Nice early volt write-up

[MrIcky]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...c/leisure/auto

[nester7929]

It sounds great, but I'm worried about it being priced that much over the Prius.

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by nester7929

It sounds great, but I'm worried about it being priced that much over the Prius.

It would be a worry if that was the sales numbers you're expecting right off the bat. But it looks like it's not.

The way I figure it, cars serve two purposes for a company: Sales (and therefore making money and profit), and Reputation (public Relations, etc).

The Volt won't make them any bit of profit to begin with. They'll be selling them at a loss from the very beginning, and this is due to the raw "new"ness of the technology. Supposedly the prius was the same way at the start. Soo....sales is relatively unimportant to start out. Later, 2012+, it will be...but now? Besides, given that their selling them at a loss...it's probably a good thing they won't sell 100s of thousands to start...

Plus, they've said a few times that they're already starting the preliminary work on the Next-Gen Volt...one of their primary goals is making it for less money. And that can be accomplished by making the batteries in-house, streamlining production, etc. They'll get to the profit thing eventually.

So then it's primary purpose will be Reputation and PR...and it should absolutely CLOBBER the prius, hands down in this competition. It's a leap and a half above, forward, just beyond the toyota in terms of technology and capability (and subjectively, style...), not to mention the coverage its gotten since its conception...and it seems like GM's going to deliver in spades (ie, no let-downs).