GM Suspends Chevy Volt Production after Poor Sales

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
GM has made the decision to suspend the production of its controversial Chevy Volt due to increasing inventory stockpiles and slow sales figures. Production is set to resume in late April.

"Although we loaded the Volt with state-of-the-art safety features," Akerson explained, "we did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag. And that, sadly, is what it's become."
Click to expand...
 
Even with the tax credits/breaks, too expensive IMO. With the economy still in the crapper (don't let our fabulous government tell you otherwise), most people just are not willing to shell out the bucks for this.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Even with the tax credits/breaks, too expensive IMO. With the economy still in the crapper (don't let our fabulous government tell you otherwise), most people just are not willing to shell out the bucks for this.
Click to expand...

Even if it were $5000 I wouldn't buy this.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Even with the tax credits/breaks, too expensive IMO. With the economy still in the crapper (don't let our fabulous government tell you otherwise), most people just are not willing to shell out the bucks for this.
Click to expand...

Yup. It is simply too damn expensive. It isn't that it is a "political punching bag". The car costs too much for anyone to be interested in it, who cares about fuel economy.
 
Cost to much, get a Prius for $15000 less! Don't laugh I love my Prius, with $4.50 a gallon and going up everyday, I like my 50 MPG!
 
Its really too bad, just poorly timed roll out, if gas prices were still roaring (psst they will be again soon enough) and the recession, its kind of a double punch in nuts for the Volt. Yes the car is expensive, but a lot of R&D went into it. We have to start somewhere and id say the Volt is a great start, they will get cheaper in the coming years
 
Why don't they just start building the General Motors EV1 again...never understood why they shelved that in the first place.
 
Honestly, the car costs way too much. If they made it about the same price as a Prius it would probably be a decent seller. Unfortunately, as with most hybrids (unless you buy used) the price premium just isn't worth paying. You'd have to keep the car forever to recoup the cost via gas savings.
 
The battery simply isn't worth the price premium. You can get a cruz based on the same compact delta platform and gets 40 mpg for a lot less. you'd have to keep the volt for over 10 years to make up for the price premium. It's as simple as that.
 
Shitty implementation with a disgusting price tag.

GM should have ganked the 4 cylinder to run the generator and put a 1 or 2 cylinder diesel in its place. Hell, it's a generator, so it could be spun around by a lawn tractor gas engine just fine. Would have cut fuel consumption exponentially and been a little cheaper to produce.
 
Yeah, the problem is that Chevy still thinks big, and fails to realize that efficiency works best in small packages. They wanted a commuter car, but failed to realize many round trip commutes from suburbs to cities now exceed the 35mile range of the electric part of the Volt. Especially when Nissan has an all electric car with 100 miles range, and for around $10k less.

Not to mention when they were talking price they showed this....
chevy-volt-electric-car-2367.jpg


... then did the ol' switcheroo and gave us this
chevy-volt.jpg


people might have have paid a premium for a slick sports car ala the Tesla Roadster, but not for a Chevy Malibu.
 
I don't understand why American people don't like this car. I mean it only requires you to drive at like 125 years and you can coup your savings from gas! But seriously, who wants a $50K hybrid car? Yet, another "green" stuff from the green administration! Just like Solyndra, they all go belly up way sooner than expected. Stimulus anyone?
 
^ That kind of thing repeated over and over again throughout the years is exactly what led GM to the Governments doorstep begging for a handout.
 
the volt just hit at a bad time. it really is a step forward and that comes with it's own issues. higher cost and no set infrastructure to support the technology. There is also no one set path for cars in the future like there has been for the last 100 years, that being internal combustion. Right now you've got gas and diesel, hybrid mostly internal combustion, hybrid mostly electric, full electric and hydrogen and natural gas. That's a lot of different paths, without being able to show that the technology will be future proof it's hard to get people behind it.
People are scared of full electric and mostly electric hybruids because of the hype around battery cost and range on those batteries. This car has been thrown into the political ring, there is no denying it. People have their various reasons as to why. Most of them are crap, some are valid.
To people who say they don't care about mpg, get over yourself. At the very least you should want to conserve fossil fuels because they are such a great source of energy. But as the oil companies have told us, there is enough oil in the US for another whole 100 years. Wow a whole 100 years. It's laughable to see people not care about using up these resources and extending their life through developing technology. Oil will always be needed as long as it is available because it is such a potent stored form of energy. Nobody can deny that. Wanting to use it up just to spite people who are labeled green is just short sighted.
this coming from an owner of a restored muscle car.
It really is sad to see this technology struggle. The R&D involved will hopefully spawn cheaper production as time goes on. In the volt and other newer models. We need these cars to succeed so that we don't trap ourselves.
I also predict a similar struggle with the new models of hydrogen powered cars. There are so many rumors surrounding these cars. People are always apprehensive towards a new technology, we don't need mass hype against these things or we're just going to sit idle.
I think they need to develop a few standards. the first being a standard cell unit, that is quick disconntect capable. They need to set up the infrastructure at current gas stations to be able to change these in a matter of munutes through a streamlined process. It could be similar to having yout oil changed. a tech in a sunken work bay removes a panel and a quick disconnect and then drops out the cell unit, the tech then replaces the unit with a freshly charged one. you are back on the road with fully charged cells in around 10 minutes instead of the 8+ hours it currently takes.
second standard is equiping current gas stations with hydrogen fill stations, with a standard fill connector.
Hopefully the R&D will advance and we'll see cheaper versions of alternative powered cars and development of cell and hybrid technology. We really need for these ideas to succeed and spawn better ideas and cheaper more fuel efficient vehicles.
 
My commute is 50 miles each way, so the Volt doesn't help me out that much. Hybrids and electric cars are still too much money compared to their gas counterparts. Yes, you pay less at the pump. I paid less at the dealer. I looked at getting a Ford Fusion hybrid. The hybrid was 8-10k over the similarly spec'd i4 version. That would take me 10 years to make up the sales price.

I am all for more efficient cars...but they have to make sense in the market first. I am tired of the government pushing these cars that nobody wants.
 
There is nothing more here then it cost too much. If you are making enough extra cash to buy a 40k family sedan instead of a 25k family sedan then you don't give a flying fuck about fuel costs.
 
This was a long time coming, so no surprise. Just waiting to hear that the car has been canned entirely on the production line.
 
txaggies07 said:
... I am tired of the government pushing these cars that nobody wants.
Click to expand...

I think you hit the proverbial nail right on the head. Instead of the government trying to decide what is best, how about let the people decide with their hard earned money. If the people like it, they will buy it. If the people do not like it, well, they won't buy it. No amount of our taxpayer dollars propping up an expensive, lackluster product will make the people like it any better.
 
Wow there are more close minded folks on here than I thought. Lets keep the big picture in mind here kids. WE HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE
 
This is for all those conspiracy nutjobs that run around claiming the oil industry killed off the guys that were going to invent the electric car. The truth is and always has been, NOBODY WANTS ONE! At least not one that can only run 40 miles on a 8 hour charge. Now when they make these where theyll run a couple hundred miles and can charge up off a standard 120V outlet in about 5 minutes and can bring it to market for at a good price, thatll be when theyll be more practical and people will want them.

I have no doubt that eventually technology will come up with an answer, but youve gotta let technology run its course and you cant "force" innovation.

At the end of the day, I dont think electric cars will be the final answer because yeah they dont run on gas but theyre charged up by power plants that run off coal, dams or nuclear power. Not to mention all the crap it takes to manufacture all the batteries. You get millions of these things running around and I wonder how much less an environmental impact these things will have than their gas burner counterparts if at all.
 
MacLeod said:
and can charge up off a standard 120V outlet in about 5 minutes

I have no doubt that eventually technology will come up with an answer, but youve gotta let technology run its course and you cant "force" innovation.
Click to expand...
The laws of physics... and physical limitations of 120V wiring, says you are wrong... WAY fucking wrong.
 
Once again, the free market determines winners and losers better that the federal government.:D
 
I heard Clark Howard say that the volt was being out sold buy the chevy cruze which get nearly the same mpg w/o the $40,000 price tag. So the cruze help to doom the volt. Talk about eating your siblings.
 
I was going to, and still would buy one if it was priced better...

My daily commute is less than its electric range so I should save money, BUT price tag negates any advantage... Too bad.
 
Many of the people that have sought alternatively fueled cars swore off Detroit, years ago.
 
The reasons it failed?
1) not really that economical or green
2) too expensive
3) its "killer feature" (being electric) doesn't work for most people because its range is too low
4) to some extent, yes, it became a political punching bag. But for good reason. The US gov't blew $30-50 BILLION to "save" GM, subverting normal bankruptcy law in order to pay off the UAW. That was after Cash for Clunkers. And then the gov't threw another $7,500 in rebates at each car. And it *still* failed. That's an awful lot of government intervention for zero economic benefit to the country.
 
People are too busy driving around their egos and additionally, this is too expensive. They overestimated the number of people who thought this would be cool/interesting.
 
psyclist said:
Wow there are more close minded folks on here than I thought. Lets keep the big picture in mind here kids. WE HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE
Click to expand...

Yeah over at nissan for a superior product at a lower price. This sounds exactly why GM went broke the first time...they produced over priced crap no one wanted.
 
The reason it failed was several fold. The first was due to a change in design intent and it was completely reengineered. The second was the fact that the government had a stake in it as an alternative fuel vehicle and pushed their gaiaist crap on the public by subsidizing its sales to entice people to buy, the third was that even though it was largely subsidized, it was still to expensive for the average person, the fourth was that it's range was to limiting.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top