The Volt out of juice...?

[FenwickHockey65]

Volt was in development before the government had anything to do with GM besides CAFE and crash safety standards.

[derklug]

The Volt is getting dinged because it is viewed by most of the buying public as an expensive science experiment. Fleet purchases that get the production line going and get the technology out to the real world will help the Volt's image. Realistically a $33,500(after tax rebate) Cruze is not what most buyers are looking at. As the technology advances it will come down in price, but it will have to wait for all the Eco-weenies to buy into it and get the numbers up. I can't believe that GM ever figured this as a seller on the scale of an Impala, so if they can sell 50k units they will be ecstatic. The media will call it a failure if it doesn't sell 250k a year.

[FenwickHockey65]

GM isn't expecting Volt to light up the sales charts at all. That's why they're content with a slow nationwide rollout.

[CC Performance]

Originally Posted by Fishman

Is electricity free? It looks to me like you would have to figure cost per mile instead of miles per gallon when comparing electric vehicles to gas only vehicles.

In Oregon we have an abundance in fact a surplus of electricity from hydro and wind power........ No its not free but its about the cheapest there is and yes it would be a massive reduction in cost to commute.
It is a win win situation for some of us.

[King Sun]

smh @ this thread and you armchair analysts

[drummer5679]

can't wait until the electric car fad is over so those research dollars can go into a more sustainable source of transportation

[CC Performance]

There is no one solution, its a combination of things that will sustain and electric will and already is a part of the solution... its not a fad.. in fact it was very successful in the early 90's.. so much that gm and the oil companies got together and killed it.....

bio fuels are the other part of it but electric is also clean and green friendly... it will be a big portion of it..

[justa25thTA]

Originally Posted by CC Performance

In Oregon we have an abundance in fact a surplus of electricity from hydro and wind power........ No its not free but its about the cheapest there is and yes it would be a massive reduction in cost to commute.
It is a win win situation for some of us.

The grid in Texas is maxed out right now and rolling blackouts are a real option to keep the grid from going down.

[CC Performance]

Originally Posted by justa25thTA

The grid in Texas is maxed out right now and rolling blackouts are a real option to keep the grid from going down.

No doubt there is an infrastructure problem....
in fact the wind farmers were complaining they are losing money due to no market.. the abundance of hydro in the state.... and they cant get their product to market elsewhere

poor planning or intentional planning to keep us sucking from the oil teat is the reason we don't have a modern grid right now to support it


They are working on it though... but carefull if you mention the word spend... the repulicans/oil money barons would rather have you sucking their oil teat and then use their alternative fuels so they stay in power and keep the money in their pockets..... that is what really drives those blackouts... your in an oil state.. it wont ever change

It IS all about the money

[AZCamaroFan]

No, what i meant , i was referring to the people who keep saying 'obama created the Volt'. i know he did not. Motor Trend ran the first Volt article in 2007, before Obama.

[upflying]

Obviously BHO did not create the Volt but he sure as hell promoted it. This alone was enough for me not to consider the Volt as a new car purchase.

[King Sun]

Originally Posted by upflying

Obviously BHO did not create the Volt but he sure as hell promoted it. This alone was enough for me not to consider the Volt as a new car purchase.

wow..............

[FenwickHockey65]

Originally Posted by upflying

Obviously BHO did not create the Volt but he sure as hell promoted it. This alone was enough for me not to consider the Volt as a new car purchase.

WGAS?

[5thGenOwner]

Originally Posted by FenwickHockey65

One of the first high-volume Camaro orders was from a rental company as well.

Volt actually has quite a few high-volume fleet orders. The government has one in, GE has one...

I can see it with the Camaro... not exactly as cutting edge technology wise as the Volt, and relatively easy to produce. Therefore ship a load or two off to rental companies and get your brand out there, along with making some nice high volume/low margin sales.

But with something that is supposedly at the forefront of it's technology, I wouldn't think that there would even be any room for rental companies to make 'high volume' purchases.


Side note...
We still have a long way to go with conventional motors before we turn everything into giant electro magnets. We've been working on the 'electric car' for what, decades now... in that same time we have made conventional motors much, much more fuel efficient (as fuel efficient as dual motor hybrids), more clean (producing much less CO2 than many years ago), and much much more reliable. Don't get me started on having to rely on batteries for fuel, ugh. There is plenty more to come from petrolium fueled motors!