Will the Chevrolet Volt be a failure or a success?

Volt is going on ?

 

I just drove the VOLT at the local CHEVY dealership.

First impressions were nice, the car was nicely assembled and looked like a competent car. The center display panel looked a bit like a microwave oven control panel but looked past that. NAVI display was ok, then the test drive.

Car felt very heavy. Solid. During the drive, the salesperson told me that the car could do 100 miles on electricity alone, then get 50+ mpg when the engine kicks in......(BS). Since we had only two miles left on electricity alone, I drove the car until the engine kicked in. HIGH revs were a bit unnerving. Felt like 2K rpm's. Didnt really let down but the car did NOT launch forward at the stop light.

$47,000 with $4000 dealer mark up. lease was around $500/mo for 36 mo.

I'll pass for now.

 

They're being sold in Canada now?

 

I live in LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, which is north of Glendale, California.

The dealership i drove was in Glendale, California.

 

Volt = Chevy
Chevy = Failure

/you do the math

 

I looked over the national Chevy Volt inventory a couple of days ago. About 200 cars on dealer lots. Most are offered at msrp with lots of dealer crud to bump up the price to ~ 44k, but 41k - 42k cars are also available.

IF GM is producing cars with serial VINs, then 1500 - 2000 have been manufactured thus far. The Volt fanatic conviction that every Volt that GM produces for the next couple of years will be snapped up is obviously nonsense, to be added to the long list of BS and hype that has been smacked by reality. Low, low volume car, brand new novelty, yet 15% of production is already sitting on lots. Total failure in terms of sales. Now the real question will be, how low a price does the car have to sell for to clear say 5k production a year ? We can ignore the GM hype of increasing production to 20 - 30k vehicles a year unless something dramatic happens to the car or consumers.

 

312 are available on AutoTrader right now, see

How can all be spoken for, yet so many advertised for sale?
.

 

333 now. They are asking for MSRP (except one). Most of the dealers have more than one available.

Why are they not selling?

 

Ohhhhh, the MSRP maybe? Lots of coin for an electrified Cruze.

 

The best thing the Volt has going for it is the name,which of course is a substantial advantage (marketing matters). The misleading advertising may help for a while (why can they get away with calling it an electric vehicle instead of a rather poor example of a hybrid?), But I don't understand their slogan, 'more car than electric'. Why do they think that will help sell the Volt?

By the way, the Leaf is mis-named. Leaves photosynthesize, so a car named Leaf should have solar panels all over it.

 

Or it could be that leaves are mostly green!

 

To add to the topic at hand. The Volt has already been hugely successful, even before the first production unit hit the streets. HOW??? The GM board of directors used the VOLT "concept" on Congress and SURPRISE!!!, GM received a huge chunk of your hard earned tax dollars in the form of a BAILOUT.

The Volt can not, and will not save GM (Source: Business Week) It give GM some time to try to get their act together (I doubt that will happen).

If nothing else, the board of directors have bought themselves some time to get their "golden parachutes" together when that time comes.

DBCassidy

 

Good point. The Volt will be a success for GM because the executives will get billion dollar severence packages, no one will care, and the GOP will even give them big tax breaks to keep more of their billion dollars. But I'm not cynical.

 

I've been waiting for my new Volt for weeks. There are hundreds of others waiting as well. I tried calling some of the autotrader listings to see if I could jump the line as it were. Most of them that claim to have one available are only using it for test drives while they take orders, or the "cars" available are actually used or available allocations to place orders and the vehicles themselves aren't there.

I can tell you the one I am getting became available after the original orderer lost his financing, and I am going to a dealer a couple hundred of miles away to get it. Dealers in Delaware won't have cars to sell til early next year and my local dealership said I could get spot #11 on the waiting list (each of the other 10 has already put up $1000 deposit for a car they won't see for 8 months.

2011 volts will sell out, more will be sold in 2012 and hopefully costs come down as production ramps up.

 

I've been a loyal GM customer my whole life and had hoped GM would have built and released a hybrid similar to the Prius (features and price). The Volt is a great idea, but the price is beyond what I can justify for a vehicle. This has ultimately lead me to look at purchasing our first non GM vehicle.

I think my wife is finally ready to purchase a Prius within the next couple of months.

 

I said in another thread I believe price needs to come down 8-10k to be seriously considered by any meaningful number of consumers. Maybe only $8k. If it comes down $8k it will be basically at the same price or so as the Prius PHV. It is no better a car in my opinion and thus warrants no price premium. It does better EV but lacks a fifth seat and guzzles premium gas when its EV range is done. The car is grossly overpriced at this time.

 

But as long as production is limited to less than what they can sell, the car is not overpriced. By definition, something is worth what someone will pay for it.

If GM expects the Volt to become a mainstream vehicle they will have to do something about the price. If it is just a halo vehicle or novelty, then price really isn't an issue.

Tom

 

GM is certainly treating the Volt as a novelty car. Every contest giving away the winner's choice of any GM vehicle always list the Volt as being excluded. I mean, they are willing to give away limited edition vehicles, and top end sports cars - but not the Volt. Tells me we're looking at another EV1 here. A year or two from now, GM will kill it.

 

Most owners are too. They go out of their way to make it stand out rather than promote it as a successor to traditional mainstream vehicles. It's a self-defeating approach they refuse to acknowledge.
.

 

You are worse with that statement then the people who criticize Prius owners for being more about showing off their "green" then being green.

Don't stereotype car owners.