Does It Even MATTER If Chevrolet's Volt Misses Its Sales Goal For 2011?

This past week, auto sales figures for November came out. As one would expect, there's been a lot of focus on electric vehicles and how they have been selling.

Everyone is eager to jump down General Motor's and Nissan's throat and say "The Volt and Leaf did NOT live up to the hype, AND they're goofy-looking too!"

It's like a fifth grade cafeteria fight, really.

Reviewers across the board, even our own 001, have gone out and said the Volt is a pretty amazing product. Sure it's seats could be better and it takes a long time to heat up, so it's not going to meet everyone's expectations.

But to call it a total failure is a bit short sighted. Although it hasn't been a runaway hit, it sure as hell drove a ton of folks into Chevrolet's showrooms and there's one figure that I think has gone unnoticed: Chevrolet Cruze sales.

According to the November sales report, the Cruze sold over 215,000 units. That's pretty substantial.

Even if the Volt doesn't ratchet up sales into 2012, I think the more critical element is making this powertrain scalable across other products. For example, whenever GM wants to do a Cadillac version, I think that would be pretty helpful as it could eek out a higher margin per vehicle sold.

What say you, Spies? Are the Volt's sales figures THAT important?

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Agent001 - 12/3/2011 4:28:40 PM

+1 Boost

I'll be the first to go in record 00R that the Volt although a nice car, IS a complete failure.

They would have sold that may Cruze cars without the Volt.

A billion dollars buys a lot of ads and honestly if you gave ME a billion dollars I could build something as good as the Volt.

The problem is not that it is good or bad it is that it can't be made affordable for the masses.

Rather than wasting all the effort and money on the Volt what they SHOULD have done was to figure out how to build a Prius that could sell for 14k.

THEN, down the road when you have MASSES of people appreciating the technology, you give them a Volt that can be sold for $20k and upsell them.

001

Agent00R - 12/3/2011 4:33:47 PM

+1 Boost

I believe you're off base here. Big time.

The car isn't a complete failure, if anything it was a branding mistake and it should have been a Cadillac, not a Chevrolet.

And if anyone could build a Prius that sold for $14k it would have been Toyota itself. You know that hybrid tech isn't THAT cheap...yet

vdiv - 12/5/2011 2:40:13 PM

0 Boost

Not a Cadillac, a Saturn. GM made a big mistake to scrap the Saturn brand and dealership network. Buying a sophisticated vehicle like the Volt from your friendly Hill-Billy Chevy dealership is not exactly the cup of tea for the Volt target customers. By-gones be by-gones you'd say, however the Chevy dealerships did not change to accommodate the new-found clientele. You are still dealing with incompetent, lying, and useless sales people and arrogant asshole sales managers.

And just imagine having your precious Volt serviced at a place like that!