GM to build 10,000 Chevy Volts in 2011

metalman said:
July 30, 2010
Dealers have seen strong consumer interest stemming from Volt pricing, and GM has indicated their email interest list has exceeded 70,000 names. This is not including the 54,000 names found on the GM-Volt want list.

March 1, 2011
"Total sales"
Chevy Volt: 928
Nissan Leaf: 173

The Chevy Volt, the car that will save GM!
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602 total in Jan/Feb of 2011. 326 in December 2011. 928 total apparently. Wouldn't mind having one for the daily commute, but not at that price point.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/bel ... _term=feed
 
metalman said:
July 30, 2010
Dealers have seen strong consumer interest stemming from Volt pricing, and GM has indicated their email interest list has exceeded 70,000 names. This is not including the 54,000 names found on the GM-Volt want list.

March 1, 2011
"Total sales"
Chevy Volt: 928
Nissan Leaf: 173

The Chevy Volt, the car that will save GM!
Click to expand...

Sad, but predicted by me. I have long argued with a friend of mine that the price is simply way too high for the Volt. I don't know what they were thinking, nor my friend. I had higher hopes for the Leaf, but even that price is too high. The leaf was advertised all along as being an affordable car. First they hinted it would be sub $20k, then they stated it would be about $24,000. Last I checked they are about $33,000 in the dealer. Anyone with a brain will factor in the cost of not just the increased electric bill, but the periodic battery pack replacement. It simply is not worth it unless you are rich, at this point.
 
While I'm all for buying American vechicles and I'd recommend people looking for an electric check out Ford.

In 2012 the Ford Focus is coming out with a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid, and an all electric. The plus is any of the gas and any of the electric can be made on the same manufacturing line. This sort of flexibility should keep costs down. It'll allow Ford to shift production to any power plant. With the Leaf or Volt or Prius if they are unpopular the only choice to make a different model car. Will we see Chevies piled up again because they don't match the market? Perhaps.

Other models, as they are on the Focus platform, will also be able to pick up these engines. Such as the upcoming C-Max. I suspect in a couple of years Ford will have hybrids, plugins, and all electrics across most of their models.

Popular mechanics found the Chevy Volt to have 32City and 36Hwy MPG. The Focus has a gas only model that reachs 40MPG. The hybrid fusion/milan/mkz get 47MPG city. I'd suspect the Focus to get something similar.
 
redrumloa said:
Last I checked they are about $33,000 in the dealer. Anyone with a brain will factor in the cost of not just the increased electric bill, but the periodic battery pack replacement. It simply is not worth it unless you are rich, at this point.
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Some people might factor in other points like the near future. Would $10/gallon gas help? What about a dropping dollar? If you borrowed 33,000 now and the dollar dropped off a cliff in a year the car would be practically free!
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
redrumloa said:
Last I checked they are about $33,000 in the dealer. Anyone with a brain will factor in the cost of not just the increased electric bill, but the periodic battery pack replacement. It simply is not worth it unless you are rich, at this point.
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Some people might factor in other points like the near future. Would $10/gallon gas help? What about a dropping dollar? If you borrowed 33,000 now and the dollar dropped off a cliff in a year the car would be practically free!
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That is a whole other subject. I see $10 gas as possible in the near future, but with it will bring all sorts of pain. Electric utilities such as the sleazy FPL (Florida Plunder & Loot) will jack up their rates to the moon. Hyper inflation will set in and things like batteyr pack replacement will be exponentially higher. In short, if we see $10+ gas this year we'd be better of buying guns and freeze dried food rather than a new car.
 
faethor said:
Popular mechanics found the Chevy Volt to have 32City and 36Hwy MPG.
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Abysmal! Are you kidding me??? My non-hybrid VW gets 38/44 and cost less than half the price of a Volt. Pathetic! I spit on GM management! :x
 
redrumloa said:
Abysmal! Are you kidding me??? My non-hybrid VW gets 38/44 and cost less than half the price of a Volt. Pathetic! I spit on GM management! :x
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Diesel here is about 12-14% more expensive. This pushes your equivalent cost per mile (fuel only) to be in about the same range. Your MPGe (mile per gasoline equivalent) is about in the same 32-36 range.

Popular Mechanics drove the car about 900 miles in 3 days. IMO the car wasn't wasn't built for 300 mile per day journeys. I think of the Volt as a daily commuter w/ a gas engine for possible extended range travel. The average commuter in the US travels about 15 miles and the trip takes about 26 minutes. The electric only range of the Volt is about 35 miles (a bit less then the commute). If one used it as a commuter they'd likely see in the area of 70 MPGe.

The price, unadjusted, is in the $30-$40K range. Take off about $7,500 as a rebate and it's about as expensive as most other cars in the same class.

As we approach $4/gallon and see $10/gallon what if articles coming out I think one change the US needs to start thinking about is getting vehicles that fit the 80/20 rule. This vehicle fits well in that niche. The hard part will be the change of mindset in the public.
 
faethor said:
Diesel here is about 12-14% more expensive. This pushes your equivalent cost per mile (fuel only) to be in about the same range. Your MPGe (mile per gasoline equivalent) is about in the same 32-36 range.

Popular Mechanics drove the car about 900 miles in 3 days. IMO the car wasn't wasn't built for 300 mile per day journeys. I think of the Volt as a daily commuter w/ a gas engine for possible extended range travel. The average commuter in the US travels about 15 miles and the trip takes about 26 minutes. The electric only range of the Volt is about 35 miles (a bit less then the commute). If one used it as a commuter they'd likely see in the area of 70 MPGe.

The price, unadjusted, is in the $30-$40K range. Take off about $7,500 as a rebate and it's about as expensive as most other cars in the same class.

As we approach $4/gallon and see $10/gallon what if articles coming out I think one change the US needs to start thinking about is getting vehicles that fit the 80/20 rule. This vehicle fits well in that niche. The hard part will be the change of mindset in the public.
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You can't throw out a $10,000 range like that :lol: The MSRP for base model is $40,280 without any options. Dealers have not been discounting the MSRP so far, rather adding a premium up to $20,000 on top of the MSRP.

http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradviso ... emium.html

So let's ignore markups and take the MSRP of $40,280. Now you have to add tax on top of that. In this part of Florida sales tax is 6%, so the total before rebates is ~$42,670. Take off the $7,500 tax rebate and you still have a $35,200 car. The volt is NOT priced competitively to similar cars in its class at this price, it is about double the price of cars in its class. Cost of maintenance will be higher than a comparable traditional car. The Volt is ill conceived.

Deisel is about 10% higher than gas here in FL. I paid $19,200 for mine in 2005. The TDI had a complete makeover since then and they go for about $24,000 now. The Jetta TDI is more comparable with the Volt and it retails for about $24,000 and gets 42MPG. There is no battery pack.

Launching an ultra expensive hybrid in a recession is not a very smart idea as sales figures show. VW OTOH can't keep up with demand for the TDI models. Any time I take mine in for service I get unsolicited offers from the mechanics. Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of the idea of a pure electric car. So far the car companies just can't or won't get it right.
 
redrumloa said:
faethor said:
The price, unadjusted, is in the $30-$40K range. Take off about $7,500 as a rebate and it's about as expensive as most other cars in the same class.
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You can't throw out a $10,000 range like that :lol: The MSRP for base model is $40,280 without any options. Dealers have not been discounting the MSRP so far, rather adding a premium up to $20,000 on top of the MSRP.
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Chevy's Volt Website lists the starting MSRP as $32,780. Many cars can add about $5K of options without too much thinking. So that's how my range was derived. If Chevy is smart they'll ship the fully loaded models on day 1. The eager buyers will be willing to pay more and have all the bells and whistles.

Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of the idea of a pure electric car. So far the car companies just can't or won't get it right.
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The issue is the power available and storage ability of electricity. If you want an electric car for more than a commuter it'll need some other power plant.

If we really want to use electricy what we need is a way to deliver it to the vehicles while in motion. If that was accomplished we could minimize the batteries. This would likely be easier in urban dense populations.

If memory serves the first hybrid that paid for itself was the Ford Fusion. It provides V6 level performance at slightly more than V6 pricing while giving one better MPG than the 4 cycliner. Being Ford is ahead of GM in their technology (Ford has nearly as many patents as Toyota) it'll be interesting to see what their next generation of electric brings.

Did you see the Volvo V60 recently announced for Europe? It's a diesel and electric AWD hybrid. Volvo is claiming up to 60MPG. If you look at the numbers even here electricity adds about 10-15% to the mileage of an engine.

Cost of maintenance will be higher than a comparable traditional car.
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That was my inital thought too. Ford is claiming their hybrids are less costly to maintain. From a mechanical standpoint if you keep an engine running at the same rate it's much easier on the engine. It's something I'm still loosely researching but I suspect the use of more gears (CVT) and electric assist helps take some wear and tear of the engine. I believe they neglect the costly need to replace batteries. That's gotta be close to $4K which one could pay and get a new engine instead.

Hybrids aren't always a bad choice. Since you love VW let's look there. The most fuel efficent and fastest Touareg is the V10 diesel. It's 28MPG diesel and about $79K. If you take the 10-15% range adjusting for extra cost that's 23.8-25.2MPGe. The new VW Touareg hybrid is supposed to get 24MPGe. The cost is estimated to be $47K-$50K. About a second slower 0-60 but assuming a $30K difference ($49K) and using $5/gallon that's like getting 120,000 miles free. There are more wins too as there's likely to be a rebate for the hybrid, the tax is lower, the insurance cost is lower, and fuel is still below $4/gallon.
 
redrumloa said:
Hyper inflation will set in and things like batteyr pack replacement will be exponentially higher.
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There might not be as significant an impact as you might assume. The batteries are expensive largely because they are a) small production numbers, b) they are made of expensive materials.

As more demand increases then production numbers should increase pushing down per unit production costs. However, material costs will increase.

By the time it comes you need to replace your battery packs the value of your dead packs will have increased (they still contain the expensive materials) and the production cost of the new units will have fallen. You would (unless you allowed your mechanic to pocket the whole scrap value of your battery) only be paying the difference between scrap and new price which should shrink over time.
 
You also have to into account that if cars like the Volt take off, then the burden on the electrical system will increase. Electricity will go up and not all electric power plants are green (coal is actually still common in parts of the US). But even green hydro electric plants will want to charge more for electricity and that will likely offset much of the benefits of switching away from oil.
 
Renault all-electric Twizy, just $9,700 at todays exchange rate


Reminds me of a similar car

Fred-Flintstone-Barney-Rubble-Car.jpg



The Flintstone family had everyday modern situations set in prehistoric times. There was no electricity, no internal-combustion engines, and no shoes, but the characters still had all modern conveniences like dishwashers and phonographs. The Flintstones are Obama's green economy dream!

Yabba-Dabba Do!
 
redrumloa said:
metalman said:
Renault all-electric Twizy, just $9,700 at todays exchange rate
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Neat, but here is the show stopper.

Of course, at that price, you still need to lease the battery, but Renault is charging just €45 ($62) a month for that privilege
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$62 a month is about what I have been paying for diesel. FAIL!
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there are going to be some trauma when people have to replace their volt & leaf battery packs in 3yrs (or less), hot weather kills batteries, cold weather reduces capacity, completely draining kills batteries, over charging kills batteries, ....

the $62 monthly rental fee is actually good deal

what you should be thinking about is,

Buy a Twizy $9700 less $7500 tax credit, then reselling the undriven car in a year ...
 
metalman said:
what you should be thinking about is,

Buy a Twizy $9700 less $7500 tax credit, then reselling the undriven car in a year ...
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I'm thinking about buying a Twizy and refusing the battery lease. I'd look to aftermarket and a little ingenuity for a battery solutions. problem is, I seriously doubt they will sell a car at this price without the battery lease.

Your idea is not bad though :hammer:
 
redrumloa said:
Neat, but here is the show stopper.

Of course, at that price, you still need to lease the battery, but Renault is charging just €45 ($62) a month for that privilege
Click to expand...

$62 a month is about what I have been paying for diesel. FAIL!
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"There will apparently be two different versions of the Twizy available, one sporting nine horsepower that can hit a top speed of 28 miles per hour and one with 20 horses that can hit 47 mph"

think of all the money you'll save on speeding tickets!!!

A Segway would be more practical, but it doesn't qualify a a motor vehicle
 
metalman said:
"There will apparently be two different versions of the Twizy available, one sporting nine horsepower that can hit a top speed of 28 miles per hour and one with 20 horses that can hit 47 mph"

think of all the money you'll save on speeding tickets!!!

A Segway would be more practical, but it doesn't qualify a a motor vehicle
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Ouch, I missed this part! I understood it was not highway capable, but 28mph top end? I might as well ride my bicycle. Trying to drive around town down here at 28mph will get you killed in a road rage incident in no time. 47mph is almost practical for daily use, understanding the price matches the limitations.
 
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