Tag: Chevrolet

A big month for the Chevy Volt: Sales skyrocket to a mind-boggling 4 per day

That’s right. GM sold a grand total 125 Volts last month. Hah! That’ll teach you non-believers.

Those of your who said no one would buy the overpriced and underpowered Chevy Volt will just have to eat crow, because General Motors was able to find four suckers early adapters each and every day in the month of July.

That’s right. GM sold a grand total 125 Volts last month. Hah! That’ll teach you non-believers.

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We're willing to bet that at least 100 of the 125 Volts sold in July were purchased by various government entities

The Weekly Standard has the story:

Way back in March I made fun of the Volt for selling 281 units in February. Turns out, February was a good month. But wait, there’s more! GM says they’re going to increase production to 5,000 Volts per month in order to keep up with demand. You see, they claim that the reason the Volt isn’t selling is that they can’t keep enough cars on the lot. A GM spokeswoman recently claimed that they are “virtually sold out.” Which is virtually true. Mark Modica called around his local Chevy dealers and found plenty of Volts waiting for an environmentally conscious driver to bring them home.

We resent the Weekly Standard’s snide attitude. This is the car of the future. The car that will revolutionize the auto industry. The official car of the Obama administration.

And that’s plenty good enough for us, damn it.

Source: Weekly Standard

Government Motors’ brand new Chevy Volt already obsolete

“Planned obsolescence” is a term applied to products designed to break easily or to quickly go out of style. GM has taken the concept to new highs (or lows.)

“Planned obsolescence” is a term applied to products designed to break easily or to quickly go out of style. GM has taken the concept to new highs (or lows.)

Green Autoblog reveals the Volt’s unplanned obsolesence:

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The Volt should be renamed the Obama. Both have run out of energy far sooner than anyone expected.

CNN Money recently had the audacity to call the Volt’s technology “obsolete.”

CNN’s reasoning employs something called “math”: the Prius Plug-in goes 13 miles in electric mode, then swithces to hybird mode for 51 mpg highway and 48 mpg city. The Volt goes 35 miles in electric mode but on gas only 36 mpg highway and 32 mpg city. The raaaacists conclude:

On trips of 13 miles or less, the Prius plug-in and Volt deliver the same all-electric mpg: zero. On trips between 13 miles and 35 miles in length, the Volt beats the Prius. But after 35 miles, the Prius handily outscores the Volt.

Cost is the deciding factor:

…with a base price of $41,000, the Volt ain’t cheap. Pricing for the Prius Plug-In … is expected to start at approximately $28,000, meaning that it will likely undercut the Volt’s MSRP by more than $10,000. Yes, rebates alter that number, but CNN finds it difficult to justify the hefty premium for what amounts to less than 30 miles of added electric-only range.

Just try getting a “rebate.” It’s easier snatching a tamale from Michelle.

The car in which Obama “invested” so much of our tax money and so much his rapidly vanishing credibility is a metaphor for his presidency: A waste of time and money. Obsolete, just like all his other “ideas.”

– Written by Bonfire of the Absurdities

Source: Green Auto

The Chevy Volt’s shocking sales: Only 281 electric cars sold in February

Question: What’s the only thing that takes longer than charging a Chevy Volt? Answer: Selling all 10,000 Volts they’ve committed to build.

Question: What’s the only thing that takes longer than charging a Chevy Volt? Answer: Selling all 10,000 Volts they’ve committed to build.

The latest sales figures tell a common liberal morality tale: They come up with some wacky socialist scheme and attempt to force it down the gaping gullets of the American people. In the unfortunate case of the Volt, it doesn’t look like even the most liberal of environmental lunatics will spend their own money on it.

The Washington San Francisco Examiner explains:

Peruse Chevrolet’s February sales release, and you’ll notice one number that’s blatantly missing: the number of Chevy Volts sold. The number — a very modest 281 — is available in the company’s detailed data, but it certainly isn’t something that GM wants to highlight, apparently. Keeping the number quiet is a bit understandable, since it’s lower than the 321 that Chevy sold in January.

Note that it’s also lower than the 326 that sold in December. There are about 9,200 left to sell.

326 sold in December. 321 sold in January. 281 sold in February. Please allow us to use those sales figures to extrapolate a projected sales chart for the rest of 2011.

Yes, you’re reading the chart correctly. At the rate sales are plummeting, zero Volts will be sold in September leaving Government Motors with about 7,000 oversized door stops.

chevy-volt-sales-chart

Source: San Francisco Examiner

Volt revolt: Consumer Reports says GM’s electric car “doesn’t really make a lot of sense”

Government Motors says the Chevy Volt is the future. But if that the case, it’s not a future Consumer Reports is looking forward to.

Government Motors says the Chevy Volt is the future. But if that the case, it’s not a future Consumer Reports is looking forward to.

The latest issue of the highly respected magazine shines the harsh glare of reality on the electric Chevrolet:

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"A Volt buying scheme?" the President sputtered. "I thought you said a vote buying scheme."

“When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn’t particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it’s not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy,” said David Champion, the senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center at a meeting with reporters here. “This is going to be a tough sell to the average consumer.”

… The magazine has put about 2,500 miles on its Volt. It paid $48,700, including a $5,000 markup by a Chevy dealer.

Champion noted the Volt is about twice as expensive as a Prius.

He was said the five hour time to recharge the Volt was “annoying” and was also critical of the power of the Volt heating system.

“You have seat heaters, which keep your body warm, but your feet get cold and your hands get cold,” Champion said.

You know you have a problem when the best word you can pull from a review is “annoying.”

Source: The Detroit News

A jolt from Volt: Mileage figures may be 20% of what Government Motors promised

Let’s be charitable and say that Government Motors misinterpreted the numbers. Or that they exaggerated a tad. Or that they erred slightly. Call it what you may, they misinterpreted or exaggerated or erred by about 500%.

Let’s be charitable and say that Government Motors misinterpreted the numbers. Or that they exaggerated a tad. Or that they erred slightly.

Call it what you may, they misinterpreted or exaggerated or erred by about 500%.

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Everything you'd expect from a company called Government Motors. And less.

The folks at Jalopnik have all the fouled-up fuel economy figures:

First of all, let’s talk about fuel economy. In August of last year, we heard GM’s then-CEO Fritz Henderson claimed with all the marketing might it could muster at a Detroit-area press event, that the Chevy Volt would get 230 MPG in city driving conditions. Now, as the Volt’s being tested by the auto trade press, we’re seeing some surprisingly low fuel economy figures amid the expected lavish praise buff books are heaping upon the Volt.

Let’s see what they’ve found out. Popular Mechanics saw just 37.5 MPG in city driving. Car and Driver apparently didn’t choose to use their wheel time for any city driving — but found with all-electric driving:

“…getting on the nearest highway and commuting with the 80-mph flow of traffic-basically the worst-case scenario-yielded 26 miles; a fairly spirited back-road loop netted 31; and a carefully modulated cruise below 60 mph pushed the figure into the upper 30s.”

Motor Trend, like the rest of the trade press other than Popular Mechanics, didn’t appear to do any testing in city conditions, but did find that:

“Without any plugging in, [a weeklong trip to Grandma’s house] should return fuel economy in the high 30s to low 40s.”

They also parrot GM’s new line of 25-50 miles of all-electric — a far cry from the 230 MPG they originally marketed — that the “Volt provides 25-50 miles of real-world electric operation no matter how hard you flog it.”

Oh, big deal. A measly 500% off. Admit it – you’d be thrilled if Tim Geithner could come up with budget numbers that accurate.

Source: Jalopnik

Michigan governor calls Rush Limbaugh “un-American” because he makes fun of the Chevy Volt

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm called Rush Limbaugh “un-American” because he had the nerve to call the Chevy Volt a lemon.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is delusional. Completely delusional.

She went off on Rush Limbaugh yesterday, calling him “un-American” because the talk show titan had the nerve to call the Chevy Volt a lemon.

Actually, it was the New York Times that called it “General Motors Electric Lemon”, but why quibble about facts when you’re defending a $41,000 car that will only go 40 miles on a charge?

I HATE THE MEDIA ™
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