Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

Justin_Rice · Sep 27, 2012

FileNotFound said:

I love Ragu, because I knew that he wouldn't be too lazy to look up the actual numbers like I was. Point taken that those countries are carrying debt, but they'd be pretty offended to be lumped in with the PIGS.

Meanwhile, on topic: The biggest problem the Volt has is that, based on its size and feature set, it really should be about a $25,000 car, even with the premium for it being all unique and high tech and stuff. I can't imagine paying $34,000, for instance, for a small car that doesn't even have leather seats. There is absolutely no way those cars are going to carry anything close to the residuals that those rock-bottom-dollar leases are going to have. (This is nothing new for GM; my 2006 Cadillac CTS was worth nowhere near what its residual was when I turned it in in 2009.)

Maybe if badged as a Buick or Oldsmobile (RIP) or Cadillac, the Volt would have had a chance. But few people are going to pay that kind of money for a moderately equipped Chevrolet, and even fewer are going to pay the residual values for a moderately equipped used Chevrolet.
Click to expand...

Drove a 2012 volt today .... Yes it had leather seats. In fact, it was quite nicely apportioned with lots of gadgets.

41,4000 MSRP. List price of 39,600. Minus the $7,500 credit takes us down to 32,100. Zero percent financing for 72 months. By my calculation, I'll save $150 a month on gas (factoring in the extra 13kwh home electricity use - about a dollar a day). That's another 10,000 over the life of the loan.

Now we're at 22,000 for a well equipped sedan with more get up and go than my V6 Mazda that I'll be trading in.

And did I mention the dealer I'm buying fom offers free tires and alignments for the life of the car?

Please: Someone tell me how I'm getting a bad deal on this failure of an automobile?

93Devil · Sep 27, 2012

Justin, what is your monthly payment on that? Have you gotten that far?

Justin_Rice · Sep 27, 2012

Gonna depend on the trade in and final price we settle on, of course.

I plan to (as in, I won't buy the car otherwise) pay somewhere around invoice ... Paying MSRP is for suckers.

Zero percent interest = free money.

And there are some cost to recoup over the life of the loan .... Won't see the tax credit until next spring, and the fuel savings is spread over the life of the car.

We're working on the assumption of about a $450 car payment. Not sure I would consider that much on a new car at any interest rate > 0.

93Devil · Sep 27, 2012

If you join Consumer Reports, you can post that you are looking to buy a Volt and local dealers from DC to Richmond will start making offers. It's pretty cool because they know they are bidding against themselves.

doctorquant · Sep 27, 2012

FileNotFound said:

I love Ragu, because I knew that he wouldn't be too lazy to look up the actual numbers like I was. Point taken ...
Click to expand...

I tip my hat to you. Intellectual honesty is a rare entity on this board. You, my friend, have done well.

GeorgeFHayek · Sep 27, 2012

Justin_Rice said:

FileNotFound said:

I love Ragu, because I knew that he wouldn't be too lazy to look up the actual numbers like I was. Point taken that those countries are carrying debt, but they'd be pretty offended to be lumped in with the PIGS.

Meanwhile, on topic: The biggest problem the Volt has is that, based on its size and feature set, it really should be about a $25,000 car, even with the premium for it being all unique and high tech and stuff. I can't imagine paying $34,000, for instance, for a small car that doesn't even have leather seats. There is absolutely no way those cars are going to carry anything close to the residuals that those rock-bottom-dollar leases are going to have. (This is nothing new for GM; my 2006 Cadillac CTS was worth nowhere near what its residual was when I turned it in in 2009.)

Maybe if badged as a Buick or Oldsmobile (RIP) or Cadillac, the Volt would have had a chance. But few people are going to pay that kind of money for a moderately equipped Chevrolet, and even fewer are going to pay the residual values for a moderately equipped used Chevrolet.
Click to expand...

Drove a 2012 volt today .... Yes it had leather seats. In fact, it was quite nicely apportioned with lots of gadgets.

41,4000 MSRP. List price of 39,600. Minus the $7,500 credit takes us down to 32,100. Zero percent financing for 72 months. By my calculation, I'll save $150 a month on gas (factoring in the extra 13kwh home electricity use - about a dollar a day). That's another 10,000 over the life of the loan.

Now we're at 22,000 for a well equipped sedan with more get up and go than my V6 Mazda that I'll be trading in.

And did I mention the dealer I'm buying fom offers free tires and alignments for the life of the car?

Please: Someone tell me how I'm getting a bad deal on this failure of an automobile?
Click to expand...

Nobody said you were ...

The Big Ragu · Sep 28, 2012

So the $465 million pissed away on Tesla Motors didn't go over too well on here.

How about this one? http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2012/09/lg_chem.html

LG Chem isn't even an American company. It is Korean. It got $151 million from the Federal government to make electric batteries for electric cars, mainly the Chevy Volt. Due to low demand for the batteries, they have already blown through $133 million of those loans, and in April instituted rolling furloughs for their workforce. We were told that taxpayer money handout would generate 443 jobs within the next 5 years.

This mirrors what happened with A123 Systems, which made a bit of news last month or the month before. It was another battery manufacturer that had gotten $250 million from the Federal government, and was laying off employees at the time. It turned into a campaign thing, because of video of the president and a bunch of other politicians patting themselves on the back out front of the plant for "creating jobs."

All of this Federal (and state -- Michigan pitched in money to these companies, as well) money to develop a mess of a car that nobody is buying (well, except Justin and a few others who don't understand that they can get way more bang for the buck by throwing a dart at a copy of Kelly's Blue Book). And those bags of Federal dollars tossed around to companies that are blowing through it and not doing anything of value with it. The Chevy Volt cost billions to develop, which would be fine, but it wasn't demand driven and those billions are just being tacked onto our national debt, so we now own interest on it and ultimately U.S. citizens will pay for it, either via taxes or the inflation of monetary policy which tries to hide that debt by inflating it away.

Azrael · Sep 28, 2012

Tesla announces new charging stations.

www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0928/Tesla-charging-station-Almost-as-fast-as-pumping-gas

The Big Ragu · Sep 28, 2012

Apparently Tesla is the king of announcing stuff.

I would have preferred an announcement that they can pay the interest payment due on the $465 million taxpayer funded loan our Federal government gave them in a show of crony capitalism.

Do the splashy announcements -- mind you they don't actually produce anything; they just announce stuff -- create enough glowing news stories to distract people from the fact that they are going to blow throw just short of a half a billion dollars of money that we're all on the hook for?

And why aren't the politicians that saddled us with this (and more than a billion dollars of other wasted handouts) not being held to the fire over it?

Boom_70 · Sep 28, 2012

Justin_Rice said:

FileNotFound said:

I love Ragu, because I knew that he wouldn't be too lazy to look up the actual numbers like I was. Point taken that those countries are carrying debt, but they'd be pretty offended to be lumped in with the PIGS.

Meanwhile, on topic: The biggest problem the Volt has is that, based on its size and feature set, it really should be about a $25,000 car, even with the premium for it being all unique and high tech and stuff. I can't imagine paying $34,000, for instance, for a small car that doesn't even have leather seats. There is absolutely no way those cars are going to carry anything close to the residuals that those rock-bottom-dollar leases are going to have. (This is nothing new for GM; my 2006 Cadillac CTS was worth nowhere near what its residual was when I turned it in in 2009.)

Maybe if badged as a Buick or Oldsmobile (RIP) or Cadillac, the Volt would have had a chance. But few people are going to pay that kind of money for a moderately equipped Chevrolet, and even fewer are going to pay the residual values for a moderately equipped used Chevrolet.
Click to expand...

Drove a 2012 volt today .... Yes it had leather seats. In fact, it was quite nicely apportioned with lots of gadgets.

41,4000 MSRP. List price of 39,600. Minus the $7,500 credit takes us down to 32,100. Zero percent financing for 72 months. By my calculation, I'll save $150 a month on gas (factoring in the extra 13kwh home electricity use - about a dollar a day). That's another 10,000 over the life of the loan.

Now we're at 22,000 for a well equipped sedan with more get up and go than my V6 Mazda that I'll be trading in.

And did I mention the dealer I'm buying fom offers free tires and alignments for the life of the car?

Please: Someone tell me how I'm getting a bad deal on this failure of an automobile?
Click to expand...

When not compared to other vehicles it sounds like you are getting a good deal when you factor in the tax payer funded $7500 credit.

There are other gas cars out there that are a lot cheaper with high MPG that you would also realize a savings on.

I've been studying the Prius plug in which has a sticker price of $32,000 and a tax credit of $2500. Battery charges in 2.5 hours but down side is that it only gets 11 miles per charge then converts to hybrid which cuts MPG from 95 to 50.

In the end you are going to be paying a lot more but know that you are making an investment in helping America end our dependence on foreign oil and doing your part to end global warming. You sir are a great American !

Azrael · Sep 28, 2012

The Big Ragu said:

And why aren't the politicians that saddled us with this (and more than a billion dollars of other wasted handouts) not being held to the fire over it?
Click to expand...

We're not very good at holding anyone's feet to the fire whether the boondoggle is large or small.

dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/bank-of-america-to-pay-2-43-billion-to-settle-class-action-over-merrill-deal/?hp

theweek.com/article/index/221883/the-federal-reserves-breathtaking-77-trillion-bank-bailout

www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-03/missile-defense-costing-35-billion-misses-bullets-with-bullets.html

Boom_70 · Dec 15, 2014

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Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

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Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

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