^ If people honestly start going that long without using any gasoline I’m sure they won’t mind spending a few bucks on Stabil.
Looks like GM might be re-designing the Volt for Europe because it’s just too slow on zee highway. This is kinda telling about the US model:
"Until now the car’s hybrid driveline has operated with wholly all-electric drive, but poor high-speed performance and power-generation losses are forcing GM to consider powering the Volt/Ampera directly from its petrol engine at high speeds…
… the single-speed electric motor starts to run out of torque at speeds above 50mph, affecting motorway and overtaking performance."
Yep not true
"The cars being driven Europe have the same “65 percent” calibration level that we drove. That calibration and software level was locked in last Fall and still required quite a bit of work. As Andrew English from The Telegraph found, this software exhibited some drop-off in acceleration performance above 50 miles per hour.
English somehow came to believe that General Motors was working on an update for the launch of the Volt that would see the installation of a mechanical drive between the engine and wheels to bypass the mechanical-electrical energy conversion inefficiencies. While GM’s two-mode hybrid system does exactly this with a pair of clutches, there are no plans to do this for the Volt. GM spokesman Rob Peterson told GM-Volt.com that the Volt’s drive architecture remains the same as always with the engine only driving a generator. "
lol, where did they get that from then?
http://www.fastcompany.com/1664817/the-chevy-volt-may-only-sort-of-be-an-extended-range-ev
The allegation is completely false, says GM spokesman Rob Peterson. “Andreas is way off base,” he tells Fastcompany.com. “The engine turns on only once the battery is depleted. We are about 5 months away from putting this vehicle into dealerships and weeks away from finalizing the software and hardware design. I assure you that we are not going to make a change of this type of magnitude at this point in time.”
I’m guessing there’s an Open engineer named Andreas looking for a new job today.
haha
They said that 90% of people drive less than 40 miles a day, so for that crowd, they would potentially NEVER use gas, it’s pretty cool. I personally only drive about 15 miles or less a day.
As for the price, it’s high, but they all start up high. You can get a Prius now for ~20k flat, and they started significantly higher.
–mark
Starting today, participating Chevrolet dealers in launch markets will begin taking customer orders for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, the industry’s first electric vehicle with extended-range capability.
Chevrolet is so confident in the overall value of the Volt that the brand will offer a lease program on the Volt with a monthly payment as low as $350 for 36 months at Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price with $2,500 due at lease signing, including security deposit based on current conditions, which could vary at time of delivery. The benefit of the $7,500 tax credit is included in the reduced lease payment, with the tax credit going to the lessor. The Volt’s MSRP will start at $41,000 ($33,500 net of the full federal tax credit, which ranges from $0-$7,500) including a destination freight charge of $720. Customer deliveries of the Chevrolet Volt are scheduled to begin in launch markets late this year with initial production limited.
“The Chevrolet Volt will be the best vehicle in its class…because it’s in a class by itself,” said Joel Ewanick, vice president of U.S. marketing for GM, who made the announcement at the Plug-In 2010 conference. “No other automaker offers an electrically driven vehicle that can be your everyday driver, to take you wherever, whenever. The Volt will be packed with premium content and innovation, standard.”
The Volt will be initially available to Chevrolet customers in California, New York, Michigan, Connecticut, Texas, New Jersey and the Washington D.C. area.
Yeah posted it in the other Leaf vs Volt thread earlier today.
Lease price will move some metal.
Leasing companies must be banking on high resale value. I wonder what they’ll have the buyout listed for.
Figure the leasing company gets the $7,500. Figure roughly 1,500 of the payments is interest. Granted this is all rough numbers.
41 - 7.5 - 2.5 - 11 = 20
yeah, I wonder what the regulations are o the 7.5k though. Remember, 7.5k is the MAX rebate.
Interesting article on the Volt from yesterday: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/opinion/30neidermeyer.html?_r=1
Yes, and note:
Edward Niedermeyer is the editor of the Web site The Truth About Cars.
TTAC has been anti-GM for as long as I can remember.
Maybe so, but that doesn’t change the facts of his analysis.
There is a lot of public money behind this car and they decided to do something different by offering a low mileage lease not selling the car at a loss.
None of us can say for sure if this will work, but we’ll find out within a relatively short time.
I personally disagree with the “facts” of his analysis - especially when he says this:
So the future of General Motors (and the $50 billion taxpayer investment in it) now depends on a vehicle that costs $41,000 but offers the performance and interior space of a $15,000 economy car…
…Quantifying just how much taxpayer money will have been wasted on the hastily developed Volt is no easy feat.
It’s well-known that this was to be a “halo” kind of car - only sold in low volumes (10k/year initial, perhaps 45k/year after). Especially when GM sells more than that number in Silverados a month.
And yes, alot of GM prestige is baked into the Volt, but the company’s bottom line will have much more to do with the upcoming $17,000 Cruze (and the presumed 2012 $27,000 Malibu replacement) than the $41,000 Volt. And the fact that the bailout had as much to do with overall GM cost structure, rather than the lack of a “star car” - GM still leads in overall sales in North America, it just couldn’t survive with the cost structure it was saddled with. Thus, the costs of the Volt really don’t include 100% of the $50 billion bailout, or the 61% ownership he quotes. Nor is the $1.5 billion in consumer incentives all aimed at GM and the $14 billion retooling loan isn’t just for the Volt.
Then again, it isn’t as sexy to say “the Government is sponsoring the Volt for a couple hundred million”, in the face of billion-dollar bailouts.
And his point to imply that the success of the Volt is the only determinant of the success of GM as a whole (“If G.M. were honest, it would market the car as a personal donation for, and vote of confidence in, the auto bailout.”) seems a pretty inconsistent intellectual conceit from his arguments - or does he really mean that GM should “lose more on each Volt in order to make it a success”?
I agree, the success/failure of vehicles like the Cruze which is a huge improvement over the Cobalt or the current success of the new small SUVs should speak to if GM is successful not the Volt.
I just saw this yesterday
What I find funny is people complaining about the marketing of a low mileage lease. You can pay more and get more miles people. It is like no one has ever seen a dealer throw a teaser price in the paper.
Also, if you only get the low mileage lease at 10k miles a year / 365 days a year = 27 miles a day which would be within the 40 mile range.
I think GM is just trying to promote a gas free ownership…
The grant to “Korean battery manufacturers” is misleading. I believe it went to both LG Chem and Continental, who is using A123 batteries. LG chem and A123 both have facilities in America, and A123’s lithium iron phosphate (hey, superior to the Leaf’s lithium manganate) is a licensed technology from MIT. Regardless, we’ve fallen so far behind in battery technology and production we should be thankful that LG Chem is willing to invest by building production plants in the US.