Will the Chevrolet Volt be a failure or a success?

2012 Volt Pricing

Chevrolet Volt Electric Car | Available Nationwide End of 2011 | Chevrolet.com

2012 Volt pricing has been announced. They got the base under $40,000 (if only slightly). Advertising MSRP after tax credit of $31,645, with destination you're talking about $32,500. PHV better bring it!

 

Fully loaded price increased to $46k. Add a fast charger and it would be $48k. Ouch for a compact car.

It looks like they finally added the Smart Key Entry as a standard feature.

http://www.chevrolet.com/assets/en/pdf/open/future/getmyvolt/WhatsNew2012_VoltGuide_.pdf

 

FYI my 240v charger was $700 installed in my garage, my understanding is the same chargers will service PHV prius so may not be a good comparison point.

If they tack PHV on a 5 you're probably in the same price range.

 

How did you get it that low? Was it a certified installer?

Prius PHV would come with standard 3 hours charger. Volt's 240V "quick" charger still takes 4 hours.

 

I ordered the Voltec Unit for $495, and had a local electrician connect it to the box in my garage for $200, no big deal.

 

Need some clarification please: On another thread it was suggested that GM should not let the Leaf buyers collect the bulk of the tax credits. Suggesting there is a numeric limit to the credits available. Then above, the MSRP for the next model has been announced, less the tax credit.

Will there be a 2012 tax credit?
Is there a limit to the number of credits available?

 

Plug-In Electric Vehicle Credit (IRC 30 and IRC 30D)

"The credit begins to phase out for a manufacturer’s vehicles when at least 200,000 qualifying vehicles have been sold for use in the United States (determined on a cumulative basis for sales after December 31, 2009). For additional information see Notice 2009-89."

The credit is for each manufacturer's first 200,000 vehicles.

 

There is a 200000 vehicle limit per manufacturer for the federal credit. After that there is a reduced credit for some additional cars, then it eventually phases out completely.

The only credits the leaf and volt compete for are some state credits like in CA, the CARB rebate. The 2011 volt doesn't even qualify for that, but the 2012 might. The 2013 for sure, but funding might not be available next year.

 

969
I just wanted that number.
The volt has definitely been successful at getting some people to put out an inordinately large number of posts without adding anything of value.

Who is going to get post 1000?

 

Quite the contrary. There's only one way of proving lack of substance. Shortcomings get far more attention than successes.
.

 

Is that what's really the important thing? I duno . . . it seems important to ME that GM will SAY production is going up in May. Then, May rolls around, and production (if anything) goes down. How does GM respond? GM says they have historically shut down for next year's (2012 in this case) re-tooling ... and so THAT's why sales are soft. Yet GM knew that "newyear re-tooling" would happen. Doesn't that necessarily mean GM planned for NO re-tooling if (by some miracle) REAL demand was off the charts? (meaning sales weren't skewed because dealers were selling to each other to steal the $7,500 tax break) . . . . . but since sales are/were "if-y" at best ... they are able to rely on their "oh ... we gotta re-too" spin? So . . . WHEN will GM say ANYTHING that facially requires NO interpretation? Forget that the car costs too much for the majority of consumers. This ongoing need for GM to continually postmortem most of their prior statements (goals) is the kind of double speak that keeps many from believing ANY of GM's statements.

.

 

Weekly reports for those who have been waiting anxiously :

128.0 mi, 43.49 kWh. 34.0 kWh/100mi or 2.94 mi/kWh (+2 gas, 0.05gal)
123.8 mi, 42.91 kWh. 34.7 kWh/100mior 2.89 mi/kWh
264.3 mi, 79.03 kWh. 29.9 kWh/100mi or 3.34 mi/kWh (+12 gas, 0.37gal)

Some days in the high-90s recently. AC on max seems to be a 15% penalty. I caught the battery temp management running on a day with the car reading 102F after sitting all day in the sun. The tell is that cool air comes out of the vents in Fan Only since the same AC circuit cools the batteries and the cabin. I haven't managed to catch the system running with the car plugged in.

Parked in the lot all day @ 85F is not enough to trigger the thermal management. I sure wish the battery temp was accessible by us dumb users.

EDIT: Here are previous weeks, I'll do this until it becomes impractical if anyone is interested.:
172.9 miles, 54.25 kWh*. 31.4 kWh/100mi or 3.19 miles/kWh.
227 mi, 81.3 kWh -- 35.8 kWh/100mi or 2.79 mi/kWh
223.6 mi , 75.71 kWh -- 33.85 kWh/100mi or 2.95 mi/kWh
249.7 mi, 73.1 kWh -- 29.27 kWh/100mi or 3.41 mi/kWh (+7 gas, 0.2gal)
191.1 mi, 62.25 kWh -- 32.6 kWh/100mi or 3.07 mi/kWh (+12 gas, 0.36gal)

 

It's true that the bad is spread farther, and lasts longer than the good. In general, it can be an effective way to judge something.

I don't think it applies here. A thousand post thread with the shortcomings rehashed by a small number of people.

 

THIS CAR COSTS OVER $42,000

The "Dirty Little Secret Behind the Chevy Volt".... The Rest of the Story..............


Patrick Michaels is a senior fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato
Institute and the editor of the forthcoming Climate Coup: Global
Warming's Invasion of our Government and our Lives.



His Forbes column on the Chevy Volt is a case study in the nexus between
big government corruption and big business rent-seeking.

Michaels briefly recaps the well-known consumer fraud in which GM has
touted the Volt as an all-electric mass production vehicle on the supposed basis
of which its sales receive a $7,500 taxpayer subsidy, which still renders
it overpriced and unmarketable.





Michaels notes that "sales are anemic: 326 in December, 321 in January,
and 281 in February." There seems to be a trend here.

Michaels adds that GM has announced a production run of 100, 000 in the


first two years and asks what appears to be a rhetorical question:


"Who is going to buy all these cars?"





But wait! Keep hope alive! There is a positive answer to the question.


Jeffrey Immelt's GE will buy a boatload of those uneconomic GM cars. Here
the case study opens onto the inevitable political angle: Recently,
President Obama selected General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to chair his
Economic Advisory Board.





GE is also awash in windmills waiting to be subsidized so they can
provide unreliable, expensive power.

Consequently, and soon after his appointment, Immelt announced that GE
will buy 50, 000 Volts in the next two years, or half the total produced.





Assuming the corporation qualifies for the same tax credit, we (you and I)


just shelled out $375, 000, 000 to a company to buy cars that no one else
wants, so that GM will not tank and produce even more cars that no one
wants. And this guy is the chair of Obama's Economic Advisory Board?


But of course. Michaels includes this hilarious detail in his case study:

In a telling attempt to preserve battery power, the heater is exceedingly
weak. Consumer Reports said their tests averaged a paltry 25 miles of


electric-only running, in part because it was testing in cold Connecticut.





The [GM] engineer at the Auto Show said cold weather would have little
effect.) It will be interesting to see what the range is on a hot,
traffic-jammed summer day, when the air conditioner will really tax the
batteries. When the gas engine came on, Consumer Reports got about 30
miles to the gallon of premium fuel; which, in terms of additional cost of
high-test gas, drives the effective mileage closer to 27 mpg.


A conventional Honda Accord, which seats 5 (instead of the Volt's 4), gets
34 mpg on the highway, and costs less than half of what CR paid, even
with the tax break.





The story of the GM Volt deserves a place in the Harvard Business School
curriculum....but of course, it won't. It's a classic tale of the
GOVERNMENT deciding what the public needs, not the marketplace.


PS.- What is one of the reasons for this? Why.. to keep the UAW in business,


because Obama owes them for his election. Starting to make sense yet?


​

 

We really need a "vote down" tool for the forums. ^^^

 

To vote down post like yours?

I prefer positive reinforcement than the negative one.

 

I'm all for free expression and opposing points of view, but that article is months old and we probably have a dozen pages hashing it out in this actual thread (about 60 or 70 pages back).

 

Wow, Awesome and thanks for posting, these are very excellent numbers you put on a weekly basis, You are barely using any gas at all.

If you don't mind me asking, did you buy or lease and what is your typical daily commute. My brother in Long Island mentioned that the Chevy dealers are only interested in selling, not leasing and is GM still offering the $2800 down with 350/per month lease.

 

I leased mine from a dealer in Long Island.

I do believe the terms have changed somewhat (there was a $2000 capital cost reduction in the original program that appears to be phasing out).

 

While I may sometimes complain about how GM is marketing this car and dealer's practices, ultimately it really is all about the car itself. I still need to know info from owner's real world driving from members who have Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf and Prius PHV testers, not the politics.

Members in this forum should be able to control their impulses and spare everyone from their offensive and somewhat delusional politics. It is not that difficult to keep an opinion to oneself. So, I don't see any reason why a member needs to go Glenn Beck on everybody with a very long post(5 posts ago).