Depressing. Unsurprising. Electric.
I "missed" this earlier this week. Edward Niedermeyer is anything but charged up about the Volt:
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. The company is moving forward on a second generation of Volts aimed at eliminating the initial model’s considerable shortcomings. (In truth, the first-generation Volt was as good as written off inside G.M., which decided to cut its 2011 production volume to a mere 10,000 units rather than the initial plan for 60,000.) Yet G.M. seemingly has no plan for turning its low-volume “eco-flagship” into a mass-market icon like the Prius.
Quantifying just how much taxpayer money will have been wasted on the hastily developed Volt is no easy feat. Start with the $50 billion bailout (without which none of this would have been necessary), add $240 million in Energy Department grants doled out to G.M. last summer, $150 million in federal money to the Volt’s Korean battery supplier, up to $1.5 billion in tax breaks for purchasers and other consumer incentives, and some significant portion of the $14 billion loan G.M. got in 2008 for “retooling” its plants, and you’ve got some idea of how much taxpayer cash is built into every Volt.
In the end, making the bailout work — whatever the cost — is the only good reason for buying a Volt. The car is not just an environmental hair shirt (a charge leveled at the Prius early in its existence), it is an act of political self-denial as well.
If G.M. were honest, it would market the car as a personal donation for, and vote of confidence in, the auto bailout. Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of cross-branding that will make the Volt a runaway success.
I suppose there is a better way to do industrial policy. Whatever it is, our government doesn't seem to have found it. At this point, the Samwick family auto plan is looking like:
- Drive the current two until they fall apart, an underappreciated strategy for keeping green.
- When the first one fails, replace it with a Honda Pilot, because the kids and their friends and their gear seem to be growing.
- When the second one fails, replace it with a Toyota Prius, assuming it can handle the hills in the winter. Otherwise, it will be yet another Subaru Outback, hopefully getting 30+ mpg by then.
What about you? Any plans to go electric with the Volt?
Good strategy, but you can
Good strategy, but you can eliminate step 2. Stick with the Outback. We have had two for about five years. Got the first one new in 1996; now has 340,000+ miles. Bought the second one in 2005, with 88,000 miles on it. Son just wrecked that one, so we bought a 'new' 1997 with 127,000 miles. We live in Montana, so most miles are highway-driven. The new '97 appears to be getting 30+ on the highway, as do/did the others. No electric for us, we can't even make a round-trip to town on a single charge.
Old News
Um, I thought this was old news. GM's CEO was famously against investing in cost-effective vehicles that got decent mileage until fairly recently. Suddenly, to make a green imprint, a few years ago GM came up with the high-end Volt that lots of people have been highly skeptical of. Maybe it was worth building just for technology's sake, but that price makes it seem more like a collector's edition. Especially when the Prius is available for considerably less. Oh well.
Yep
We want a plug-in electric. Whether it will be the Volt or the Nissan Leaf, I can't say. The Volt is more flexible because it has the gas engine to go more than 40 miles, while the Leaf is a longer range on just the battery. However, I only drive 12 miles to work and 12 miles home, so either one has plenty of reserve. The other car we are thinking about is the Ford Focus Hybrid. It's getting pretty good reviews. We haven't looked at one yet, but I've heard it's nice. The 10+ year old cars that we have right now are just starting the fall-apart-around-you phase.
Going Electric
Two years ago I bought a Toyota Rav4 (for various reasons I needed an SUV, but did not want a big one). At the time, I believe Toyota only offered hybrid in their Highlander and the Lexus equivalent, and those were out of my price range. Had the Rav4 been available in a hybrid, I would have bought one.
As for future electric vehicles - I drive my cars until the can't go no more... Ask me again in 8-12 years.
Instead of the Prius, why not
Instead of the Prius, why not consider a Ford Fusion Hybrid? 2010 North American Car of the Year, great quality rankings, better safety ratings, and more interior space and performance than the Prius. Don't write off Detroit, they're producing pretty good stuff these days.
What is depressing is that
What is depressing is that you will not consider domestic alternatives to the Honda Pilot and Prius, such as the 2011 Ford Explorer (now on a car platform), the Ford Flex, the Chevrolet Traverse, the Ford Fusion Hybrid, etc.
And here's why
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/andrew-samwick/666/damaging-brand
Of course you can buy
Of course you can buy whatever cars you want, and who can say what will be available when your existing cars need to be replaced, but as of now the Pilot isn't nearly as good a car as the Explorer. And refusing to buy Fords because of a bad experience with a GM dealer is just weird.
You have a point on the Explorer
We'll definitely check it out when we are in the market for the kid wagon. Thanks.
Cuckoo
I don't know what it is about energy issues that makes people lose their minds. If no one had bought the first VCRs for $5000, we wouldn't have $70 blu ray players today. People drove all night to buy their first PC which had no screen, no keyboard, had to be soldered together, and had to be programmed by flipping switches on the case. If you did it right, it might be able to flash some lights for you. But paying a lot of money for a car that will essentially use no oil? Well, then out comes the calculators and tape measures. Will it pay for itself? Will my golf clubs fit? Maybe I should spend the money on something practical like granite countertops? I was going to buy it when it looked like a Luner Rover, but now that it looks like a real car, I'll have to refrain.
The fact of the matter is that the Volt is light years beyond a Prius technologically. If Toyota sold them at a loss initially, good for them. But GM will have no trouble selling 10,000 volts next year, and no trouble selling 45,000 in 2012. And the fact that the Volt doesn't have a limited range is the very reason why production will continue to ramp up, while all-electric cars like the Leaf will see limited appeal until battery capacity, charge times, and charging infrastructure catch up to expectations.
Chevy cars
Driving them into the ground is the best green strategy. Next is buying a used car. Hybrids are anti-green because they require many additional BTUs to manufacture that you will be lucky to recoup in the first 100K miles. As far as Chevy goes, I would only consider a Corvette or the HHR. I've rented the HHR a few times for work. Very zippy.
GM Management is wasting our money
With all the bad reviews the original Volt received, why would anyone choose this car over the more well established Hybrids, or the Prius? I think GM management needs to retake Marketing 101 and figure out the concept of product positioning..
Volt != GM
I'm at a bit of a loss to understand how the success or failure of the "bailout" and the future of GM entirely is about the Volt. GM's success will hinge on it's ability to design, make and market world class cars. The Volt being a technology flagship is sexy and all, but it's not like if the Volt doesn't sell well that our investment in GM is somehow lost.
You can argue about whether we should have moved to preserve a domestic auto industry (I believe that it makes a lot of sense to do so), but regardless, looking beyond the media and PR hype, the Volt isn't the future of GM.
You're exactly right. The
You're exactly right. The premise of the original article is BS. I'm not crazy about the whole electric car hype myself, but I understand how folks might get zealous about it.
Regardless, the idea that the future of GM hinges on the Volt is just complete and utter nonsense.
Some strong opinions on the subject ...
...based on some interesting analysis, over at Slate.
Subaru or Volt- More Difficult than you think
Don't get me wrong; I love my 1999 Legacy Outback--yes, the year before the Outback became a separate "brand"--but the Volt is much better than an electric car.
Forty miles at 1-2 cents per mile? Not bad. A clear improvement on the 11-13 cents I pay on the Subaru. But what happens when that 45 mile beach trip comes up?
Well, with the Volt, you make certain you have half a gallon or so of gas in the tank and don't worry about driving. Which that $33,000 model to which Niedermayer compares it cannot do.
Not needing to own a "spare" car to supplement the electric one? Not priceless, but worth the $8,000 difference. Even without the scenario of the all-electric car's power running out in a snowstorm or a traffic jam.
So you've got the tax credit, the lower TCO (assuming all of the other wear and tear remains the same, 10 cents a mile savings is about $700-800 a year in fuel costs for reasonable driving, or $1,200 for the baseline assumption of leases), and a break-even of about eight years over the less-flexible electric model in that alone.
May not replace a "team-crafted in Indiana" Subaru, but it can give a Prius or a Pilot a run for the money if you take any decent car trips.