GM Admits The Chevy Volt Is Way Overpriced:

No surprise here...companies ALWAYS charge a premium for new products to reclaim development costs.

Other companies with electrics have done the same...their lower prices now are because they are further down the timeline.

As for those Volts being overpriced...well what do you pay for a instant collectible?

The reality is the American public OVERWHELMINGLY wants better mileage for a vehicle..except of course those who love to be screwed by the oil companies.

TMT

How well has charging a premium worked out for sales of the Chevy Volt?

Chevy Volts won't command a premium from collectors.

Most American's want gas guzzling SUV's and need to be educated.

As well as expected...again companies attempt to reclaim ALL DEVELOPMENT COSTS on the first production of ANYTHING...that is how business works. Any taxpayer subsidy (which I believe has been repaid) doesn't enter into the equation.

Yes...any new electric vehicle will be a collectible...check out the ones made a hundred years ago....or the ones that were made in the

Yes..Americans need to be educated..that is why we should have $10/ gallon gas here in the United States. Other places in the world have EXPENSIVE fuel and manufacturers produce vehicles to use that expensive resource wisely.

I am waiting for the technology to mature but I can hardly wait to guy an electric..for most of my transportation needs it would be perfect.

TMT

Bonkers wants you to see hordes of demon Volts in your nightmares as he does, sneaking up with ice picks to stab your eyeballs. Better watch out, saying anything positive will put you on his stalking list along with Ig and Ed and me, and I sense that you are getting dangerously close. If you don't mind being spammed by linkedin, you might want to join his blog in an attempt to stave off the inevitable. :)

GM is finally starting to get honest because Chevy Volt sales are a sad joke. The sad joke comes at the expense of the American tax payer who was forced to fund this nightmare.

"Speaking at a green technology conference in California, Dan Akerson, CEO of General Motors, stated that price target for the next-gen Volt is $7,000 to $10,000?before subsidies?less than the current car?s base price. Equally as intriguing is his statement that it ?will be profitable,? something that has escaped the current Volt. ?GM has sold approximately 26,500 Volts so far, and we?re losing money on every one of them,? Akerson said, adding that the cost reductions will be made without ?de-contenting? the vehicle. The base price of the 2013 Volt is $39,995; knocking 10 grand off that would put the Volt right in line with competitors like the Nissan Leaf ($32,670), the Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid ($32,795), and the Ford C-Max Energi ($33,745).

GM has been stingy with the details on the next-gen Volt, which we understand will arrive within a year or 18 months, but Akerson did indicate it would be lighter than the current model. Currently, the battery pack alone accounts for about 400 pounds of the Volt?s 3755- pound as-tested weight." ==============================================

That is great great news!

The Volt is still over-complicated, over-engineered, but cheaper over-engineered is certainly better than more expensive over-engineered. And, it seems, by most accounts, that the Volt is pretty well-built, and has proven very reliable -- not as reliable as, say, the Leaf, according to some charts I've seen, but that's understandable. Altho, not a lot of Volts have a lot of miles on them, so long-term reliability is still a question mark.

But, if toyoter/honder wake up, and recognize the sound "basic strategy" of the volt, and leave out all that bullshit NASA engineering, they will kick GM's ass.

If instead of spending $1++ billion on this M.E. science project GM had instead spent $100 mil on a *much* simpler-but-still-effective range extender (via a genset), I'm sure the Volt would have been MUCH more successful.

But I think GM DID score a engineering coup.... but I also think they shot themselves in the foot in the process, as all this slick engineering returns relatively little over the basic strategy of providing a workable around-town range with some peace of mind. You didn't need alladat crazed engineering to accomplish that.

As a partial solution to this, I think GM should offer two models: One with a much smaller simpler genset, just to make sure people don't get stranded if they exceed their 40 mile range or so.... And then one similar to what they have now, that can kick in seamlessly to continue hi-mile jaunts on a highway.

As it stands, the Volt is not outstanding at all on long excursions, from a mpg pov, but at least it accomplishes this drive-ably. But there is no point in "penalizing" the short-jaunt crowd -- of which the %-age market is proly quite high -- for spoiled-brat Kidding-like demands for ultra-seamlessness, when it's not necessary for all segments of the market -- espeically among grownups..

Now all KiddingHisself has to do is understand his own car, so he can talk intelligently, instead of like some bitchy hysterical woman.

I agree with this. Since pushing the Volt past battery range quickly defeats its big "MPG" advantage I've always wondered why anybody who commonly drives much more than 40 miles a day would buy it. Just taking care of the "stranded" issue, even with a limp-home genset (or maybe even an auxiliary drive engine) that reduced speed to 45mph or so would have made it a much better seller if it could have knocked $15-20k off the price. Different engineering of course, but you've pretty much nailed it. GM chose to go all-in with the more expensive "seamless do-it-all." Good car, but maybe not a good strategy for the sales needed to support it. A cheaper "less-engineered" version would weigh less and probably not have the "quality" feel of the current Volt, but sell a hell of a lot better. Don't know if they can downgrade the current Volt. They weren't good at "upgrading" the Chevy Cavalier to the Cadillac Cimarron..

"Battery technology is an incremental improvement technology...and the best research is being done in China."

"BYD?s investment comes after California Governor Jerry Brown last month led a huge business group to China in search of new investment and business with the state."

"The Volt is a fine idea, but it just can?t do what GM is asking it to do."....yet."

The Chevy Volt is a total failure because it's much too heavy and it's way overpriced. The Chevy Volt has been funded by US taxpayers who are going to take a huge loss on their non voluntary investment. =======================================================

fullashitKidding may save the day!! Isn't fullashitKidding gonna buy 11 more Volts, cash?? That's more than most dealers have sold in years.... LOL

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You get it, jb gets it, I get it, and, well, not too many others do. Kidding certainly doesn't, and GM apparently doesn't.

Hopefully Toyoter/Honder will get it, and kick GMs ass. Range-extending is not rocket science, but GM *made it* into rocket science, in the Volt.

Kidding posted these links on the Volt operation, perty inneresting:

If you view these as I did, you will be FLOORED by the gratuitous complexity of it all. NO ONE, to my knowledge, quite understands just WHY GM went thru all these contortions. All these links, which Kidding proferred to "show me up", simply reinforced the notion of a simpler solution.

Esp since the nitty-gritty solution is so dert-simple: have a cupla multi-winding traction motors (I"d like to see 4, one for each wheel), and just have a genset power them, when the batteries run out, with suitable switching. Plain and simple.... no fukn planetary gears, no clutches, no NASA-esque bullshit. What is so fukn complicated about that?? Why is this SO INFERIOR to the GM coccamammy complexified contrivance??

I cain't figger it out. Kidding says he can, but he's fullashit -- he don't have a fukn clue as to why GM did what they did, all's he can say is that because GM did it, it MUST be correct. Kidding is fellating GM to the point of hypoxia, where his brain is losing too many brain cells.

And these bullshit newspaper/web writers and critics don't understand wtf is going on either. All's they can say is, OOOhhhhh, AAAAaaaah, GM is GREAT, GM is GREAT...... and they don't have a fukn clue as to what the real advantages are of the GM design, or any notions of real "problem solving", as in: Just what did all this complexity (and expense) accomplish, that a shitty li'l genset wouldn't have accomplished, ito range extending??

I don't know about great, but GM engineers can sure come up with some complicated shit.

And we agree, the Volt IS a good car, and the engineering IS slick and impressive. It's just not a *suitably executed* good car. It's more like a science project. Hopefully it will pave the way for a better nitty-gritty solution.

Only complaint I have is I can't afford it.

Maybe. Or maybe they missed the boat.