The sales reports for January 2012 are out, and in the first month of the year the Nissan Leaf beat the Volt by selling 676 units to the Volt’s 603. January is a significant drop for both manufacturers after a relatively strong finish to 2011.
Volt sales are less than 40% of the 1529 units sold in December. GM is suffering the fallout from stories that the vehicles can catch fire after accidents, and sales are so soft, GM dealers are turning away cars they can’t sell:
…we’re hearing reports of dealers who don’t want to buy the cars from GM because customers just aren’t materializing for the Volt. Automotive News gives an example this morning in the New York City market where last month, GM allocated 104 Volts to 14 dealerships in the area and dealers took just 31 of them, the lowest take rate for any Chevy model in that market last month. That group of dealers ordered more than 90% of the other vehicles they were eligible to take.
The NHTSA has closed its investigation into Volt fires, but the pain for GM may not be over yet, because a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report is scathing about the politics of the delayed NHTSA report:
…it is deeply troubling that public notification of the safety concerns related to the Volt was inexplicably delayed for six months – a period of time that also coincides with the negotiation over the 2017-2025 fuel economy standards. The necessity of a full explanation for NHTSA’s silence concerning the Volt’s safety risk has been compounded by its lack of cooperation with the Committee.
Fires in a new model vehicle are bad enough for a car company which is still trying to shake the ‘Government Motors’ image. If it turns out there was any political interference in the reporting of potential safety issues with the car, it might be enough to erode trust in the Chevy Volt beyond the point of no return.
The Volt has undergone a few design tweaks for improved performance. But don’t get excited, the improvements only help the car qualify for California subsidies, not extra range or speed.California has mandated that by 2025, 1 in 7 new cars must be an EV, so GM’s move makes sense.
In fact GM will likely focus its sales efforts in warmer states, as cold weather and poor battery performance is still a major problem that needs to be overcome before drivers will be persuaded to ditch the gas-powered car for an energizer bunny cart.
Reports suggest that as a group, auto-makers are recognizing the EV may not turn out to be the future they hoped it would be. But Bob Lutz, GM’s ex-Chairman defends the Volt and blames its poor performance on ‘right-wing’ media. No, really:
…the Oscar for totally irresponsible journalism has to go to The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, with, as its key guest, Lou Dobbs. Amid much jocular yukking, the Volt was depicted as a typical federal failure. In attempting to explain why Chevy has sold fewer than 8,000 Volts, Dobbs states, flatly, “It doesn’t work.” He elaborates, “It doesn’t go fast and go far on electricity. What happens is it catches fire,” adding that Chevy has recalled some 8,000 Volts. Bill O’Reilly, nodding approvingly, helpfully interjects: “So they’ve recalled cars that haven’t been sold.” Boiled down to the subtext, Dobbs’ message was this: “All Volts catch fire, and therefore all Volts have been recalled.” That simply isn’t the case.
Perhaps Lutz hasn’t been keeping up with events, but when a car company ‘suggests’ all owners of a model return them to the dealer for modifications, or offers to buy them back, that’s a ‘recall’ in everything but name.
Nissan plans to double US sales of the Leaf, which sounds aggressive until you remember their boast that they’d sell 500,000 EV’s a year by the end of 2013.
Other markets are proving as difficult as the US market for EV’s. The UK has more charging points than electric vehicles and in Australia, where just 49 EV’s were sold last year, the inflated price of the ‘eco’ option is expected to be a major barrier to consumer take-up. That and the fact they’re already labeled ‘coal-powered’ cars.
After all is said and done with electric vehicles, are they the wrong technology, or is compressed air the future of motoring?
brc,
I agree about Lutz probably having to shill for GM, but still think his targeting was off.
The general rule of managing a PR disaster is not to attack folks with large audiences who may use your attack to repeat all the things you claim they’re wrong about, but to get your opposing message in front of customers. A simple op-ed about the safety of the Volt and GM’s development would have been a better tactic.
But the Volt is still doomed – it doesn’t go far enough, fast enough and costs too much. That’s what’ll kill it, not the occasional fireball.
Scalextric! That’s a blast from the past. Someone call James May and have him turn the M25 into a slot race track.
I just read your link on the EVs in Australia. When the Volt gets here, it will cost an eye-watering $60k. While in the same Holden dealership eyeing off the plug-in smugness, you might be tempted by a Commodore SS – with a 6.2 litre V8 – for $45k, you’ll still have $15k left over to buy an economy car to tootle to the shops in. And neither of them will need new batteries anytime soon.
No wonder they only sold 30 electric cars in Australia. And I’m willing to bet 28 of those went to someone purchasing with someone else’s money and not their own.
I actually like Bob Lutz, and I’m guessing he had to swallow his pride to try and barrack for his former employer. It’s usually grossly unfair when any given car develops a reputation for something that is usually a media beatup (runaway camry, anyone?). So I sympathise with the people who designed the Volt to have it labelled with a reputation which perhaps might be unfair (in the blowing up stakes).
But there will never be any getting away from either the ‘Government Motors’ or ‘Government Project’ tag. I’d go so far to say that any vehicle planned by the government is doomed to failure. Except for the peoples car, of course. That one went pretty well.
If the Volt and the Leaf can’t succeed on their own 4 wheels in a competitive market, even while the government throws a chunk of cash at them, well, they were never going to succeed.
Scalextric cars have the advantage, of course, that they don’t require recharging, don’t cost thousands of dollars or pounds more than alternatives, give the owners much innocent pleasure, and require no taxpayer subsidy. Also they have no known history of exploding, and the manufacturer has never issued a recall, to my knowledge.
Now if we could extend the”brush-on-rail” technology to trains – just think! Whole city-wide transport systems could be powered this way! They could be hidden underground and… The possibilities boggle the mind!
Mostly Harmless, the more I think about it, I think that Scalextric could be on to something…..
One way to cure the obvious problem with electric cars would be to provide them with a constant supply of electricity. Long trailing cables are out of the question, so how about conductors (not the human kind) strung from poles (not the east European kind) above the streets? Oh wait…..
I’m pretty sure this compressed air thing has a future:
The Purple Cloud
By M.P. Shiel – 1901