Is GM going to stop stocking Volts at dealers????

[rmtoberman]

I have the GM card and get emails from them every so often. Yesterday I got an email from them that had the Volt in it with a quote from Motor Trend and all. The strange part is that after the paragraph of praising the Volt, it doesn't say, head over to you Chevrolet dealer to buy a Volt, it says:

"Volt is available to order at participating dealers."

What is that all about???? No other newsletter from GM card has ever said that. I know they do that for the Cadillac CTS V wagon, but do you think they are going to stop stocking Volts at dealers?

[AZ-Volt]

I have the GM card and get emails from them every so often. Yesterday I got an email from them that had the Volt in it with a quote from Motor Trend and all. The strange part is that after the paragraph of praising the Volt, it doesn't say, head over to you Chevrolet dealer to buy a Volt, it says:

"Volt is available to order at participating dealers."

What is that all about???? No other newsletter from GM card has ever said that. I know they do that for the Cadillac CTS V wagon, but do you think they are going to stop stocking Volts at dealers?

Noticed on the web as well.

See this thread

[Steverino]

Perhaps. There are some earlier posts about this language now displaying on commercials. And that's how I bought mine.

I suspect they will want the dealers to keep some demos and however slim inventory they want.

Frankly, I preferred ordering the car I wanted rather than settling for a car the dealer had. I know others who were perfectly happy to trade immediate availability for the ability to order a car tailored to their preferences. As long as the dealers have demo cars and Chevy can produce quickly enough, I think ordering is fine.

[frankydude]

That's highly possible!
In Quebec, we already have such a situation - there are 5 Volts in inventory throughout all the 80 chevy dealers
the province has.
I think GM wants to sell Volts where the demand - and thus the customer orders - are.

It's obvious they will loose some potential sales from buyers who have the habit of purchasing off the lot.
Also the Volt sales will suffers from buyers that need a car NOW (previous car had was wrecked, stolen, broke down, etc)
But the Volt is a car who's acceptance varies wildly from state to state in the US and from province to province in Canada.
in Canada, 3 provinces over 10 have buying incentives. Where do you think the Volt will sell more? I would bet in those
3 provinces.

In the US, there are states where electricity is highly priced - that makes the Volt less attractive there.
And some other states where electricity is cheaper. The same for the political climate...
There are also some state buying incentives that varies from state to state.

When you purchase on order, you get the exact car you would like, that suits your taste.
So, that is a positive point to purchase on order. The negative point is the time to delivery.
The only thing that GM needs to speed up is the delivery time. We ordered our 2012 in october 2011,
and it was built only this tuesday, march 13. We should take delivery in 4-6 weeks, so by the end of
april - That's a 6 months wait. It's way too long.

Perhaps they should pre-produce some more cars with the various colors and options and have that inventory
at the plant, and they get to deliver them as soon as the order comes in.
There are 8 colors, x 3 (nav/no nav/bose) x 2 (wheels polished/not) x2 (backup cam/not) x 6 (leather seats/not)=576 possibilities.

So, they can keep a minimal inventory of 576 that gets replenished when cars get ordered/delivered.
GM could also have some optimisations on this: some models and trims packages will be more ordered/popular
so they could produce more of these to keep in inventory.

It's some sort of a just in time delivery ... to the customer!
Dell has also this exact production/delivery pattern.

Francois et Line
B-2653 and C-19249

[Noel Park]

Naaaaaaaaaaaaah. Those guys at MT are just behind the times. Although I hasten to add that I much refer to order the car the way I want it. I ordered mine last January and got it in March. I can't imagine why they are so slow in the case of Francois and others. I compliment you on your patience and determination my friend. It will be well worth it in the end.

[SharkVolt]

The plain simple fact is: If you want to order a car and spend minimum waiting time, you need to order it in Jan-may. Those get produced, shipped, and delivered in about two months. Since car manufacturers shut down every year in July to retool for the next years cars, and also shut down for Christmas/New Year almost another month, everything ordered from June through Dec is almost guaranteed an extra month or even two of delay before delivery.

[bonaire]

From one wording out of GM about the plant shutdown about a week ago, they said "we're going to build them based on customer requests" or some wording like that. Perhaps now instead of allocations, they will go entirely to a first-in first-out order basis once the plant re-opens after the few-weeks shutdown.

Dealership in Buffalo that I will be visiting this afternoon has 13 Volts in stock (up recently from 6) and looks like they pulled some over from other dealerships in the area - many are early MY 2012 VINs - like they collected up various units that were not selling elsewhere so they can continue to sell out of their inventory. They do have over 1000 vehicles on inventory at an off-site lot (which is huge, near a local highway).

[JinxRemoving]

I hope that's not the case. While I was at the dealer the other day a couple was just coming in from test driving a Volt. They had come in to look at trucks. The sales guy told them I was getting one and the guy said "wow, I just drove one it was really fun!" his lady friend then chimed in with "my commute is only half a mile .... hmmm", you could see the gears going in her head. People often test drive other cars when they are browsing and not having the cars available for people to test drive and "see it to believe it" would be a huge mistake.

[rmtoberman]

I hope that's not the case. While I was at the dealer the other day a couple was just coming in from test driving a Volt. They had come in to look at trucks. The sales guy told them I was getting one and the guy said "wow, I just drove one it was really fun!" his lady friend then chimed in with "my commute is only half a mile .... hmmm", you could see the gears going in her head. People often test drive other cars when they are browsing and not having the cars available for people to test drive and "see it to believe it" would be a huge mistake.

I agree, I think it's a terrible idea not to stock them like they stock $60K Corvettes. At least in areas where they sell well like states and Provinces with good incentives. But I am pretty sure most car purchases in Europe are by order, so nothing will change there.

[frankydude]

Perhaps an hybrid solution would be to have a dealer demo per dealer plus fast delivered orders, and dealer allowed
to sale/deliver the demo only when a new Volt demo comes in?

So people interested could test drive the car, and either buy the demo or order one that will be delivered rapidly.

The Volt is a leading edge technology in personnal transportation. Buyers need to learn about it, sceptic people
will convince themselves with time, and with rising gas price.
At that subject, I was checking the historical prices, and gas did increase of more than 50% in the last 10 years.
in another 10 years, if trend follows, it will be another 50% higher. That simply means that the $4.00 per gallon
now will be $6.00 in 2022.
Are you ready? I am.
Francois et Line
B-2653 C-19249