Chevy Temporarily Stops Building The Volt, And That Should Surprise No One

I’m a fan of electric car technology. I’d like to see every car on the road be 100% electric, because every car would be charged with electricity generated at American power plants that are fueled by American coal and natural gas (and maybe even wind and solar energy, as the technology matures). An all electric vehicle fleet would be awesome because it would put oil-rich dictators out of business and keep billions of dollars spent on foreign oil at home.

However, I’m a realist – I don’t think anyone should buy an electric car until they deliver the same type of performance we can get from a gas engine or gas-electric hybird…which is why I’m not a fan of the Chevy Volt. Coincidentally, this is also why Chevy recently announced that they were temporarily suspending Volt production.

Why The Volt Was Destined To Fail

With more than 6,000 Volts stacking up on dealer lots, Chevy has temporarily paused production of the Volt

It’s easy to say that hindsight is 20-20, but let’s recap the “features” of the Volt that have led to it’s current status as “GM’s Edsel”:

1. The car costs $41k, but only has enough battery capacity to drive 25-50 miles, which make it a very, very expensive commuter car. A Chevy Cruze, Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, Ford Focus, etc. can all be had for less than half the cost of a new Volt. The economics of the all-electric powertrain don’t back out, even with a $7,500 federal tax credit.
2. The car’s name and image rekindle memories of a very unpopular government buyout, mostly because GM showed anyone and everyone pictures of the Volt while they were begging the government for money back in 2008 and 2009.
3. Because the car was announced years before it was actually built, any opportunity to build up a little “irrational exuberance” sales momentum was lost.
4. The Volt’s target buyer – someone who is looking at a Nissan Leaf or Toyota Prius – isn’t a GM customer. In fact, most of the educated car-buying public with the financial means to buy a hybrid walked away from GM decades ago…GM’s atrocious quality record in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s saw to that
5. Did I mention that this car is *(#$)@ expensive?!

Like I said, hindsight is 20-20, but a quick search of the Internet shows that the Volt was panned by many analysts. I swear to you that I saw this coming, but even if you don’t believe me, there’s no denying that quite a few people other than me predicted failure.

What’s Next For The Volt?

GM has told Automotive News that their recent sales failures with the Volt stem for concerns about vehicle safety and quality, mostly from overhyped media coverage of Volt fire risks. They will be resuming production in May, once some of the 6,300+ Volts ready and available for delivery are moved off dealer lots. While there is some truth to this, the fact is nothing is going to sell this car but a big price drop.

Still, given the Volt’s importance and status as one of GM’s halo cars, it will not be discontinued anytime soon. But you can expect Chevy to update and rework the Volt ASAP, as the current product is too expensive to have a snowball’s chance of selling in any real volumes.

In the meantime, we’ll watch Toyota hit the 107 mpg Prius plug-in (MSRP $27k) right out of the park. That car costs less and makes a heck of a lot more financial sense.

As President Obama is rumored to have once said about GM, “Why can’t they just build a Corolla?“