A Truly Insightful Article about the Volt

GM cars, except for the Corvette, are not seen as prestige vehicles like the overrated German luxury brands are.

The Volt is a Chevy Cruze plug in hybrid that seats only four while the standard, half the price, Cruze can seat five - BIG MISTAKE !!

Those with the $$$$ to buy a Volt and have seriously considered purchasing one must know they would be buying a half baked product and (most) have wisely refused to pull the trigger.

That's the main reason they are not selling like hot cakes.

Another bellyflop for GM. The Volt is dead.

 

Luckily many of those with the $$$$ to by a Volt are smart enough to do some research and draw their own conclusions. There is a reason the average Volt owner's income is 175K.. people that really understand value tend to hang out there. There are, however, many in that range that are all about image, and then the chevy label is a negative.

The political angle is hurting it a lot because it does keep some smart conservatives from considering it not because its not good quality or value, but because the flack they would take for looking at one, let alone owning one. For some, is not worth the "political cost" to be caught looking over the fence.

 

...its one thing that GM hypes it up, that's their job to sell it, but the comments on DOE over-selling I find troubling.

 

With the Volt, got what GM wanted: a taxpayer bailout. Must be nice to play with other peoples' money. As the article pointd out, GM continues to play "politics" with the Volt, how sad. The car really needs to be givened a chance to grow and become firmly established in the public eyes. GM, it seems, does not see it this way.

Hopefully, GM does not pin all of its' hopes on the Volt saving them - that's not going to happen.

DBCassidy

 

The vague & ambiguous statements were presented to stimulate excitement. GM allowed hype to flourish. Unfortunately, that left Volt wide open for the "over promise, under deliver" to play out. Notice how no other automaker does that?

What I find intriguing is how different the opinions are from those who joined into discussion following rollout. They have a perspective quite unlike the people who participated online prior to operational details being available. Each reveal over time resulted in the disenchanted jumping ship. We remember names of those who argued intensely in favor of the design, then changing their tune dramatically after finding out that info wasn't actually correct. No, those names are nothing but a memory from the past.

Some assumptions still continue. There's strong belief battery cost will drop dramatically quickly and that people will consider EV a major purchase priority. What are they basing that upon?

Owners of PHV will grow, each sharing stories of their experiences. That's not hype. That's real-world data from a design with affordability a high priority... the same success factor attributed with strong sales from previous generations.

And think what will happen for Prius when battery-cost finally does drop. The PHV model will thrive. The simplicity of +75 MPG from just plugging in each evening is a easy sell with a sticker-price at the mainstream level. We could see the introduction of a high-capacity option as well. How will Volt attract interest, especially if we see Ford's plug-in competing directly with Toyota's?

 

The difference betweenot Toyota and GM: Toyota - long term planning, execution, and vision.GM - all short term. Has GM really changed?

Imho, it has not.

DBCassidy

 

I prefer the simplicity of 150 mpg from simply plugging in each night

Yes, GM marketing is their own worst enemy. I was one of those very skeptical people early on.
I laughed at GMs 230mpg claim as unrealistic and misleading hype (even though I knew the were using the current EPA test rating system).
And when it actually came out, I looked at the updated EPA data and the real world results. I made careful calculations of our driving patterns and calculations of how much less gasoline we would actually use.
For our driving patterns, the Volt uses less gasoline than any other non EV.

The amount of politicising of the Volt is going down over time as more people get to actually look into it. One of the more substantial groups buying Volts are actually conservatives that want to cut our dependence on foreign oil imports.
I am hoping the political aspect of the Volt will fade even quicker once the election is over.

However, with the 10% increased (EV) range in the 2013 model, I don't see a continued improvement all that difficult to accept.

 

Agreed, that is why Toyota got such a head start with the Prius and cleaned GM's clock with it.
GM only agreed to go ahead with the Volt when Tesla also 'showed them up'. If they had stated a decade ago, they could be much further ahead.
Personally, I love all the ar companies, as competition is good for you, and me, and all the other consumers. Likewise, choices are good. As each persons needs and wants in a vehicle can be different.

 

really, every mfg. got dragged to the table kicking and screaming. no one believed the prius would find so many happy customers. even honda, with their original insight, didn't have the vision.