Chevy Volt price gauge hovering below $40k
By Matt Jansen
General Motors has hinted at several different price points for the Chevy Volt, starting with under $30,000 and now moving to something less than $40,000. While that puts the car out of reach for many, economics of scale may eventually drive the price down as the lithium-ion batteries become cheaper to manufacture.
Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors was interviewed by Charlie Rose who asked about the future of the company and its flagship green product, the Chevy Volt. General Motors is struggling to transform its product mix into a set of vehicles that provide fuel efficiency rivaling competitors like Toyota and Honda.
When asked what the Chevy Volt will sell for, Wagoner responded “. . . we initially hoped we could get it for a very good price, lets say below $30,000. It’s going to be more expensive than that, the first copies.” Prompted for a more specific figure he said “we haven’t finalized [the price], it wont be as high as 50 but it’ll be in the mid to high 30s is my best guess.”
There is still a great deal of uncertainty for General Motors surrounding details of the production version of the Chevy Volt and Wagoner’s generalizations are indicative of that.
Regarding the intense buzz that surrounds the Chevy Volt, Wagoner said “it’s about GM boldly leading to the future,” but more importantly it’s about a vehicle that has potential to very directly influence the bottom line for consumers with tight budgets.
While some consumers are excited at the possibility of saving money on gas, critics of GM point at a fair amount of mystery that surrounds the cancellation of the EV1. Some rumors call General Motors out as a company concerned about cannibalizing its own business and because of that it canceled the EV1 program. Others simply believe that it was priced too expensively.
Maybe this time around General Motors will focus on bringing the Chevy Volt to the masses.
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Stumble It!
August 21st, 2008
Funny, both Toyota and Honda (after 6 months) cancelled their electric car programs as well. Why this frsudulent belief that only GM cancelled an electric car program. Lutz had a beautiful response to people who ask why GM wasn’t building small cars several years ago : Our shareholders would have considered us insane to have produced slow selling, low profit margin vehicles, while the rest of the world was buying big with $2.50 gasoline. He also pointed out that the Fed govt was always out of step, trying to force consumers into smaller cars – whihc , at best , would have led to reduced sales of new in favor of larger used cars. His example – trying to make the population leaner by forcing clothing manufacturers to only produce small sizes.
August 21st, 2008
Lutz is insane. He expects the most outrageous lies to get by.
GM was FORCED to make the EV1; it did its best to sabotage it, releasing it in 1996 with defective batteries. It was GM which bought control of the only successful EV batteries — NiMH — and sold that control, on Oct. 10, 2000, to Texaco, which 6 days later announced its merger into Standard Oil of California (Chevron). Thus, GM and SO worked together to suppress the EV batteries, when Chevron sued Toyota, extracting $30 million after which Toyota stopped making the batteries — and the RAV4-E V can’t get replacement batteries, thanks to GM-Chevron collusion.
The EV1 was a great car; GM hunted down and stopped it from existing, while Toyota SOLD the last 300 Toyota RAV4-EV to the public.
That’s why GM is much more guilty than anyone else but Chevron of killing the electric car.
Why should we believe that GM is serious about the EV this time? It’s just a shuck, GM is waiting for gas prices to come down and SUV to start selling again.
GM admits the VOLT won’t be sold in more than tiny quantities through 2014, at least; and told the NHTSB not to count it into GM’s supposedly desperate attempts to meet MPG standards.
Because GM doesn’t expect to sell many, if any, of them, that’s why.
It’s a long time to 2011, 0r 2012, when GM will be able to kill the program.
Sure, they could produce the VOLT, or any 40-mile-range EV right now, using lead or NiMH batteries; using expensive, short-lived, dangerous Lithium is just GM’s way of postponing things for years, when they will be found out as the complete shame that they are.
August 27th, 2008
LOL the ignoranti rant! TOYOTA SOLD its RAV4-EV, and they are still on the street, running fine, last SOLD in Nov., 2002.
GM was afraid to sell the EV1, because it wanted to sell more SUV and Hummers.
Now, GM is paying the price of its own failures. But that price is just beginning to be visible, as GM continues to be run by the same failed Board that ran it into the mess it’s in now.
August 27th, 2008
Toyota SOLD its Toyota RAV4-EV, last sold in Nov., 2002.
The Toyota RAV4-EV is all-electric, no gas, no oil, no tune-ups, and is still running fine, 6 years later.
GM is still suppressing its EV1, refusing to let WWU run a reconstructed EV1 on the streets, still killing the Electric car.
August 27th, 2008
Toyota had no fear of selling THEIR Toyota RAV4-EV, why not GM?
Don’t you think that GM shareholders would be even more upset at the current share price??
If GM had already blown its money makiing the EV1, why did it spend even more money to kill it??
Why is GM STILL refusing to allow volunteers to rebuild the EV1 from dismantled parts??
September 11th, 2008
If the Volt is not priced below 30k… GM will sell … less that 30k of these over it’s doomed lifespan.