Even as it heads for Chapter 11, GM isn’t giving up its plug-in hybrid Hail Mary electric – gas Chevrolet Volt without a fight. (If at all.) Turning its back on their number one fanboy, Dr. Lyle Dennis, GM PR, has blessed CNNMoney Senior Shill—I mean auto writer Peter Valdez-Depena with a drive in their Volt test mule. The bottom line: it moves. As for everything else—range, recharge time, “charge sustaining mode,” etc.—all we get is regurgitated prevarication and promises. Or, more musically, smoke gets in your mirrors. “The guts of the car were about 80% those of the final Chevy Volt, according to Vehicle Line Executive Frank Weber.” Did Depena even look under the hood? I would imagine not, as he took everything he was told on faith and neglected to mention the fact that “old” GM will never build this machine. So, children, what did we learn today?
The Volt’s electric motor is sized to provide performance comparable to a 250-horsepower V6, said Posawatz, and that seemed about right . . .
The first time I drove the front wheel drive test vehicle into a turn, the weight came as a surprise. It felt almost like the small Cruze had turned into something more like a Cadillac the moment I turned the steering wheel.
A lot can be done with suspension tuning, though, GM’s Posowatz assured me. The benefit of the battery pack is that it puts the weight low in the car. That will give the Volt a lower center of gravity, which will help it feel more stable in turns.
It will still be heavier than other cars its size, though. Nothing’s going to change that. But better-tuned suspension and different wheels and tires should help.
Just not yet. Hang on. Is CNNMoney’s car guy calling Caddies whales? Way to bring your A-game, Pete. In fact, CNNMoney ends its exclusive with the most nauseating example of “sales pitch as journalism” I’ve seen since I struggled though the May edition of Car and Driver.
Next-generation Voltec cars—that means cars planned for 2015 and beyond—will be lighter, roomier and will cost less than the Volt.
While GM hasn’t said, officially, what the Volt will cost, it also hasn’t batted aside the common prediction that it will cost about $40,000. Buyers should be eligible for a $7,500 tax credit, so the real cost for most people will be about $32,500.
So, even factoring in the tax incentive, that puts the Volt in the range of an entry-level luxury car. It will certainly be the most expensive Chevrolet you can buy this side of a Corvette or a top-of-the-line Camaro.
Depending on driving habits and, of course, gas prices, fuel savings could easily make up that cost difference. Unlike a typical hybrid car, a Volt owner could potentially cut gasoline almost entirely out of the budget.
High gas prices would also drive up resale values on a car like the Volt, assuming the car proves to be dependable. (GM quality has improved greatly in recent years, so that’s far from a crazy assumption.)
In the end, the Volt won’t be a huge seller or a big money-maker for GM. Its value lies in changing perceptions. A test drive in this early version is one step in the process.
I just threw up a little in my mouth.
I played it twice and still didn’t get a price on this baby. Do people think this will be affordable? Note the 40 K price when 48K has been mentioned before. And I love the qualifier “should” for the tax credit eligibility. Unless you don’t qualify or Congress decides to retire it.
Since the Volt does not pass the “viability” test, I can only assume that the government will move it into the “bad GM” basket.
“Irony! Table for one!”
For some reason a classic Dave Barry column came to mind:
Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, “Part of this complete breakfast”. The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they’ll show a commercial for a children’s compressed breakfast compound such as “Froot Loops” or “Lucky Charms”, and they always show it sitting on a table next to some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer always says: “Part of this complete breakfast”.
Doesn’t that really mean, “Adjacent to this complete breakfast”, or “On the same table as this complete breakfast”? And couldn’t they make essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or a dead bat?
Answer: Yes.
Unlike a typical hybrid car, a Volt owner could potentially cut gasoline almost entirely out of the budget.
Except for the Cobalt or Malibu the owner will need to keep on standby for when the cordless is on the charger and your injured kid needs to go to the ER.
“Fuel savings could easily make up the difference”
Really? The difference between what other vehicle in this price range – a pickup with dualies?
The fuel saving will definitely not make up the price difference between the Volt and other cars in its [economy car] class.
It seems a little odd that it pushes like a Toronado, since one ‘advantage’ of the battery pack is supposed to be the way it lowers the vehicle’s center of gravity.
That 250 HP ‘feel’ is really only about 170 HP, depending on whose specs you believe. What he feels is torque, which electric motors excel at.
And here’s a guess: the Volt performs terribly when in gas-electric mode, since the gas engine is only about 50 HP. Uh, wouldn’t a 50 HP conventional car get about 50 MPG and be a lot cheaper and faster?
hahahaha… Nothing like a bit of Dave Barry to cheer me up!
Old Guy Ben: or like when someone I know insists on a particular brand of motor oil because it says “no other motor oil provides better protection.” Well, duh, no other motor oil provides WORSE protection either.
John
Or when Chrysler advertises “the highest quality cars in our history” – must mean post DaimlerChrysler.
And this is only the beginning. Now that The White House runs the operation, the Government Motors-Media complex will work in unholy alliance to provide an unfair PR advantage that those car companies not bestowed with government largess will come to loathe.
If I were Ford (or Toyohondissan) I’d be gearing up my PR and legal teams, ’cause guar-an-teed GovMo and their media shills will play dirty to ensure they succeed in the PR wars at the expense of all those other car companies that didn’t take government money. That’s how the game will be played, no question. Let your imagination run wild on this one….it’ll all happen.
Nope, all this free PR / “advertising” doesn’t even begin to cover the huge media advantage GovMo will have in coordination with the MSM and the White House. Let’s call it what it is – propaganda. Blurring the lines between propaganda and advertising, these “propamercials” will become MSM staples, and you won’t have to stay up past 2am to see them either.
So suspend all disbelief and hold on to your Snuggies (and your gag reflex) as you veg on the couch, folks. The auto PR biz is going to get more cutthroat than you’ve ever seen it.
Yeah, this whole Volt thing has never made any sense to me –
From GM’s Volt Website
http://gm-volt.com/chevy-volt-faqs/
Q: How many miles per gallon will the Chevy Volt get?
A: A bit of a trick question. For the first 40 miles it will get infinite mpg, because no gas will be burned. When the generator starts, the car will get an equivalent of 50 mpg thereafter.
As has been pointed out above, the Volt is sure a Rube Goldberg device way of getting 50 MPG…. Oh sure it’s a little better because of the whole 1st 40 mile bit, but claiming that it will be cost effective is a little shaky.
Particularly when you start doing the math on the 40 mile daily drive bit…. It’s all about the averages, and remember with one foot in ice water, and one fire in a fire, on average you’re comfortable.
Anyhow here’s their logic: The average driver in the U.S. does 15k miles a year.
15K / 365 days = 41.10 miles a day.
So, on average, you’re a 1.10 miles a day short. Except when you go to Grandma’s or go grocery shopping or drive thru Starbucks. – Or when you use the heat or A/C. – Or when the weather is cold and you don’t get full range from your battery pack.
And all this is assuming that the magic batteries work as predicted. Are the batteries even in mass production yet?
Wow, we all have the cynicism turned up to 10 don’t we? I think there were appropriate caveats in the story. I don’t think this steps into the “shilling” category of articles. It’s just a rehash of the (limited) information GM has released with the addition of a short driving impression. Do you all really expect a car that is a year off to be showroom-ready at this point?
It was running all electric during the drive. What would looking under the hood prove? You think there is some kind of bait and switch going on? Let’s not be that cynical. GM isn’t THAT evil.
Depending on driving habits and, of course, gas prices, fuel savings could easily make up that cost difference. Unlike a typical hybrid car, a Volt owner could potentially cut gasoline almost entirely out of the budget.
Yeah, it’ll be nice until you get your electric bill.
One thing not mentioned is the cost of insurance. Imagine the premiums on this thing for the first 5 years or so.
The CNN parrot says “Fuel savings could easily make up the difference”… So let’s do some math.
He says the Volt will cost $33K after rebate (good luck with that) and could go 40 miles on a charge. A comparable car would cost somewhere around $16K, so you have to make up for the $17K premium of driving a Volt.
If the owner drives 365 days/year and 40 miles/day (no allowances for repairs, sick days, short trips, only urban driving, etc), that means he will drive some 23K miles/year. Let’s consider the extreme case where the proud new owner of the Volt used to go around in a Hummer H2, at 13 mpg. He spent 1770 USG/year to make those 23K miles, and if prices go up to $4/gallon, that would be $7K/year in fuel economy (if the Volt uses zero gas and electricity is for free).
So the only thing you need to make the Volt pay for itself in 2 1/2 years is to transition from a Hummer, get a rebate from Congress equivalent to 1 year free gas for your H2, drive the thing every single day for the maximum possible range and hope for $4/gallon. How hard could THAT be???
You forgot free electricity. Just got my bill and whew am I glad I don’t charge the car.
Yes, the electricity used has a equivalent mpg. The “infinite mpg” thing is a lie. And you know what, electricity is in short supply in California, even if it’s not free.
BTW, the headlight is straight from an Honda Accord. Shared components for cost savings?
And some people criticize the Insight?
I still don’t think this car is ever going to sit in a showroom. There is no viability to producing this, is the governments goal is to really fix GM the Volt just isn’t in the cards. Maybe in the far future when GM is actually making a fat profit and can stand on it’s own, but not now, tomorrow or a few years from now.
duckjfat:
Then you’ve forgotten the time when GM slapped a hybrid plastic cover on a regular engine for a press demo ride, exposed (at the end of the article) by AutoWeek.
“Do you all really expect a car that is a year off to be showroom-ready at this point? … You think there is some kind of bait and switch going on?”
Yes. At this point in the game, GM should be able to provide at least one example that is able to demonstrate the car’s performance in both modes. The fact that they’re s still only allowing electric-only rides in hacked-together mules means that either they’re hiding the volt’s real performance because it sucks or the whole program is a PR smokescreen (or both).
If I’m not mistaken, at one point they were promising to have the Volt on the lot in 2009.
That load of crap didn’t last long.
TexN :
April 14th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Since the Volt does not pass the “viability” test, I can only assume that the government will move it into the “bad GM” basket.
“Irony! Table for one!”
lol. Will be funny to watch the .gov Green types twist themselves into knots trying to avoid the conclusion that the only products truly viable for the ‘good GM’ are full size Pick-Ups/SUVs, Cadillacs and RWD Muscle Cars.
duckfat: “I don’t think this steps into the “shilling” category of articles. It’s just a rehash of the (limited) information GM has released with the addition of a short driving impression. Do you all really expect a car that is a year off to be showroom-ready at this point?”
You touch on some interesting points…
First, for all of GM’s talk about the car, there is a surprisingly limited (or confused) amount of information available. GM can’t explain it and, in spite of frequent updates, blog entries, press rides, technical presentations, sourcing announcements (we know they’re forged wheels from… wherever – who cares?), etc, nobody seems to know what it is and there’s a lot of justifiable skepticism over what it will do (GM spokespeople sometimes contradict each other).
Second, when it’s a $40K car with an economy car mission (save gas), any journalist that doesn’t start his article with “What is GM thinking?” should be suspected of being in GM’s employ.
Third, not a years out… eighteen or nineteen months and then just about 1K of them at that point. First year production will be about 1K per month. I was thinking that, by that time, Toyota could really ruin GM’s day by introducing any number of interesting hybrids but… why wait… some company out of nowhere may have just out-Volted the Volt on an H3 chassis (see TTAC article from earlier today).
Although the concept, as announced by GM, was somewhat unique, the production Volt seems destined to join a crowded field. In which case, why bother with this me-too effort?
Why, for the PR, of course.
Even at $40K people will buy this car. After all logic and fuel savings don’t make a Prius a justifiable purchase over a Civic or Mazda3. People like the “idea” of being off the dino juice. It’s all about marketing once the car is out and GM truly DOES excel at that.
Whether the Volt is profitable is beside the point. It’s the penultimate halo car (they’ll make you feel like an environmental angel for buying one). It’s a step in the right direction and if GM goes bust paying for the technology that’s okay in the long view. Another company will swoop in and make it better and cheaper in a few years and we’ll all be driving things like this.
You can see it already, Toyota and Honda develop hybrid tech and then Ford comes in and makes a car that is (arguably) better. I’d consider a Fusion if I were in the market right now. When I am ready to buy in a few years I’ll probably be shopping Hyundai’s latest plugin.
The Volt may not be good for GM but it’s GREAT for the auto industry as a whole.
Again the question needs to be asked: If you can manage to run on batteries most of the time, what is the real cost on the home electric bill in your area? This cost can’t be a trivial amount, and with the advent of smart meters coming to a home near you, charging during peak hours could very expensive. Also this only is justifiable for homeowners, with driveways, that live in reasonably temperate climates, preferably with garages so your recharge cord doesn’t get ripped off. When is my hydrogen powered car coming? Good luck with that there Volt GM.
duckfat, at $40k, nobody is going to buy this car. When this sucker hits the market, better options will exist for every selling point. If money is no limit and you want an exotic “green” halo car, you buy a Tesla roadster or Fisker sedan. If you want an electric car to tool around town in, you buy a Mitsubishi iMIEV for half the price. If you want to be green but also don’t want to be limited by batteries, you buy an Insight or Prius for, again, half the price. A few dollars more buys you a hybrid Fusion. The real green nutters will insist on making their own homebrew EV’s or biodiesel jalopies. There’s no opening for the volt because other technologies do it better and/or cheaper. And this is before you have to spend most of your marketing energy overcoming negative consumer attitudes about GM’s past quality issues and upcoming bankruptcy.
Cars are status goods. If your neighbours know that the car cost $40k than it is competing with other $40k cars and not with a $17k car. Add to it that they wont be making money on it and it is quite clear that demand will outstrip supply for this car.
# duckfat :
April 14th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Even at $40K people will buy this car. After all logic and fuel savings don’t make a Prius a justifiable purchase over a Civic or Mazda3. People like the “idea” of being off the dino juice. It’s all about marketing once the car is out and GM truly DOES excel at that.
Whether the Volt is profitable is beside the point. It’s the penultimate halo car (they’ll make you feel like an environmental angel for buying one). It’s a step in the right direction and if GM goes bust paying for the technology that’s okay in the long view. Another company will swoop in and make it better and cheaper in a few years and we’ll all be driving things like this.
You can see it already, Toyota and Honda develop hybrid tech and then Ford comes in and makes a car that is (arguably) better. I’d consider a Fusion if I were in the market right now. When I am ready to buy in a few years I’ll probably be shopping Hyundai’s latest plugin.
The Volt may not be good for GM but it’s GREAT for the auto industry as a whole.
RONG
You’re correct that car companies, when viewed as parts of a whole, are moving in the right direction. I mean, think of the progression from the first Insight (expensive hybrid!) to the Prius (somewhat practical hybrid, like a Corolla!) to the new Insight (affordable hybrid!). They’ve all gotten cheaper, bigger, and better.
In comes the Volt. When Honda’s selling new Insights starting at $19k, how the hell do you expect anyone to shell out $40k for a what’s essentially a green Cobalt?? It’s the biggest step backward ever in progression of market viability. Of course, the tech is great and pricey and it’s good for R&D and the world and the environment whatever. Still – the concept of the product as a viable selling point – a PRODUCT – is screwed from the start.
I don’t hate the fact that this thing won’t sell, but I DO detest the fact that GM pretends they’re offering a viable green alternative, all to get government bucks for a sinking ship. It’s like an environmentally-friendly front business to launder our tax dollars into an inefficient company.
What did I learn? Buy a Ford Fusion hybrid instead.
duckfat: “Even at $40K people will buy this car. After all logic and fuel savings don’t make a Prius a justifiable purchase over a Civic or Mazda3. People like the “idea” of being off the dino juice.”
With a Prius or an Insight, people can indulge their anti-OPEC or green fantasies for a premium of a couple thousand dollars.
With the Volt, people will have to cough up perhaps $20K to indulge their fantasies. This is something few will do. The only reason the Volt will sell out in 2011 is because GM will make very few of them. Which, of course, is another criticism of the Volt. At volume of 10K/year, it’s irrelevant. At the 2nd year volume of 50K/years, it’s also still largely irrelelvant. It’s a black hole for GM’s cash and nothing more.
duckfat: “It’s all about marketing once the car is out and GM truly DOES excel at that.”
That’s the same GM marketing that believes people think reducing fuel consumption to save the planet or battle OPEC or whatever are also fullsize SUV customers? The same marketing geniuses that think a $50K hybrid that can still be described as a gas guzzler is a good idea?
In comes the Volt. When Honda’s selling new Insights starting at $19k, how the hell do you expect anyone to shell out $40k for a what’s essentially a green Cobalt??
Calling the Volt a ‘green Cobalt’ is giving it too much credit. It’s a Daewoo with an oversized laptop battery.
People concerned with the cost of gas are people who commute 40+ miles a day not under. Do we really think under 40 mile per day consumers will have the money for a new Chevy Volt when a used Kia for 10k gets 30-35mpg highway? Even if gas was $5 a gallon that’s 5 bucks a day. Why is this so confusing?
The idea of owning a car with electric drive and ICE is overly complicated, maintenance prone, and a step forward combined with one BIG step backward. This is ridiculous, only Detroit could come up with this (not even) me too monstrosity. The idea of a low cost hybrid is already here folks, it’s made by Toyonda. Hey GM ya think you could get a decent Prisight copy on the road maybe an EV-2 instead of wasting our time and money with your nonsense? You’re already 10 years too late.
The trade off with an EV is you need to plan your trips, not a hard thing to do with Nav. The high end customers targeted for EV probably enjoy this type of planning. I have no problem driving an ICE for 10+ years until EV’s that are interesting are available for all. I do have a problem with GM pulling all EV-1’s off the road along with a great many things revealed in “Who Killed the Electric Car”. This company clearly doesn’t want to change and has too much power over its monopoly. When we live in an information age why is this so hard to understand?
The Volt will never be something worth keeping in the long term, it will rot on the used market needing a new battery electric motor valve job who knows what. The car is disposable not economical! High end EV buyers shopping a Chevy Volt isn’t going to happen not even likely given other hybrid offerings. Pure EV’s will be easily upgraded by the appropriate early buyer that can afford it.
The answer has always been the Tesla business model. When enough demand for street/apartment charging is reached, believe me herds of businesses will be ready to provide it with a simple credit card swipe. The first places to offer charging will likely be valets. Parking meters are taking credit cards, wire them up and add a charging outlet.
I believe Tesla clearly has the logical path set for this market. For the haters who love to beat up on Mr. M for being the rich guy they’re not, it doesn’t change the fact that Tesla makes more sense if you look at facts. People should be thankful the rich are actually buying EV’s and helping to prove the technology instead of complaining on auto forums without doing any critical research.
Pure EV is the answer. I suppose being the human race always means we must first wander through smoke and mirrors before seeing the light. I’d like to see more attention and forum support given to Tesla. They’ve had a hard start but who wouldn’t given the situation.
Lokki said:
“Anyhow here’s their logic: The average driver in the U.S. does 15k miles a year.
15K / 365 days = 41.10 miles a day.
So, on average, you’re a 1.10 miles a day short. Except when you go to Grandma’s or go grocery shopping or drive thru Starbucks. – Or when you use the heat or A/C. – Or when the weather is cold and you don’t get full range from your battery pack.”
The 40 mile range covers the commute of the vast majority of drivers.
The other points you bring up regarding high energy draw are why there’s an ability to generate additional electricity onboard.
Howler – No hybrids or EV’s make economic sense, including current Toyonda’s – which is why they have such a small part of the market.
Put very simply, this technology is being pursued because it will be mandatory to meet future CAFE fuel economy standards set by the government, unless your company is satisified with selling nothing but small and medium sized cars – which today account for less than half of the US market.
Pure EV’s may work for those that live in urban environments – which you obviously do, given your solution of having charging stations with “valets” and at parking meters. Guess what – not everybody has those in their neighborhood.
There’s a heck of a lot more to building and selling a car than Tesla has even remotely considered. They’ll never be more than a niche player, unless an experienced OEM buys them out – which no one will do, because what they’re doing is nothing magic.
I’d really like to know how much cash GM pissed away developing and bringing to market the EV1…and then crushing them all. D’oh!
I suppose all the bright minds from the EV1 project (not GM management) had to sign non-disclosure agreements and were bought out (silenced). It’s a shame none of them can tell us anything.
I hope Mr. Obama’s Task Force reviews what went wrong with EV1 before forking over more tax money to the New GM, the Old GM, the Bad GM or whatever it ends up being split into.
car_czar: “No hybrids or EV’s make economic sense, including current Toyonda’s – which is why they have such a small part of the market.”
The Prius alone outsells half – maybe two-thirds – of the models in GM’s entire lineup. When gas prices spiked, they hit something like 21K in a month and would have sold more had they had any more to sell. The Camry hybrid probably does 2K to 3K units/month. Sure, they don’t selling in Impala quantities… but they sell pretty well for a vehicle with a price premium beyond the usual space/power/lux norms.
The hybrids that sell really poorly are… GM’s. And Honda’s V6 “performance” hybrid Accord wasn’t such a winner, either.
“A lot can be done with suspension tuning, though, GM’s Posowatz assured me. The benefit of the battery pack is that it puts the weight low in the car. That will give the Volt a lower center of gravity, which will help it feel more stable in turns.” Sounds like the test car was not configured like a production Volt otherwise the battery pack would have given the car a low centre of gravity. Was this test car powered by half a dozen Exide marine batteries in the trunk? Oh well, is it wrong for GM to expect prefered treatment for their advertising dollar.
fill up punch bowl, insert turd
This WILL NOT sell, and it WILL NOT work. 40 miles aint enough jr. If you are going to make an electric car, then make one. If you are going to make a hybrid, call it a hybrid. This is bullshit and it makes me mad. not to mention is WAY the hell overpriced. You’d have to be a rich hippy to buy this crap, and hippy’s don’t like to work, so there’s your market. Hippie’s with trust funds, that’s our target audience for the chevy volt turd