Chevy Volt - future GM failure

[tuckevalastin]

Apparently you believe that GM just thought of a Volt yesterday and decided to start selling them tomorrow. Of course they approved upon the original design but if an automaker just keeps improving upon a design and never releases it they will, 1, not get the real world information for the car, and 2, not accomplish anything as there is no point in a perfect car that is never released. Any automaker comes to a point on any model where they have to release it to the public and see what happens. You can't make a perfect vehicle without the real world results you get once they are sold to large amounts of people.

Also for people such as myself the fact that a car costs $22k doesnt make it unimportant if the car has problems. So I have no idea what that point is supposed to mean.

As for your ways GM could improve the Volt; You are basically telling GM that to improve the car that must make it a completely different kind of car. That's like saying to improve the sweetness of a pepper you should turn it into a watermelon. GM decided on the type of car they wanted to build and they built exactly that.

On a final note trust is a personal thing and your trusts don't match everyone else's. And any smart man will tell you that the first gen of a technology has nothing to do with trust but instead the willingness to pay for a technology which will be better and cheaper in just a few short years. Go find a first gen cell phone and you will see what I mean.

Originally Posted by BailOut

The Prius was about $22k at release and came from a trusted auto manufacturer with the solidity to back it. GM is nothing like that.

I am not sure why you have the idea that an auto has to be released before it can be improved upon but that is just not so. There are several things that can be done to improve the Volt before it goes into production:

1) Make it a 4-5 seater. Coupes are impractical.

2) Focus it's strengths on range and efficiency rather than performance. Continuing to make vehicles based on hp, 0-60 times and top speeds far in excess of the highest speed limits the country has in place is idiotic and unreflective of the world we live in.

3) Stop self-enforcing the ridiculous idea that COTS batteries are not good enough for use in EVs. People have been driving successful EVs for decades on lead acid and NiMH batteries. About $25k of the Volt's cost is nothing but GM's own battery build.

4) Provide an extended warranty for the drive line and totally outsource it. No one trusts GM to be there, or at least to be fully functional, or to at least be autonomous, in the coming years.