Chevy's Volt, Is It Going To Be A Legend OR Will It Become The Modern Edsel?

Take one part electric car, one part marketing guru, one part American motor company and one part bad green car stereotypes and what do you have? No, not an awfully mixed drink; the new Chevrolet Volt theme song.

Yes, a theme song.

But even more interesting than General Motor's marketing strategy is the Volt and the supposed "want list." As of September, the Volt's list topped 50,000 people. That's a helluva number for a car that has yet to be tested by official EPA standards and has yet to really show itself in full production trim.

Knowing that a good portion of the Volt is not set in stone, how many people are REALLY going to pull the trigger when it launches? After a $1 billion dollar investment and all the hype, is GM creating something that will find it nearly impossible to live up to the legend they are creating? Could this be why Fritz departed?

Give us YOUR input. Are you still interested in the Volt? Did you put yourself on the want list?

And, if you want to giggle, listen to the song below:




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XYZZ - 12/11/2009 2:32:09 AM

+6 Boost

a great car in concept.

but the price is going to kill it! UNLESS the feds AND gm subsidize it so the out the door prize is close to $30k and preferably below, it will never have more than very limited sales.

downtoearth - 12/12/2009 9:08:45 AM

0 Boost

— XYZZ:

> a great car in concept.
> but the price is going to kill it!

It's scary that 99,999% of people are incapable of looking past the price.

Putting 12.000 miles on 30 mpg car (like Honda Civic) for 10 years costs 10.400 USD at current gas prices. They will rise. So it will cost more like 15.000 USD.

GM will warrant the battery for 10 years.

Over these years, Chevrolet Volt will save some 90% of fuel when driven as people drive this days. Expect at least USD 10.000 savings in fuel alone.

Then you'll save from much simpler maintenance and repairs. Doing 500.000k miles for a modern electric motor is a piece of cake.

So the Volt, with its USD 35.000 will come down to real price of USD 20.000 thanks to savings.

And this is only the obvious part. Saving money by not importing crude oil or not poisoning citizens of large cities (health care, life lost costs due to cancer) will render the true price of Volt even lower than USD 20.000.

truckman - 12/11/2009 5:29:15 AM

-1 Boost

It is a failure before it even starts, first off it looks great and the concept is great the way it is set up, the problem is that if you were to do a road trip in the Volt the gas mileage for the first 40ish miles would be all electric and then the mileage on gas would be poor, the diesel BMW is better on gas, then for some unknown reason they limit the seating capacity for this big car to four! WHY? Hypothetically if it were good on gas and I wanted it I couldn't buy it because I have a family of 5. The cost is also an issue. The Prius is also more efficient with its dated tech, PLM flightlinks car is almost 4 x more power and double as efficient on fuel.

Need4Speed - 12/11/2009 10:40:40 AM

+1 Boost

"...the problem is that if you were to do a road trip in the Volt the gas mileage for the first 40ish miles would be all electric and then the mileage on gas would be poor"

- How poor?..compared to what?...any facts or figures you care to share with us?

"..>The Prius is also more efficient with its dated tech..."

- Efficiency is subjective so merely stating it is more efficient doesn't tell us anything...some hard numbers would go far to prove your point.

truckman - 12/12/2009 1:25:53 AM

+3 Boost

Need4speed, you are right, I cant expect anyone to just blindly believe me, so here it is, the future tech is here now and we will not see it for a while.

http://www.pmlflightlink.com/archive/news_mini.html

http://www.caranddriver.com/news/car/07q1/pml_flightlink_electric_mini_cooper-car_news

Enjoy it,lol In my opinion this Volt is a better concept than the Prius, but if you were to do a road trip the Prius would be more efficient unfortunately, although the Volt has way more potential, it is similar to PML's concept car, exept PML's car is aprox. two times more efficient with the gas generator going exept PML's car has 4-5 hrs of battery time at 50 mph, so that would be 200-250 mile all electric range for PML's car, they are way ahead of this Volt and the Prius. If all cars were as efficient as PML's car our economy would crash because of less gas tax. That is probably why we don't have it, or the company's need to do there homework.

kablaam - 12/11/2009 6:33:01 AM

+2 Boost

I think they are banking on the fact that the majority of trips in a car are less than 40 miles round trip. Obviously road trips/vacations are a different story and in that case it would act more like a prius than a volt, still good mileage - but not GREAT.

I bet at the end of the year, your average fuel expenditures would be down dramatically if you are one of the majority of car owners that they are targeting, ie. those who drive less than 40 miles in a trip.

Now, I can bet you would never recoup the cost premium you pay for the vehicles hip tech, which is why it may be more of a novelty than a real solution as of now.

This is going to be GM's halo vehicle that they will build off of, it is a great start.

topneuro - 12/11/2009 9:15:14 AM

+3 Boost

A 100 mile charge range is the preferred target required, 72% of Americans drive less than 40 miles a day and 98% drive less than 100 miles per day.

tango - 12/11/2009 9:25:12 AM

+4 Boost

And here we have it...the experts at Autospies have spoken, their word has now been committed to law and God is now changing His Grand Plan to compensate. Oh what a grand day it is. I have come to realise that the more some of you morons argue against a given car is the more successful it becomes. Hyundai. Camaro. Lexus. Acura. And yes, Volt. It would be an interesting day when some of you just stay away from the keyboard and stick to the mouse where you can cause the least harm to yourselves. Volt is not going to be either of those things. It is the first of a line of cars for GM and if that direction is to be moved towards, it has to start with one car. Volt is it. Get over it.

pennfootball - 12/11/2009 10:15:55 AM

+1 Boost

The Volt is not dated

truckman - 12/12/2009 2:34:53 AM

+1 Boost

http://www.pmlflightlink.com/archive/news_mini.html

This Volt is definatly a step in the right direction, it's just that it should have been a much larger step when you consider what PML has done.

PML's car- 640 BHP and 400-500 of battery time, 80mpg with the generator

The Volt- 160 hp 40 mile all battery time 50mpg with the generator
going.
The Prius- 98hp gas, 80/36 electric motors?, total 134-178hp, one mile
a few miles all electric at 10 mph aprox? very un impressive.
50 mpg.

PlanB - 12/11/2009 11:38:32 AM

+1 Boost

Anyone who thinks this car isn't gonna sell out the instant it hits dealer lots are kidding themselves, even at the price they're asking. GM will have a hit on its hands the second its released, mainly from the early adopters and customers who wanna see what all the fuss is about. But once the hype dies down and its been out for awhile, thats when we'll see what this car is really made of. As much R&D as GM has put into this thing, and reading all the media previews that have driven it, count me as an optimist that this car will be the real deal.

XYZZ - 12/13/2009 5:34:10 AM

+2 Boost

It may sell a few units per dealer on the NOVELTY factor despite the high price.

but the nissan leaf (?) with its 200 mile range on a full battery will KILL IT in the sales battle.

993Turbo - 12/14/2009 12:14:57 PM

+2 Boost

Gas is cheap again. I just bought a 12 cylinder.