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Hybrid Vehicles Chevrolet Volt Will the Chevy Volt Succeed?
545 messages, Last post on Dec 02, 2009 at 12:57 PM
You are in the Chevrolet Volt Forum. Your Host is pf_flyer
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Replying to: 2doorpost (Sep 19, 2008 6:14 am) Following Hollywood's lead is elitist to me. College is the equivalent of 4 new car payments a month expense for the next 86 months for me. About $100 a month of that comes back through Bush's tax credits for tuition. I can't sell my house in a dead ex-GM town. My last vehicle purchase was a '99 GMC pickup for $2500 that gets 26.5 mpg on the hwy and 24 mpg city. Squeezing 123% of EPA out of a recycled vehicle is my non-elitist approach. GM doesn't need to put a Volt out there to secure my future business. |
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Wow- that Steven Colbert interview with Bob Lutz made Lutz look like a dottering old fool. He was stammering, wasn't witty, and didn't seem to have the quick tag lines down about the car. He could have done so much better. GM should have sent one of their younger marketing guys. What is this guy doing leading GM? |
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Replying to: coontie66 (Sep 19, 2008 7:51 am) 1984? The pinnacle year for GMs crappy phase- But name me a homerun that actually happened since? OK, I'll give you the Aztec. This could be that homerun. Get the technology set and run with it. You can't shout it from the mountaintop until you've climbed it.
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The Volt is GMs 9th try at a practical EV type vehicle. The last was the S10 PU EV that was scrapped the same time as the much more publicized EV-1. All seemed to die of high cost. Will that be the fate of the VOLT? http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/autos/0809/gallery.gm_electric_cars/8.html
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Replying to: gagrice (Sep 20, 2008 11:25 am) |
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Toyota came out with the Prius in '99, back when GM/Ford/Chrysler laughed at them for doing so. "Gas is cheap, use all you want, take showers in it if you want...etc." said the Detroit big 3. "Buy huge monster vehicles..." I remember reading the market evaluations. You've got to admire Toyota's foresight. And Honda, too. Their Insight that they are bringing back will sell for $20,000, a bargain for a serious hybrid. Now we are here debating whether or not the Volt will make it. The fact that GM has said the Volt will sell for about $40,000 means the market will buy 2 Honda Insights instead of only 1 Volt for the same money.
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Replying to: larsb (Sep 18, 2008 10:37 am) " Typical generalization. Incorrect again. They did not lease all 200 of them to celebs or to moguls." From news reports, I had 600 as the total for the project and your point is certainly well made, Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest would hardly qualify as celebrities. The primary criteria I saw, since you didn't mention it was access to a pumping station. I wish GM every success with the Volt. Though I love the idea of fuel cell, if it requires natural gas and platinum as a catalyst, the economics aren't really there. Green yah, energy efficient, nein. Good post btw G. |
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Replying to: coldcranker (Sep 20, 2008 5:32 pm) "Now we are here debating whether or not the Volt will make it. The fact that GM has said the Volt will sell for about $40,000 means the market will buy 2 Honda Insights instead of only 1 Volt for the same money ". The actuality is unknown since it is not on the near horizon. But global slowdown tends to depress all prices. Per Wikipedia, : " At the time of unveiling, the Volt project had been in existence for less than a year. The Volt was targeted to cost around US$30,000. As of April 2008, General Motors Vice Chairman of Global Product Development Robert Lutz was quoted as saying that the realistic unsubsidised price had risen to US$48,000[52][53], that he reckoned that US$40,000 might be possible, without making any profit, and that only government tax incentives could take the price tag nearer to US$30,000. When asked directly about the price later, Lutz indicated that this was a misquote - and said "The answer is that we don’t know."[54] As of August 2008, General Motors Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner was quoted saying that the price of the Volt would likely be in "the mid to high 30's", suggesting a price of more than US$5,000 more than originally targeted. " I do not argue your ultimate cost for a Volt except to say, the final cost is not known and that GM has finally,or so it appears, gotten it's head OOIA ( out).
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Replying to: duke23 (Sep 20, 2008 6:34 pm) For the past 10 years, couldn't GM have warmed up to this Volt concept by providing a Chevy Malibu with a tiny 1.0L engine up front, with an electric motor driving the back wheels to fill in the transient torque demands, similar to the Nissn Cube's e-AWD -- click here for info on that. That kind of vehicle would get great MPG. The problem with 1.0L engines are that they don't produce enough torque for acceleration or going up hill, and an electronically controlled rear electric motor with some Prius-style NiMH batteries would allow the engine to be lightly loaded up front, making it possible. The separation of a small IC-engine up front (like normal front wheel drive now) and an independent electric motor driving the back wheels would allow modular engineering that makes sense. Weight distribution on a Malibu like that would be 50-50 as well, helping handling and providing AWD traction when needed.
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Replying to: coldcranker (Sep 21, 2008 6:03 pm) The Volt is badly needed, overpriced and overdue and improperly executed and poorly marketed? Why can't they copy Nissan? You just fired a few thousand workers at GM for poor performance. I'm glad your not my boss. 500,000 US auto workers have recently lost their jobs. It probably took 50 million foreign car sales to make that happen. The benefit of 100 people enjoying the excellence of a foreign car for every displaced American worker isn't bad. Lets finish the job because there is still some fool at GM that still thinks they can do this car thing. Today's news: Japan to buy JP Morgan for pennies on the dollar. Lets keep bashing our own country. I like where we have been headed lately and you are still not my boss.
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