formula79

Seems like every day I hear some new platform was cancelled to pay for the Volt. This would obviously insinuate they are betting the farm on it. The thing that bugs me is...will it make money? I know Toyota lost money on the Prius for a long time. The only way GM could make money is to price the Volt high...and I don't think they can get away with that given the fact there are plenty of compelling compact alternatives that may be be as eco friendly...but more cost efficiant.

I am very scared for GM at this point. 9-12 months ago they were making the best cars they ever have, and on the right track. Now because oil has spiked, they are making rash, knee jerk decisions on products that don't seem to make money. Now that the speculation is shaking it's way out the oil markets...the new car market may be very different in a year if gas goes down another dollar a gallon.

Threxx

If the Volt started a revolution - became the most popular, desired, well regarded (short and long term) and revolutionary car the US has seen in ages... the modern model T... then it wouldn't matter if GM made money on it or not... it would be a 180 for GM's momentum in public perception and popularity which would spur on the sale of the rest of their products as well as future volt sales when it DID become profitable.

What they need most right now is an image change... not profit.

AdioSS

Did you REALLY just say that a company that lost billions last quarter does not need to turn a profit?


Yes GM needs an image change, but it needs to turn a profit more than anything...

SSbaby

GM recently got Ford behind the project which should help...

formula79

This was Toyota's approach with the Prius..and it worked. Problem is..GM cannot do that with the situation they are in. Anything the invest money now has to make money itself..and soon. Keep in mind, GM has been propped up on the sale of SUV's for years..making $5-10K a pop. They have essentially stupped investment and full size trucks and sent that money to the Volt. Even assuming $1-2K profit a vehicle, they are gonna have to sell an assload of Volts (500,000+ I would say) to do that. That is not gonna happen...not with GM's image and the car being a compact. Not with Toyota already a leader in the field and not sitting still. They will supposedly have a competing technology in the Prius by the time the Volt comes to market. I don't think the Volt is the marvel that people make it out to be. It still has a gas engine..and even though plugging it in the wall may give you warm and fuzzies, that electric coming from the wall socket is still generated in most cases by fossil fuel.

Eric Bryant

GM should have been doing this program back in the late 90s, when they were flush with money from SUVs and pension returns (this, of course, is when Toyota spent its money on the Prius).

Now, they're killing off potentially profitable programs to do the Volt - a vehicle that, like the Prius, likely won't be profitable from the standpoint of gross margin for several years and a couple model cycles. Of course, the finanical picture just looks worse when you factor in ED&T (engineering, development, and test) as well as the tooling and capital costs.

I think that GM needs to do something like the Volt in order to survive the worst-case scenario ($10-15/gal fuel), but it may end up being a matter of too little, too late. I hope that's not the case, but anyone who thinks that 2011 will bring the rebirth of GM is probably at least five years optimistic.

JakeRobb

Well, they did do the EV1 back then, which flopped because, among several other reasons, fuel was cheap and battery technology wasn't good enough.

Eric Bryant

Toyota's first- and second-gen Prius flopped, too - yet, they stuck with it and the third-gen vehicle now outsells vehicles such as the Cobalt.

Bob Lutz spent the first several years at GM criticizing hybrids. I'd rather that the time would have been spent evolving implementations of the Two Mode. A $30K Malibu or Aura that gets an honest 30 MPG combined might be an attractive proposition to those who don't think that the BAS goes far enough and those who think that the Two Mode Tahoe is a bit silly. It also would have put GM further down the path to the ER-EV architecture.

Z28x

It is too bad GM wasn't working on something like a plug-in BAS in the late 90's.

I agree with Threxx, Volt will be good PR and will be money well spent. It won't make money, but neither does advertising. Plus it gets GM technological advantage over the competition for when the time comes that these vehicles are profitable and mainstream.

GTOJack

I watched Wagoner on a PBS interview state that the Volt would be in the $35,000 to $40,000 range.

formula79

And that is just barely making money...if people will spend that much on a compact. It's like there is something I am missing here...why would they cancel so many vehicles to make the Volt? Why not spend that money making something like the Lambda's get better gas milage.

jg95z28

I've heard numbers as high as $45,000 to $50,000 for the Volt. I anticipate it will be a limited number higher-end E-Flex hybrid. Then a few years down the road trickle down technology will transfer to a E-Flex hybrid for the masses that's somewhere around $30,000.

Z284ever

I think that they are. Rumors are that it's going on a diet.

91_z28_4me

And getting the Vue's 2 mode system as well.

Eric77TA

That'll likely be later rather than sooner:

According to Brian Corbett, GM's spokesman for Hybrid programs, there are no immediate plans to build a hybrid version of the Lambdas. In fact, during a conversation we had with Bob Lutz at the LA Auto Show, he indicated that the existing front-wheel-drive, two-mode transmission would not fit in the Lambda's engine compartment as it wasn't wide enough. According to Corbett, a second generation version of the two-mode system was under development, but that is at least three to four years away from launch.

-Autoblog