Will the Chevrolet Volt be a failure or a success?

Surprised so few, see them all over the freaking place now.

90% are new to GM, unfortunately we cannot guess how many of those were prius owners...

 

"Most" only means more than 50%. Don't read more into it than that.

 

I was a prius owner and am now new to GM

 

How the Chevy Volt leads buyers to the Cruze — Autoblog Green

 

That's absolutely pitiful that this thing is defended now as a marketing strategy to sell another vehicle. Does anybody really believe that GM's grand strategy was to build car X to assist in selling Y? Ludicrous.

Chevy is using the Volt to get people to switch to the Cruze - Jul. 14, 2011

The article is pure speculation, ergo meaningless. People are dumb but how many are going in to "check out" a Volt and end up getting sucked into buying a Cruze?

 

The Cruze is about half the Volt's price. People who want Corvettes, Camaro SS are unlikely to even look at the Cruze, but Malibu and Impala buyers on the other hand may find a price and mileage advantage by going with the Cruze.

I think GM and dealers are pushing to make the Cruze a best-seller since it is obvious that the Volt is not competing with the Leaf and unlikely to be a competitor to the upcoming Prius PHV for many reasons.

 

Cruze is definitely getting a huge push. I heard about the buzz well before it was available. I haven't seen a Volt ad in quite a while!

 

I would like to know what members in this forums think. I for one, think that GM is in a dilemma because unlike Toyota's system which is applied to even the Lexus LS 600h, the Volt's system is not going to be applied to all of GM's vehicles. Toyota is applying the system to all of their vehicles.

I think GM could have built a good hybrid system but wanted so much to leapfrog Toyota and ended up with an expensive car, not even qualified for CA HOV lane.

 

Ah you just want to hit 2000 posts in this thread. What Volt possibly has, like Prius, is a car built ground-up from the hybrid/EV concept. Yes I also met a Toyota rep years ago, who told me their vision was every vehicle could have Hybrid engine option. So I waited for CAMRY but it was not as good as a Prius designed around the concept.

Didn't realize about missing the CA HOV requirement.

 

Yeah, I am trying to keep this thread alive to continue the discussion along with the Prius plug-in later next year. Seriously, I have been asking whether GM is going to put the system in other cars. It was reported recently that GM killed the Cadillac plug-in hybrid before birth, but they are working on the CrossVolt SUV for next year.

 

With Volt sales where they are I assume GM is in no hurry to make a CrossVolt. Its idea was to make a hatch/wagon type Volt and with the Prius v to market first, and the CV's mileage and range worse than a normal Volt I think it would be a farce.

 

It's all about price. And the price of gas. The hybrid market is Marketing 101.

What's alarming is the price of electric utilities is now being indexed to the price of oil--which in turn is now largely controlled by oil futures speculation.
Something you don't hear about in the media. I learned that from my power company.

 

All the more reason to go Photovoltaic, I can tell you right now what my electric payment will be in 2023 (finance charge on the system).

 

We don't all have 30k laying around to do so. I know I would do it regardless if I believed I wanted to live where I do for at least 10 years but that is not the case.

 

i talked to a volt driver yesterday. he said the volt looks good for it's price. (still epensive though). he was at the dealer and saw the cruz and was like.. hey.. that car is sexy.. and it's only 16 grand.. or.. 18 grand.. whatever it is... he was wondering if it's the same car.

He let me check it out and i was kinda laughing in the end. i didn't test drive it but ill take people's word that it's wonderful to drive... as long as you don't live in cold climates...

he is averaging around 80mpg or so. he drives 150 or so miles a day. he doesn't understand why his boss didn't just buy a prius (they are leasing the volt). the overall price of the car compared to repairs of a prius still puts the prius ahead of the volt in his eyes... his jaw dropped when i mentioned my odometer reading and my mpg... he said that's wonderful... he sees it as i see it... a prius is way better mpg wise than any car.. you never need 0 to 60 in 10 seconds... and a used prius with higher miles only sells for 8 to 10 grand in los angeles.... once you start getting over 40mpg it's fractions of pennies for each mile driven (in his eyes... i kinda agree)

 

If he's getting 80 mpg and doing 150 miles/day he must be plugging it in constantly. When you hit around 60 miles or so even with a fresh charge the total cost mirrors the prius, with any mile beyond that in the Prius' favor from a cost perspective.

 

At 60 miles in the Volt you will have burned about 0.5 gallons of gas, its good to hear you are getting 120 mpg in your prius.

 

Even better to hear you get free electricity, but I'm using real world figures with the Volt's charge, MPG, and fuel costs. I ran the numbers extensively in another thread and at the time with gas where it was and consumer reports' range with electric and observed fuel economy the break even was actually 56 miles with a Prius; any mile beyond that and the Volt began to cost more.

 

At this snapshot in time, in USA we basically have high gaso and low elec costs. So it's a good time for plugin/Ev's to get a foot in the door. Adj for inflation elec costs have been flat in real cost. But long term elec costs are expected to go up because we have a lot of old power plants needing replacement. Heard this on TV by Duke Energy CEO. I did not hear about indexing.

 

I do charge at work for free about 1/2 the time, but I really haven't seen significant increase in my electric bill, once the PV system is in cost will be static.

In real world regular driving conditions I generally get about 40 miles AER and 40 mpg. Based on the ratings a full charge should cost me $1.50 (assuming I did it at home where I have to pay for it presently). Premium fuel here is presently about $3.80, so I can go about 80 miles on $5.30.

Regular fuel is about $3.40, so $5.80 could buy 1.7 gallons and take a 50 mpg prius 85 miles.

I suspect the cross over point is somewhere in the 70s, with a free charge it would be higher.

On a daily basis I don't usually exceed the AER (sometimes extended by opportunity charging) so I burn less gas. In fact lifetime I've gone 5800 miles on 46 gallons of premium, at $4 average fuel price thats $184. A 50 mpg prius would have burned 116 gallons, and even if they could find regular at $3 (which they can't) that would cost $348. My electric bill should have gone up about $10 a month, but lets call it $15 for $60 of electric over the past 4 months. Thats still a $100 savings.

In reality I've been paying less than that for electric and premium fuel and regular fuel costs more, so actual savings are greater. For me personally though the cost savings isn't the most important thing, its the 70 gallons of oil I didn't burn (compared to a prius, much more compared to any other car).

At 19 gallons per barrel thats about 15 barrels saved a year, if all Volts are getting results like mine the 3000 or so of us are saving over 44,200 barrels of oil from being burned this year (assuming we all switched from prii). Now thats a drop in the bucket compared to total consumption, but it makes me feel better.