VIA Motors open factory

This is a tough one, a grand total of 2 vehicles per hour? Can do that in the garage!
You know, Bob Lutz is also working on something else too: Bob Lutz on VL Automotive Destino - YouTube

 

My guess is utilities, government and commercial fleets.

 

The company founders long term goals might be to simple prove the concept has sales potential, and then hope one of the big guys buys them out. Manufacturing these PHVs along the line with petrol and diesel models will help with the price.

 

Indeed. Car manufacturers have excellent efficiency in their assembly lines. It's better to move the drivetrain to the glider than the other way round.

 

This configuration appears to be the same as the Fisker Karma . . . namely, no direct connection between the drive line and the ICE - so that all power delivered from the ICE in charge sustain mode has to be converted to electricity first. IIRC, that's part of the results for the somewhat low EPA mpg's for the Karma in CS mode.
$80,000 price tag? (ok, $79,000 in volume ... whoops then theres that nasty sales tax) Getting that price tag into 'volume' production will be a bit of a tough row to hoe. I mean, the Mitsubishi Outlander PlugIn SUV is available already in several parts of the world. US delivery/pricing expected to be in the mid $40K range - in about a year.
Hints about Pricing and MPG for Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in Hybrid | PluginCars.com
Should I wait a year? Or buy a part GM product / part Mexico product. I can see the finger pointing at each other already, if you have a warranty claim. I think I'll wait, for now
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The Outlander will be a better deal, if it meets your requirements. Of course, the Via website is short on towing and payload details. So there might not be an actual advantage there.

The Via trucks' real competitors are going to be diesels. Nissan and Dodge are coming out with a diesel offering in the 1500 class pick ups soon. Chances are they'll have the payload and towing advantage for those that need a truck, and the price difference will pay for a lot of fuel.

 

It's only electric for the first 40 miles. Isn't this more like a plug-in hybrid?

 

of course it is. Somehow GM marketing gurus think its more cool to call it a range extender or Range extended electric vehicle. Its like the Volt branding. I think it's insulting to volt owners to think they can't tell the difference between there plug-in hybrid and a true electric vehicle. But that's just me I suppose.
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It's to distinguish it from the blended plug ins, and is no different than slapping a full, mild, or assist term before hybrid.

 

I don't think ever is insulting to volt buyers. Its to distinguish the car from something blended like the prius phv, where accelerating in a normal texas fashion will be electric in an ever phev, but turn on the ice in a blended phev.

Now this via thing, most of the corporate customers will use this only in electric mode, no problem. The problem is trying to roll the thing out to the general pick up market. It seems that the price is quite high, and I don't think many gm truck owners will trust the via waranty, as it looks like a fly by night. Tesla grew its reputation by selling the low volume roadster for years. I can't see this thing has much legs longer than the roadster, and I doubt truck buyers will see this via modification as cool as many roadster buyers did. That means market is probably limited to just companies like pg&e that want good press about using less oil.

 

And the crash testing is done.
Via Motors Range-Extended Electric Cargo Van Completes Crash Testing

 

Bob Lutz Takes Over As Chairman At VIA Motors

 

Wow, I wonder if KIA will be suing VIA for using this name, sure will confuse the public.

 

yuk . . . how desperate must a company be to find that fossil of a by-gone era, to still be relevant.
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His job is to make deals with these corporations that want to get green pr and to deal with the government for favors. Lutz is probably good at that. As a business model via is a stinker. There is no real demand at the start, simply a niche where you can grab government money, and sell to companies that want to get pr. They may be able to do these conversions for awhile as long as they have enough cash it should be profitable. But say they improve the thing to actually be desirable as a truck and not just green pr, there is no moat. It doesn't sound like via has better phev engineering talent that is better than the big truck makers (Ford, GM, Fiat, Toyota). Which means one of them can easily copy anything sucessful 2 years later and build it cheaper, with a dealer network, financiang, etc. Via would have to overcome all these obstacles Tesla has, but in a much more competitive niche to start. No via probably knew what it was doing with Lutz. Anything he says gets pr, and they likely want to be a conversion house, not a truck maker. The best profitable out for investors, is after a couple of years of conversion they may have good ideas on how to make a better phev truck, and that may be valuable enough intellectual property for gm to buy them for patents, etc.