GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Occasionally an opinion piece is written about the Volt that comes out negative. These are unconventional pieces as the vast majority of journalistic work paints the car in a positive light.

The Wall Street Journal has just published an article by editorial board member Holman Jenkins that was particularly harsh.

The author takes note of GMs financially difficult position and CEO Wagoner’s claim that consumer automotive shifts are not transient but likely permanent.

He writes:

GM’s leaders are not nuts, and yet to pour hundreds of millions into a race to launch an electric car, the Chevy Volt, guaranteed to lose money on every unit sold, begins to seem a peculiar strategy for a company in dire liquidity straits.

He writes “at best, the Volt will be an affluent family’s third car” and contends it wont be usable by city dwellers.

He goes on to attack GM’s claim that the ICE will get 50 mpg during battery charging as “hallucinatory” and makes the “guess” that “the car will be lucky to get 15 mpg under gasoline power.”

He perceives the Volt as having limited flexibility being a 4 passenger car, and derides its environmental benefit claiming use of electricity as a fuel is akin to “playing Three Card Monte with energy inputs.”

Finally Jenkins goes on to make his main point that GM, “justif(ies) the costs and risks of the Volt as a way of changing GM’s image in the minds of consumers and politicians.”, and that “the Volt is GM’s vehicle for making a bailout of GM politically acceptable.”

What do you think?

Source (Wall Street Journal)

On July 1st, GM released its June 08 sales figures. Due to a tightening economy, consumer credit squeeze, sky-high oil prices, and plummeting truck demand it was widely expected that GM would experience a greater than 20% drop in June sales compared to the year prior.

It turns out, all the automakers but Honda and Hyundai did, with Ford dropping 28%, Chrysler dropping 38%, and Toyota dropping 21%. But to analysts’ surprise, GM’s sales did not drop as much as expected, down 18.5% for the month.  Overall it was the worst June for US auto sales in 17 years.

GM highlighted it’s building green car momentum.

Mark LaNeve GM VP of North America said "hybrid demand and availability continues to build, and we’re seeing really positive momentum with the Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon 2-mode hybrids." He also said:

"Make no mistake about this … Asian automakers do not have a monopoly on fuel efficient vehicles. We have a full lineup of vehicles — including five hybrid models — that provide industry-leading value, great fuel economy and the best warranty coverage of any full-line automaker," LaNeve added. "Every month, more and more customers are choosing our brands when shopping for a high value, fuel efficient vehicle."

If you drill into the numbers a little, it turns out that hybridization appear to be underway, albeit slowly. From GM’s press release:

GM hybrid vehicles continue to gain in popularity in the marketplace with 547 hybrid Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon 2-mode SUVs delivered. There were 295 Chevrolet Malibu, 30 Saturn Aura and 277 Vue hybrids sold in June. For the month, a total of 1,149 hybrid vehicles were delivered, with 4,376 hybrids sold so far this year.

Cobalt, Malibu, G6, Vibe, and Aura all actually had increased sales from 07 to 08 as did Suburban and Equinox.

Source (GM )

GM has yet to show us the final complete design of the production Chevy Volt, which we know will be different than the concept. GM has shown a 1/3 scale model heavily camouflaged. Above is the expert rendition of Captain Jason Cullinane of the U.S. Army who thinks he may be very close.

Here’s what Jason has to say about it:

"This all started when I sent Lyle a draft logo I designed for the GM-Volt.com website. I wanted to help and this was a way I thought I could contribute. Lyle asked me if I could flesh out one of the frames of the 1/3 size "camo" Volt that was shot in the wind tunnel so I decided to try my hand at it – and this was the result!

I researched a lot of the photos of the concept Volt from multiple angles since Mr. Lutz said that the final version would be distinctively like the concept. I also referenced the "sneak peak" shots when building the nose. I even outfitted this version with some EV1 rims – I doubt that the concept rims were very aerodynamic. This design may be have more hard edges than the final design but I am speculating where I didn’t have good data and just tried to make it look good.

I used to be a full time graphic designer (with an art and design background) and always enjoyed designing cars in school but I have been called back to service as an officer in the U.S. Army. I will be heading out to Iraq in a few months to lead my troops in combat.

I have been eagerly watching the developments of the Volt ( I check the site daily) and have started to put money away so I can afford one. I really do believe that the Volt project signals the start of a US shift away from mideast oil. I think that this will be good for us all.

I still do some freelance design projects and have even wrote, designed and published my own book, LogbookONE: The Log for Runners, Joggers and Walkers. I used to also be a competitive runner (U.S. Olympic trials 3000m Steeplechase in 1996 and was 9th in the US at the 1998 US National Track & Field Championships).

You can order LogbookONE online at www.runninghat.com (I give discounts to team orders )."