The Chevy Volt

[The T]

Toyota Prius is still the most popular selling electric vehicle & they still lose money on every one they sell.

The Prius is actually a hybrid, not an electric. The Prius plug-in hybrid is a genuine electric (battery-powered) that is called a "hybrid" because it has a gas motor for backup when it runs out of juice somewhere.That's the difference between a "plug-in hybrid" and a plain "hybrid." I don't have any stats on the profitability of either car. You might want to present some to back up your statement.

Hybrid...Hmmm maybe YOU should look into the word, eh?

 

[Dragon]

I'm not the one who made the claim.

 

[hortysir]

The figures are absurd and unsubstantiated. You really think it makes sense that the Volt really costs $250,000?

Care to back up your claim that it doesn't?

Can't wait to hear your prowess on R&D and it's dilution through sales volume.

His is an example of one who is so ready to debunk a premise or a theory without putting any thought into it.

My only doubt about the article is the amont of cars sold....I dont know the number...but I have personally never had the opportunity to see one on the road...and I drive about 20K miles a year and live in the NYC tri state area.

But that being siad...if they only sold 6000...then there is no doubt that the manufacturer right now is seeing a cost in the quarter million dollar range...if not more....and sadly, we are 26% of the manufacturer.....and added billions of grants as well.

Granted this is dated October, but:

General Motors has repeatedly claimed a sales target for 2011 of 10,000 units for the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt sedan. But, nine months into the year, they’ve only shipped 3,895 off the lot. In fact, in September sales numbers, released an hour ago, GM sold only 723 Volts. Will GM fail to meet its own sales predictions?

 

[hortysir]

*edit*
LINK:

Chevy Volt Sales Fall Short | Autopia | Wired.com

 

[The T]

Care to back up your claim that it doesn't?

Can't wait to hear your prowess on R&D and it's dilution through sales volume.

His is an example of one who is so ready to debunk a premise or a theory without putting any thought into it.

My only doubt about the article is the amont of cars sold....I dont know the number...but I have personally never had the opportunity to see one on the road...and I drive about 20K miles a year and live in the NYC tri state area.

But that being siad...if they only sold 6000...then there is no doubt that the manufacturer right now is seeing a cost in the quarter million dollar range...if not more....and sadly, we are 26% of the manufacturer.....and added billions of grants as well.

Granted this is dated October, but:

General Motors has repeatedly claimed a sales target for 2011 of 10,000 units for the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt sedan. But, nine months into the year, they’ve only shipped 3,895 off the lot. In fact, in September sales numbers, released an hour ago, GM sold only 723 Volts. Will GM fail to meet its own sales predictions?

It's a dud. Just ask those that had to suffer from fires while charging the damned pieces of shit.

 

[Inthemiddle]

sure it does, becasue if you were a business man, you'd realize that capital costs, all expenses, marketing, etc. etc. all count when you roll out the product. did you know that GM used roughly 500 million to 750 million to retool a line to mass produce the volt?

More unsubstantiated figures......

 

[hortysir]

sure it does, becasue if you were a business man, you'd realize that capital costs, all expenses, marketing, etc. etc. all count when you roll out the product. did you know that GM used roughly 500 million to 750 million to retool a line to mass produce the volt?

More unsubstantiated figures......

GM took $50-Billion in bailout money and a $14-Billion loan to re-tool its plants. The Energy Department doled out $240-Million in grants to help the technology intended to wean drivers off the petroleum addiction.

Read more: Chevy Volt, Electric Revolution? Or Outta Gas? « Liveshots
​

 

[Charles_Main]

From blog.american.com. I hear these cars don't do very well in the cold winer months.


Now that’s an expensive car
By Kenneth P. Green

December 21, 2011, 3:38 pm I’ve written before about the insanity that is the GM Volt, but even I am surprised at what the good people at the Mackinac Center found out when they totalled up all the various subsidies that the federal government has thrown into producing the Volt (not including the public’s 26 percent stake in the company). Hold on to your hats:

Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

When you throw in subsidies to the battery manufacturers, the subsidy goes up to $256,824 for each of the roughly 6,000 Volts that have been sold.

Adding insult to injury, those subsidies are mostly going to the fairly well-off: “According to GM CEO Dan Akerson, the average Volt owner makes $170,000 per year.”

And I thought that the EV1 was outrageous. Obviously, rent-seekers have become more efficient over time, even if their technology hasn’t.

Cars like this are at best a Nitch Item. Nobody who lives outside large Cities, or in areas with Harsh winters, is ever going to count on a short Ranged Electric Car for their Main Transportation.

Not to mention the Fact that as of right now, when you plug in that so called Eco friendly Car, you are plugging in to a grid that is powered by 80% Coal Fired Power Plants. So in effect you are not trading a Gas Burner for a clean Electric, you are trading a gas Burner for a Coal Burner.

 

[RDD_1210]

I heard the Ford Model A was perfect when it rolled off the line. Completely equivalent to todays cars. Good thing it wasn't flawed technology, otherwise the automobile would have never made it to where it is today.

Good thing none of you electric car haters are short sighted in the least bit.

 

[Steelplate]

From blog.american.com. I hear these cars don't do very well in the cold winer months.


Now that’s an expensive car
By Kenneth P. Green

December 21, 2011, 3:38 pm I’ve written before about the insanity that is the GM Volt, but even I am surprised at what the good people at the Mackinac Center found out when they totalled up all the various subsidies that the federal government has thrown into producing the Volt (not including the public’s 26 percent stake in the company). Hold on to your hats:

Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

When you throw in subsidies to the battery manufacturers, the subsidy goes up to $256,824 for each of the roughly 6,000 Volts that have been sold.

Adding insult to injury, those subsidies are mostly going to the fairly well-off: “According to GM CEO Dan Akerson, the average Volt owner makes $170,000 per year.”

And I thought that the EV1 was outrageous. Obviously, rent-seekers have become more efficient over time, even if their technology hasn’t.

Cars like this are at best a Nitch Item. Nobody who lives outside large Cities, or in areas with Harsh winters, is ever going to count on a short Ranged Electric Car for their Main Transportation.

Not to mention the Fact that as of right now, when you plug in that so called Eco friendly Car, you are plugging in to a grid that is powered by 80% Coal Fired Power Plants. So in effect you are not trading a Gas Burner for a clean Electric, you are trading a gas Burner for a Coal Burner.

You do realize you can drive a volt for as long as you have gas in the tank, right? Only the first 40 miles are from your receptacle. It has a small 4 cyl engine in it that acts as a generator and keeps the batteries charged at 20% to run the electric motor.

The rest of your post? you have a point... a minor one, but valid.

 

[Unkotare]

I didn't read all the posts. Did anyone manage to explain economies of scale to the enviro-lefties?

 

[Navy1960]

Even if all of the complaints about the Volt were valid, no matter how hyperbolic some of them are, the Volt would still be only one of the following electric cars and plug-in hybrids on the market:

Nissan Leaf
Fiat 500 EV
Ford Focus Electric
Ford C-Max Energi
Mitsubishi i-MiEV
Toyota Prius plug-in
Toyota RAV4 EV
Honda Fit EV
Smart Fortwo ED
Tesla Model S
BMW i3
BMW i8
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG E-Cell
Volkswagen Golf Blue-e-motion

Sources: Electric Cars In 2012 And 2013, List of 2012 Electric Cars | Autobytel.com

If this thread and others about the Volt are intended simply to whine about GM's mismanagement or introduction of a bad product, all that's irrelevant. But if the intention is to put down electric cars in general, well, you've got a fail.

You are full of crap! Toyota Prius is still the most popular selling electric vehicle & they still lose money on every one they sell.

The Nikkei report said that Toyota appears to have earned gross profits of around ¥100 billion yen (US$1 billion) on its sales of second-generation Prius hybrids last year.

Toyota’s gross profit margin on the sales of the next-generation 2010 Prius are projected to be in the single digits in the first year."

While many of those nations mentioned in this thread have been accused a time or two of dumping products at a loss in an effort to gain market share, China being an expert at such tactics. The Toyota Prius does not earn a huge profit per car thats true but it does not lose money.

Whenever somebody congratulates Volt for winning multiple car of the year awards, they should remind themselves that those same award-giving bodies passed over the original Prius hybrid in 2001 in favor of the PT Cruiser. Toyota has gone on to sell two million Priuses, the most revolutionary car of the last 75 years; the Cruiser, a novelty car with no technological pretensions, has since gone out of production.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/27/autos/prius_plugin_volt.fortune/index.htm

My feelings are that to simply dismiss these EV car's because someone happens to disagree with the current political party that happens to favor them, is to not understand that these kinds of cars have begun to establish themselves and do have a place in the market. On a personal level I would rather that car be an American car rather than a Japanese or Chinese made one, which if we as a nation keep denegrating our own industries and technology will soon find ourselves only able to purchase technology from those nations much to the peril of of our own. The Chevy Volt , while maybe not the best of the new pack, it represents a good start, and more than a few of these cars are on their way. Among them the new Ford Focus EV which will have much better performance than the Volt.

 

[Jarhead]

I heard the Ford Model A was perfect when it rolled off the line. Completely equivalent to todays cars. Good thing it wasn't flawed technology, otherwise the automobile would have never made it to where it is today.

Good thing none of you electric car haters are short sighted in the least bit.

You are WAY too good for that post RDD.....

If company A is manufacturing a version of product X
And company B is manufacturing a version of product X

And company A is selliung and company B is not...

And both companies have been in business for years and on top of technology.

The issue is not that company B is slowly fine tuning to reach perfection.

The issue is that company B failed with the venture.

By the time they perfect like company A did, it will be too late. The market will be sturated and they better be working on even a BETTER model.....but, of course, caompany A was already doing that becuase they had perfected the first model.

Yours was a happy spin of a sad business failure.

 

[RDD_1210]

I heard the Ford Model A was perfect when it rolled off the line. Completely equivalent to todays cars. Good thing it wasn't flawed technology, otherwise the automobile would have never made it to where it is today.

Good thing none of you electric car haters are short sighted in the least bit.

You are WAY too good for that post RDD.....

If company A is manufacturing a version of product X
And company B is manufacturing a version of product X

And company A is selliung and company B is not...

And both companies have been in business for years and on top of technology.

The issue is not that company B is slowly fine tuning to reach perfection.

The issue is that company B failed with the venture.

By the time they perfect like company A did, it will be too late. The market will be sturated and they better be working on even a BETTER model.....but, of course, caompany A was already doing that becuase they had perfected the first model.

Yours was a happy spin of a sad business failure.

So people have a problem with the volt specifically and not the idea of electric cars? If so I stand corrected, but I have my doubts.