GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Well hot-diggity, look who’s offering its endorsement for the Chevrolet Volt.

Last April Consumer Reports made waves when it said the Volt “doesn’t really make a lot of sense,” and it is “an expensive way to be green,” but in in the months since its editors have shifted their opinion.

“We now recommend the Volt plug-in hybrid after new data from our 2011 Annual Auto Survey shows it earned much better than average reliability,” the magazine says in its November issue.

After tallying results from 116 Volt respondents, Consumer Reports found very few of them had any serious problems with the car, which helped qualify it for CR’s “recommended” list.

The Volt has been said to be a new revolution in the making.

“To be recommended a vehicle must do well in our testing, have average or better reliability, and perform adequately in independent safety tests (if included),” Consumer Reports said.

And to be sure, safety tests as independent as they come by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety and federal government both found the Volt to exceed expectations.

This said, Consumer Reports is still not exactly gushing with unreserved praise, and nitpicks the Volt where it can. Things it did not like included the infotainment interface, rear seat room and outward visibility for the driver.

Things it did like were “quick and quiet acceleration, very low running costs, and the equivalent of 99 mpg overall.”

In the handling department, CR’s test editors noted, “The Volt’s more enjoyable to drive than a Toyota Prius.”

But we already knew that, didn’t we?

We could go on, but we know most of you are probably already aware of this news, and the CR video and links give plenty of information as well.

We will add that this story was brought to our attention yesterday by an e-mail from Volt Line Director Tony Posawatz.

He did not offer comment but obviously Chevrolet is sure it has a winner, and is likely satisfied that the recommendation from the ostensibly objective Consumer Reports – a powerful brand in its own right – will hold clout with some people.

We’ve now lost count how many accolades the Volt has received, but this is one more to add to the list.

Consumer Reports

GM is forecasting marked increases in Volt sales for the remaining months of this year, and no doubt this will be necessary if it is going to meet its projected targets.

Not addressing those betting against it, yesterday GM spokesman Rob Peterson said the company will achieve in the Volt’s inaugural year what it has consistently said it would.

“We’re still on track to deliver 10,000 units to dealers for retail delivery (producing 16,000 in total for 2011),” Peterson said of North American and worldwide deliveries respectively. “The pipeline is filling up and becoming much more fluid.”

Thousands more of these are coming your way soon, GM says.

Peterson said September Volt sales totaled 723 units.

“Best month so far, but we’re only getting started,” he said.

By contrast, Nissan reported 1,031 Leafs sold in September, indicating the Volt is closing a gap between the two vehicles that are entering via yet-limited markets.

As we have previously reported however, Chevrolet is following its own roll-out schedule and regardless of some headlines, GM says it is not in a race with Nissan for the most units sold.

“We are not competing with Leaf,” Peterson said. “We can’t sell what we don’t have and we haven’t had Volts to sell.”

But now Chevrolet dealers are getting new Volts to sell, and GM does have a sales goal to meet. To accomplish it, a comparative flood of Volts is arriving at a growing number of locations.

“As of today there are approximately 700 Volts in dealer inventory at the nearly 2,100 Chevrolet dealers in 27 states currently selling the Volt,” Peterson said. “The number of dealers will grow to 2,600 by the end of the year.”

Additionally many more Volts are on the way, he said.

“There are also 1,700 Volts in transit (on average it takes about 14 days for a Volt to travel by truck and train to our launch market dealers which are primarily on the coasts),” he said.

GM is “filling the pipeline as quickly as possible,” Peterson said, “with a more consistent flow of retail units on their way to dealers.”

Peterson noted an additional 600 Volts were shipped to dealers as demos this month, bringing the total number of demos to 2,000.

Having finished its best month so far, the Volt’s year-to-date sales total is around 3,896 units, Peterson said.

This means for the three months of October through December, Chevrolet must sell 6,104 units in North America. That’s around 60 percent of the year’s total goal inside of the last quarter.

Assuming this will be accomplished, we ought to be seeing a fair increase in the number of Volts on the road within the next 90 days.

Peterson reiterated the bottom line is this: By year’s end, GM projects 10,000 Volts for U.S. retail deliveries, 2,500 allocated for demo units, 3,500 for export.

“Some will be in-transit (especially exports),” Peterson said, “but we’ll definitely hit this target.”

For those of you waiting for a generation 2 Chevy Volt, Voltec CUV, coupe, or any other vehicle based on the Volt’s powertrain, you may have to hold on for three more years.

Last week, several media outlets picked up on a quote given at the Frankfurt motor show by GM of Europe head Nick Reilly, who said 2015 is the year to look forward to for Volt derivatives.

“We won’t do it with this generation, and that will run to 2015,” Reilly said in response to a question by Automotive News about whether GM will build variations on the Volt platform. “You’d have to wait until after that until you see it.”

2011 Volt.

Although the media are just now cuing in on Reilly’s statement, we commented on similar hints in August when he said the second generation Ampera would not be out until 2015, and we noted at the time this could mean the Volt is included too.

It would seem now our hinted-at guess was right but even we did not suppose GM would put a moratorium on all Voltec variations.

Reasons provided by Reilly were GM needs that long to recoup expenses incurred from building the Volt, given a slow U.S. Volt ramp up, and limited sales in other markets of variations of the Volt and its sibling, the Ampera.

As has been also reported, GM is working to get the Volt’s production costs down. It is particularly focused on reducing the single biggest cost driver – the expense of its thermally managed lithium-ion battery pack.

Reilly confirmed GM has made significant headway on this front, without specifying how, and said the battery is now estimated at around $8,000 for the second generation car.

But the knife of cost cutting and conservativeness seems to be slicing into what began as an outrageously bold initiative to build the Voltec platform – and what enthusiasts hoped would quickly lead to a series of vehicles based on the pioneering Gen 1 Volt.

Perhaps the misbegotten EV1 introduction and recall over a decade ago, and more recent financial woes from a bankruptcy and bailout have also contributed to a conservative stance.

At any rate, it would appear GM again wants to take the electric vehicle tech lead with the Volt, although this time without overstepping boundaries or repeating mistakes.

Speaking of which, GM executives have also said the company is working hard to build a “fortress balance sheet.” Although GM has the cash to buy back the 26 percent share of its own stock held by the U.S. Treasury at a discount compared to the IPO price, it has resisted this move as well.

Perhaps considering the pain GM endured being cash poor, its desire to preserve capital on a few major fronts is understandable – or will some consider its latest decision to delay Voltec introductions to be a vote of limited confidence in their marketability?

We don’t know. What do you think? Do you think it is possible Reilly’s pretty unambiguous quote could nonetheless be proven incorrect?

Or do you think the chance GM took on quickly building the Volt during tight times was big enough, and promoting it and the Ampera will be enough, as GM plots a more sedate course through to 2015?

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