“I’ll trade the warranty for $10,000. Give me a Volt for $30,000 with no warranty and I’ll take my chances.”

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This has been discussed many times on this site. Some, myself included, thought this would be an option because of a potential batt. upgrade in 5 or so years. However, looking at this from GM’s perspective there is also a legal issue in that often in many states there is an implied warranty which GM must honor regardless.

I hope they don’t price it out of reason, but this is all just a guess as we are two years away no matter what.

We bought our Impala SS new in June of 1995. It runs fine and looks good. We have had very few problems with it. It shows 118K miles. Except for what has happened with the price of gas, we would probably drive it another 100K. It is much cheaper to do the maintenance that it is to buy new cars, IMHO.

Even so, the Volt is going to have to be pretty special to lure my wife out of her beloved SS.

My 2000 S-10 has 208K miles, also with very few problems. I will drive it until if falls apart, or until Chevy comes up with a light truck which gets better mileage.

Our 85 Suburban had 430K miles on it when we finally gave it up in 2005 for a more capable tow rig. Granted that it had had one new engine and 3 !@#$%^ 700R transmissions before we finally gave up and put in a Turbo 400. Even so, 430K miles? Not bad.

I hear some of you saying “Replace my batteries at nine years, and I am good for another nine”. Do you people regularly really keep your cars for 18+ years? Do you expect the Volt to be reliable and have low cost mainrenance for that long?

I can understand being concerned about a warranty for 150K miles, but I have never kept a car for more than nine years. My average is about seven years and around 100K miles. At that point, other parts and the body start to become maintenance issues. Plus the interior starts to look shabby. So that is when I start looking at the new cars in the magazines.

So how about the rest of you?

…. bottom line is that they would probably be roughly equiv, or if anything for the same size pack the NiMH could probably give the Volt more than 40 miles/charge.

But yea, bummer GM sold the patent to Chevron (well technically Texaco 1 week before it was announced Chevron would aquire them).

More info on the EV1/Rav4EV batteries at http://ev1.org/chevron.htm

edit: LeoK… the original EV1’s used lead acid batteries, and worse, they were faulty, made by GM’s Delco division. So yea, they replaced them.

I look at this as a positive sign that they are acknowledging that they must MEET and EXCEED consumer expectations on the VOLT. GM has so much at stake on this vehicle that they will cover all contingencies in their planning.

Also, a look back at recent successful GM product launches will show that they have brought most vehicles to market at starting prices that are well below the ‘pre-launch’ hype. Look at these:

06 Hummer H3 – pre-launch est high 30’s – actual launch @ $29,995
06 Cadillac CTS – pre-launch est mid 30’s – actual launch @ $29,900
08 Chev Malibu – pre-launch est low 20’s – actual launch @ $19,995

I have faith the VOLT will come to life at a price point that won’t break the bank.

Maybe unshackling transportation from Oil is too big an expectation for just the Volt. If it just unshackles the electric car from the State of California (and all that goes with it) by proving there’s a market in the heartland, it will have opened the door: It and the EVs to come will achieve the larger objective.