I have limited experience witha Chevy Volt. My stepson leased one because he felt ownership would be financially risky. While it rides and sounds like a conventional car, I found one glaring fault. Being a senior citizen, I found it difficult to enter and leave teh back seat, especially with winter coats on. The Volt has to be smallish to get good fuel economy but I think it is too small. My Malibu is about the right size for me.
Only 2% behind the Volt, were owners of Dodge Challengers. Now, I admit that the Challenger is not even in the same market as the Volt, but I would buy mine again. It is a fun car to drive. I am enthusiastically a (though not counted) member of the 90% group.
To answer to initial question, I live in South Florida; Miami/Ft. Lauderdale/West Palm Beach corridor, a.k.a. "Florida Gold Coast". One possibility is the culture here is very transient, and Caribbean / European in nature. Not a lot of Fords and Chevys, but more Mercedes, BMWs and even Bentleys and Rolls-Royces than you can count. That is likely a contributing factor to Chevy dealers' apathy to the Volt Market. Personally, I'd love to drive one, but I've never even seen one on the road!
That's great... You're making the point I've made many times on this forum (and elsewhere); that the Volt is way over-priced. It is a sub-$30k auto...
This is the first time I've heard that the cost to manufacture was $25k... Mostly the Volt's proponents like to push the idea that Lexus and BMW owners should be flocking to the Volt because they are alike in luxury/quality, but that the Volt is a more awesome ride and has the ability to run at zero MPG...
Nice trick for GM to build a car that has all positives and no negatives (that's a battery pun btw). All the other luxury car companies must be run by morons I guess... it's amazing they're still in business and not just collecting government checks instead.
Your accounting doesn't include the $14,000,000,000 that the tax payers will never get back from GM out of the bailout does it? If we gave every company billions and let them evaporate it away, most if not all of them could fund R&D the cost of which they could avoid passing along to the final customer... and they'd all receive highly positive reviews on their products. Gee, everything would be a bargan @75% off doing it that way.
The truth is that by throwing that much money in the hole there is no telling what happens to it. Of course accountants can make it look like the losses occurred in some other budgetary area... like disappointing government owned stock values for instance.
GM sealed their fate with many and the fact is that selling the Volt at a loss, no doubt to a higher than normal number of the choir is bound to boost the talk of buying another.
But keep telling people that the car is only worth $25k and that will change too I think.
Those are amazing stats for someone who calls himself a "Volt slacker," Dr_Innovation. Even though you do consider yourself a slacker, using 27.7 gallons of gas to go 11,097 miles is amazing. It's a great example of the advantages that a plug-in hybrid can deliver.
Dennis, like in US, oil excavations are happening almost all corners in globe, especially with Asian and Arab countries. But one day, that treasure can also empty. More over environmental pollutions are more with petrol/diesel vehicles. That’s the reason most of the automobile manufacturers are turned to ET & Hybrid vehicles.
Actually, I'm in Minnesota, not California. I just checked the inventory of the four dealers closest to me on line. The dealer I used shows 11 (and it's a different variety than when I was shopping a few months ago), another shows 5, another shows 2 (one is a 2012), the last one doesn't list the Volt as a model to pick to show inventory. What a wide variety in such a small sample. My guess is it reflects the dealers' view of the car. If they believe in the car and get behind it, they can sell them.
Ralphy Boy, you obviously have not read any of the comments. The Volt costs about $25k to produce, plus the R&D costs. We are paying the "REAL PRICE" of the car.
Don't try to reference the Reuters article, because that is a heap of BS.
Dave, In California, I'm sure it's not hard finding a Volt on the lot, but that's not the case with the rest of the country. When I leased mine, they happened to have 2 on the lot at the dealer. I've been checking all of the dealers around out of curiousity, and none of them have had a Volt on the lot in at least 2 months.
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