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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: dms9 (Oct 07, 2008 3:08 pm) I just wonder if lower gas prices will kill the viability of the Volt, and that will be the end of GM. Or, will they start to sell SUVs again and be able to make some money? |
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| I have thoughts on this original question of will it succeed. Conceptually, the car works well as a commuter car. Imagine driving to work and plugging the car into an outlet at the parking garage or a college campus - great! Stylistically, I love the looks, but would prefer a wagon or hatchback for added utility. It looks like a car ought to look, though, unlike the beloved Prius. Men may like the beefier styling of the concept car, but I think this will appeal to the scorned female consumer, as well as young people keen to accept new technology. Economically, I have a huge problem with it. From the non-enthusiast perspective, there's no way I'd buy any car of any brand at $40K. I'm someone who wants to spend as little as possible on my transportation, and a person shouldn't have to pay through the nose for several years just to save the Earth. The Earth belongs to low and middle-income people, too; Chevrolet is traditionally the poor man's (and woman's) car in that we get reasonable quality at a reasonable price. As a $40K sedan, Volt just doesn't fit that image, as it would surpass Impala as the most expensive Chevy sedan. People these days have to buy what they need, and I personally don't see ENOUGH people buying Volt just to support a cause. | |
| How can it succeed if it cost 40000 or more dollars?????? I hope GM is not counting on sales. | |
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Replying to: irismg (Oct 11, 2008 7:06 am) The Volt is a hatchback. "From the non-enthusiast perspective, there's no way I'd buy any car of any brand at $40K. I'm someone who wants to spend as little as possible on my transportation, and a person shouldn't have to pay through the nose for several years just to save the Earth. The Earth belongs to low and middle-income people, too" Congress has passed a $7500 tax credit on the Volt, it's a done deal. You may pay $40K up front but then you will get a big chunk of it back. I expect early adopter types and well-to-do greenies will quickly snap up the available Volts and those who want cheap will just have to wait until the price comes down, like they did with plasma TVs and Blu-Ray players. "Chevrolet is traditionally the poor man's (and woman's) car in that we get reasonable quality at a reasonable price." For a number of years Chevrolet was the #1 "true luxury" brand... true luxury being defined as a vehicle with an MSRP over $40K. People don't have an aversion to paying $40K for a Chevrolet as long as it's a good one.
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Replying to: eaton53 (Oct 18, 2008 8:28 am) Huh? When? |
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mini ev What I find most interesting here is that there really hasn't been much news about BMW's EV program yet they seem like they'll be the first to have a sizeable test fleet here in the US. You listen to talk from GM and Toyota and they both seem to state that significant engineering hurdles are still left to be cleared before even 40 mile electric range can be offered. The Volt isn't going to be a money maker for GM for quite some time, if ever. IMO they would have been far better off getting it on the road as soon as possible through a very limited number of leases like what BMW plans to do. Or what GM is doing with it's fuel cell Equinox. From a PR perspective it would have been valuable and you'd minimize your liability, After a couple years GM would have gathered a lot of real world data allowing them to work out the initial bugs and have a better sense of the battery pack's longevity before going into full production.
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Replying to: tpe (Oct 20, 2008 9:03 am)
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Replying to: reddroverr (Oct 25, 2008 12:42 pm) |
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GM has to deal with the realities of the market. Can't base your production on thinking the market hasn't changed. I think that's the kind of thing that got GM to this point in the first place 
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Replying to: pf_flyer (Nov 05, 2008 6:10 am) A: It’s clear the thing is going to cost many thousand dollars more than we had hoped for the first generation technology. So what do we do about that? Initially there will be enough demand from rich people, so there won’t be a worry for the first year or two. But if we want to generalize the technology the price has to come down. I agree Q: Assuming the Volt delivers on expectations and is well-received by consumers, what else could derail GM’s efforts? A: Let us say that over the next 18 months the world goes into a major recession, car sales and fuel use drop dramatically, the steel companies produce less steel and therefore use less energy, China finds its main export markets drying up, so they are into a contraction and use less steel and aluminum and plastic. And at the same time Canadian tars sands come on stream, and coal-to-liquids come on stream. All of a sudden there is a reduction in primary demand in petroleum plus all these additional new supply sources, which were started at the time of $140 a barrel, suddenly coming on stream. And oil drops to $25 a barrel and we’re looking at gas pump prices at $1.25 a gallon. I personally don’t think that’s going to happen, but that would be a dramatic event for the Volt because everybody would say, 'Ha! Why should I bother?’ I agree If I recall they were talking about 6k cars in 2010. I guess that makes sense and the production continues into 2011 where they hopefully meet the 50k or whatever the initial targets were. http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/501213 |
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