July8
First, GM moves up the official unveiling of its Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric vehicle to September from October, and now reports have the car making its debut a full year ahead of schedule, at least in North America. This, despite General Motors’ own concerns regarding meeting the original deadline.
The Autocar report says the Volt could show up in American showrooms as early as September of 2009 and would help the struggling automaker shift attention away from its slowing SUV sales and brand reorganization, including attempts to sell Hummer.
If the Volt indeed comes to market by 2009, it would help sales, as GM would likely sell all the Volts it could make, though each would likely be a money-losing proposition. It would also be important for the company’s image, as it would likely beat similar vehicles from Toyota by about one year.
European versions of the Volt would launch sometime in 2011, about 18 months after the vehicle’s debut in North America, partly because it is slated to use a diesel engine to charge the batteries instead of a gasoline powerplant.
what GM needs to really do is take the two mode hybrid drive train currently being used in the over priced yukon and start putting it in vehicles like the G8 and Mailbu
I wonder what kind of debut GM (or LLN) is talking about? Lutz riding around Detroit? Will GM adhere to original price of 30 large as well?
Yeah, I can picture Lutz riding around in a topless Volt, waiving his cowboy hat while shouting, “yahoooooo.”
I think it is publicity stunt to delay board firing their asses. If you look at state of the company 2 years after breaking talk with Renault-Nissan and convincing investors that situation is under control, what excuse can one master? I can see institutional investors and Russian mob, also known as Kremlin, looking at all the cash they sank in and shaking heads. Commies are probably wondering, if even Brezhnev could **** up company as well as current board and executives.
GM’s bleeding, along with all automakers, has intensified with the ever climbing gas prices and ****ty american economy. Some folks like to bash GM do to their lack of a crystal ball. I don’t question corruption within the company, but you’d be hardpressed to find a squeaky clean company. Being on top is all about ******* over whatever & whomever to get their. At the rate we’re going, the success of an automaker is going to stem with their ability to change. Gas will one day not be the default choice of powering vehicles and automakers must adapt. The Volt can potentially be very good for GM, hopefully the price point isn’t as outrageous as the rumours suggest.
Maybe the realization that ‘like a rock’ better served as a corporate slogan than a deft comparison to falling share prices had something to with this.
fücking?
It’ll be the same kind of “debut” the Camaro made back in 2007. They can’t produce the cars in any quantity right now… but they’ll tease you with pictures and little updates every chance they get… trying to hype it.
Speaking of Camaro, where’s our daily story???
As long as you don’t picture Lutz topless…
The faster it gets to market, the more bugs it will have. GM should wait and take its time to make sure all bugs are ironed out.
Yet another speculation article, yet another group of posters pontificating on what GM should do. LOL!
You know if the Volt does end up selling for around 30k I will seriously consider buying one, I rececently moved closer to work and that helps but before I was driving 150 mi. in one day. after a 5 day commute it dosen’t matter what you drive at that distance, it will be expensive. But now my commute is down to 27 mi.-one way, I believe the offset of a new car payment with the money you save on gas would equel out, but it would prob pay off in the long run… that is unless the batteries have a short lifespan. Anybody got an estimate on these type of batteries as to how long they last until needing replacement? thanks.
Volt for 30k I would seriously consider… it’s a bit more than I’d want to spend for a car… but saving the $100-200 I spend in gas per month would be worth it. Thankfully my round-trip commute is only 30 miles.
1500 charges is the typical life of a Lithium-Ion battery. If you can avoid plugging it in whenever it is parked, the batteries should last a bit longer.
I definately wont be buying a 1st gen. The price of electricity and fuel will dicatate which direction the industry goes overall. But I get the feeling that different countries will have different sources of energy based on their needs and resources. If you have a lot of natural gas it makes sense to make cars for your country that can be powered directly or indirectly by NG. Seems to me electric cars fed by a “mostly nuke with renewable supplemented in” powered grid is the future for countries not rich in oil or gas.
Lotsa laughs how LLN protects Lutz (I understand as even Albert Speer believed in what he was doing at the time he was doing it). The GM popsicle party is over…the ice cream has all melted. Although I truly wanted to believe in GM, they have—in every way—proven they no longer have what it takes. They lost what it takes sometime ago. Let’s hope there will be a young upstart of a company willing to demonstrate to the world that America can again build automobiles. You can start writing the obituaries now for GM’s executive branch. Here’s Lutz’s: A know-it-all who knew nothing.
Seems Tokyota is getting lazy.
Yeah, yeah, we know, GM sucks! Being almost tied (less than 1%) with Toyota as the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world and beating out every other automaker really sucks! Booo GM, you suck. Why would you even try to reinvent the automobile like this with the Volt, you suck. Suck, suck, suck.
Jesus H. Christ, you people that post on here are broken godd*mn records. Are you dumb as rocks or just think people really give a sh*t about your uneducated opinions (your mother doesn’t count)? Please, do us all a favor, if you hate LLN so much, STOP COMING TO THE F*CKING WEBSITE! “I hate milk!” Drinks milk. “This milk sucks!” Are you really that f*cking retarded?
@HolyDogWater, Kindly go back to your inbreeding.
I guess that’s why it’s taking them 4 years to do the Camaro. (on an already developed chassis & powertrain) And 2 years to make a CTS Wagon. (jezzus, it’s a few new welding jigs for chrissake). All the effort is going to this PC-weenie car that won’t make them one dime. Great. Sorry GM, I’m having a harder time believing that you’ll make it through the next decade.
I read an article about a year ago or more that explained GM’s ups and downs and effects on the economy. One interesting fact I remember is that GM and all the people that work for it, from corporate down to the people washing cars at the dealers account for a full 1% of the US economy. It went on to say that no other single company (not just autos, but all US corperations) accounts for a full 1%, all others are just fractions of a percent and if a company the size of GM were to go bankrupt inflation would skyrocket and we would be (adding my own words here) up $hit creek. It was a very well written and non bias article, about 10 pages long, I wish I could remember more than a couple of trivial facts from it.
====>>That’s very interesting monte…i love reading stuff like that
I hope NA gets the Diesel version…**** GAS.
They better offer diesel in the U.S. - a diesel plug-in would get crazy high fuel economy.
Imagine your home powered by solar panels to help recharge the Volt, and using waste vegetable oil for the diesel tank. It would be close to free to fuel, and very green.