Volt owners get an offer from GM!

[fielderLS3]

Wow. I'm almost speechless. I guess I should have leased a Volt. Maybe this is the new marketing strategy. No one is buying right now, so offer a free something else to them for buying a $40+ car, and hope that the takers on average move to something of equal or lesser value.

Originally Posted by philthy

The whole thing is being blown WAY out of proportion!

No one knows exactly what is going on yet, but there must be something to the story if GM is giving out free anything to the Volt owners. Maybe it is just the publicity of it, but their rush to replace the Volts with something else may end up having unintended PR consequences.

Originally Posted by DGthe3

Probably because the Volt owners are the most satisfied buyers in the business right now:

All 20 of them? Don't you need a statistically significant sample size to do statistics? And if I were offered a free ZR1, I'd be highly satisfied too.

Besides, customer satisfaction stats are a bit pointless on a niche car, built in small numbers to satisfy a very limited market of buyers looking for something very specific. I think they could have put the Volt powertrain into something that was Yugo everything else, and the type of buyer it attracts would still be satisfied on the basis of it being a hybrid alone...that, or their satisfaction is actually with themselves for buying it, and not necessarily with the car itself.

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by fielderLS3

Wow. I'm almost speechless. I guess I should have leased a Volt. Maybe this is the new marketing strategy. No one is buying right now, so offer a free something else to them for buying a $40+ car, and hope that the takers on average move to something of equal or lesser value.

Its a supply problem, not a demand problem

No one knows exactly what is going on yet, but there must be something to the story if GM is giving out free anything to the Volt owners. Maybe it is just the publicity of it, but their rush to replace the Volts with something else may end up having unintended PR consequences.

or perhaps they're covering their tail because every little hiccup with the Volt will be characterized as an epic failure by certain people and groups looking for faults with the Volt.


All 20 of them? Don't you need a statistically significant sample size to do statistics? And if I were offered a free ZR1, I'd be highly satisfied too.

The survey pre-dates the offer. And nobody is taking GM up on the offer anyways, so it doesn't really matter anyway. And while I don't drink the Consumer Reports Kool-Aid, it still supports the fact that people aren't turning in their Volts for something else. But considering that Consumer Reports generally dislikes GM, and apparently most subscribers don't like technology all that much, the Volt doing well in the survey is somewhat surprising, even if it is a small sample size.

Besides, customer satisfaction stats are a bit pointless on a niche car, built in small numbers to satisfy a very limited market of buyers looking for something very specific. I think they could have put the Volt powertrain into something that was Yugo everything else, and the type of buyer it attracts would still be satisfied on the basis of it being a hybrid alone...that, or their satisfaction is actually with themselves for buying it, and not necessarily with the car itself

Yes ... the whole point of the Volt is its powertrain and the environmental (less CO2) /geopolitical (less imported oil) implications. And if they weren't happy with it ... they'd make their opinion known. But if it were just the fact that its a hybrid, why would it rank higher than the other hybrids you can buy? If its because it can operate as an EV most of the time, why did it rank higher than the pure electric Nissan Leaf?
.

As an enthusiast, I see no problem what so ever with someone being happy with their car even if it isn't something I would buy. Heck, after reading some of the BS complaints about the Camaro that I see on the board here, I respect the loyalty that the Volt owners are showing. They love their cars and aren't trading them in for anything. Kudos to them.

[tooslow]

It is most definitely NOT a supply issue. There might have been some supplier issues early on, but the fact is that that nobody is buying electric cars. Nissan only sold ~800 or so Leaf vehicles in October, so it's a demand issue. Maybe when gasoline goes back up over $4 a gallon for regular that will change. Who knows.

Maybe there were some supplier issues with the Volt in the past, but when you take into consideration the fact that GM recently canceled plans for a second shift to produce Volts, that stuff doesn't hold water with me.

And the idea that CR hates GM does not hold water, either:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_1...ports-ratings/

[a_Username]

Originally Posted by fielderLS3

All 20 of them? Don't you need a statistically significant sample size to do statistics? And if I were offered a free ZR1, I'd be highly satisfied too.

Statistical significance usually refers to something that is likely to happen by more than just chance. Anyways, I would be very hesitant to draw conclusions about all Volt owners being happy with their purchase based on this survey, considering this survey was only given to subscribers. Of course, only a few owned Volts and responded; this makes the margin of error in the sample noticeably large. In fact, the method used by Consumer Reports is what is termed a "convenience sample." As the name implies, it's not a random sample and is very much vulnerable to being an unrepresentative sample of the population (of Volt owners.)

[derklug]

I have never been a fan of the Volt, but what I am seeing on TV is probably one of the worst hatchet jobs I have seen in awhile. There is no mention of the fact that the cars burn up a week later, after not being properly disarmed, Neil Cavuto was going on about what if the people were still in the car. Sorry, Neal, if the people are still in the car a week after the crash, I think fire is the least of their concerns.

[a_Username]

Originally Posted by derklug

I have never been a fan of the Volt, but what I am seeing on TV is probably one of the worst hatchet jobs I have seen in awhile. There is no mention of the fact that the cars burn up a week later, after not being properly disarmed, Neil Cavuto was going on about what if the people were still in the car. Sorry, Neal, if the people are still in the car a week after the crash, I think fire is the least of their concerns.

[fielderLS3]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

Its a supply problem, not a demand problem

Actually, it is a demand problem. Yes, they have limited production capacity right now, but despite that, they are not sold out. I think GM has greatly overestimated the number of buyers interested at their price level.

Originally Posted by DGthe3

or perhaps they're covering their tail because every little hiccup with the Volt will be characterized as an epic failure by certain people and groups looking for faults with the Volt.

I'm not one of those people looking for faults, but at the same time, I'm not going to ignore a fault when one occurs.

Originally Posted by DGthe3

But considering that Consumer Reports generally dislikes GM, and apparently most subscribers don't like technology all that much, the Volt doing well in the survey is somewhat surprising, even if it is a small sample size.

It is nice to see GM get a good review from CR, but there is nothing that that organization says that I believe anymore, ever since they gave the PT Cruiser their highest possible rating.

Originally Posted by DGthe3

As an enthusiast, I see no problem what so ever with someone being happy with their car even if it isn't something I would buy. Heck, after reading some of the BS complaints about the Camaro that I see on the board here, I respect the loyalty that the Volt owners are showing. They love their cars and aren't trading them in for anything. Kudos to them.

I guess I can drink to that. If people love these cars, then I guess good for them, I'm glad they are as satisfied with their cars as we enthusiasts are with our modern muscle cars.

I'd like to state that my intent is not to bash the Volt. I don't want it to fail, because GM has a lot invested in it, so if it does fail, the loss of cash will trickle down through the rest of the GM lineup.

However, for that very reason, I am also objectively skeptical of the Volt. I'm not suggesting it isn't an engineering marvel, but I am worried about the value of it, and the business case. Again, GM has poured a lot of resources into this thing, and since they don't have an infinite amount of money, that means money was diverted from other projects, and I'd be is partially responsible for why it took 2 years to get a convertible Camaro, 3 years for a ZL1, no Z28, and is perhaps one of the reasons why GM seemingly invests so little in weight reduction.

Bottom line is, even if the Volt isn't the type of car you or I would buy, it is still affecting the cars we are interested in, so it is appropriate to objectively criticize it. Again, I hope GM can succeed with it. But just wishing for it to succeed will not make it so. If it is not going to be worth the resources, if GM doesn't execute it properly, if it cannot turn a profit, then all of us should be upset for the reasons I just outlined.

[midnighter]

This doesn't look good to me...

[Camaro_Corvette]

Some more volt bashing on yahoo today.

[Camaro_Corvette]

Originally Posted by midnighter

That's where I got the photo.

Yeah, and I was like, please tell me people are not plugging their car in with those. Get a GOOD power cord for your 40,000$ car, and plug it DIRECTLY into the wall

[midnighter]

Originally Posted by Camaro_Corvette

Yeah, and I was like, please tell me people are not plugging their car in with those. Get a GOOD power cord for your 40,000$ car, and plug it DIRECTLY into the wall

No kidding, what did they expect?

[Camaro_Corvette]

Originally Posted by midnighter

No kidding, what did they expect?

Okay, so after reading the article, apparently the volt comes with it's very own special 450$ cord. So a smart buyer takes that extremely expensive cord home and plugs it into a 5 dollar powerstrip from radio shack Or in the case of the picture yahoo showed, a 95 cent multi plug

[CamaroSkooter]

Is yahoo news considered a serious news source?

I'm going to go find these mysterious complaints on the GM-Volt.com forum...

[Camaro_Corvette]

Originally Posted by CamaroSkooter

Is yahoo news considered a serious news source?

I'm going to go find these mysterious complaints on the GM-Volt.com forum...

Nope, just pointing out that they are hatin.