short ones are much more efficient and add up to significantly more mileage than the long trips. On a 500 mile trip, the Prius would save about $10. If you only do this a couple times a year, what does it matter?

"Hauling camper" -- the Prius isn't designed for that either, and many people don't have a camper. No one in my extended family does. Family vacations - depends on what type of vacation, what sort of gear you carry. If you carry a ton of gear that wouldn't fit in a Volt, that might not fit a Prius either, requiring a SUV or something. If you only carry suitcases & refreshments, a Volt might well be just fine.

Not many people routinely take 5k mile road trips. Our "other vehicle" for that kind of travel is called an airplane.

I agree. 4 vs. 5, that only is significant if your family is exactly 5 and only one car. Bigger family needs a different class of car or 2nd car anyway. As for cost, it's not twice a Prius, it's like 1.7x a Prius, and only when *not* counting tax credit and *not* comparing comparably equipped. It's more like 7k +/- 500 or so depending on specific options, counting all tax credits and sales taxes. For my personal driving patterns, I calculated fuel savings over the decade I plan on keeping a car to be about half of that. So for me it boiled down to whether I liked a Volt enough over a Prius to spend $3500 more. I thought so, so I ordered a Volt. Others certainly may not think so, depends on their driving pattern/needs, and opinions on all other aspects of the cars. That's why we have a free market and so many vehicles to choose from!

GM certainly has to get the price down though for it to be a big success though, especially when the credit runs out. They are well aware of the need to cut costs by $10k or so.

 

Two-Mode was a mess like this too. Volt enthusiasts absolutely refused to believe the same thing could happen again, despite the pattern that emerged along the way.

So now GM is stuck with another technology that doesn't meet efficiency goals and cost too much to be competitive.
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There is definitely a market there for Volt.

The main problem with Volt is that it costs too much. And is not easily available. Few people want to order an expensive car (in a lot of places for a markup over MSRP), wait for 3 months to get it.

I'd not compare Volt with dual mode hybrids. vastly different demographic appeal. I would have considered buying Volt if I didn't have access to Leaf - but I woulnd't touch their 2-mode hybrids.

 

Realistically, how many commuters can afford to lose $24k depretiation in 3 years for driving 45k miles?

 

Ok, I get it. I was thinking about members in this forums who may have a Volt. I like the idea about Volt owners in this forum because they can from time to time tell us how it is to live with the car. The Volt is not yet available in Florida, except for used Volts which cost twice the MSRP of a Prius II.

I still want to know what is going on, I thick GM should come clean and tell why production is so low and how many people are still on the waiting list. I also would like to know how many people have signed up for the Toyota Prius Plug-in so far. I am in Florida, but will be buying thru Virginia. I hope that Toyota will be able to produce more Prius plug-ins compared to Volt production so far.

 

Hey guys, I was out of touch all week, have we all agreed its a success yet?

 

I think the Volt is a success as far as the car itself, will know for sure over the next few years if it proves to be as reliable as a Prius. I don't think anybody is questioning the quality of the Volt as a car, but there is a cloud over dealer's business practices, questionable Volt demand numbers and why production numbers are so low.

There should not be any Used Volts in dealer's used lots, especially if there is a waiting list.

 

I don't know what the official "party line" answer is but I can tell you my guess. The 2011 MY is a Beta Test, they put a few thousand cars on the roads with real drivers and monitored the heck out of them (its a litle big brother-ish, but I think the free XM and On star are part of the monitoring). I get a call from a "Volt Advisor" every couple of weeks to see how things are going and if I have any concerns. I've also taken a number of surveys, including one from the engineering department.

In exchange we get to be the early adopters we love to be and are enjoying freakishly high levels of customer service (they also mailed us all a gift pack with a souvenir book and HD flip cam), and I have a readout on the display with the last four numbers of our VIN (I'm Volt #1883).

Those of us doing it I believe knew what we were getting into and most I hear from are enjoying it. I certainly love mine.

Now this month the plant is down while they tool up for 2012 MY, I expect we'll see them come out faster and be more readily available soon. It will be interesting to see how strong sales are once there is some inventory available.

 

It will be a total failure.

 

That's not what was promoted. All throughout development, the 2010 rollout was to be the "game changer" vehicle. Now, we are hearing lots of downplay to "early adopter" status.

And despite all that backpedaling, we still hear from some how Volt is "vastly superior" to a plug-in Prius.

Those mixed messages are what confuse the success/failure.
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