The Volt is Dead, Long Live The........? Monday GM killed the Volt. Well sort of. They suspended manufacture of it, shutting down the plant and laying off 1,300 workers. GM wanted to sell 10,000+ Volts a year, and only managed to off-load roughly 7,600 over the course of 2011 (compare that to GM's sales of Cruzes: 265,000 and Aveos: 500,000, both rounded down). Worse still in February 2012 GM only shipped 600 to dealers, less than half of which have sold. Now GM has said they will begin building the Volt again once its surplus cars are sold. Considering nearly 7,000 Volts are sitting in Michigan, those UAW guys are gonna be waiting a long time to get called back.....
So why did the Volt fail, especially when GM during 2011, had one of its best years, not in recent history, but ever? Well a few things:
First: It cost $41,000, more than double a Prius (which by the way is pronounced "PRY-us" ) and 10K more than a Nissan Leaf, which are its two main rivals, while getting less mpg than the Prius. To be fair, it did beat the Leaf in that department.
Second: It cost $41,000.
Third: It had a crappy interior, a way too complex instrument cluster and it looked like a Mailbu melted and was frozen.
Fourth: IT COST $41,000!
Fifth: They caught fire, and on at least two occasions, reignited days after they were put out.
Sixth: Did I mention how much they cost? No? Oh well it was $41,000!
Seventh: The auto bailout was for the most part a fairly unpopular program, even with myself, Mr. Americana when it comes to cars. And rightly or wrongly the Volt came to symbolize the bailout. Partly because GM was forced to build it in order to get the bailout AND were forced to price it to make a profit, hence the massive sticker. The government then got caught covering up the fires, so the Volt has quite a stigma to it.
Seventh: Being named Car and Driver's Car of the Year certainly didn't help, its pretty much a curse anymore.
Oh well I thought, Americans simply cannot build a good eco car. Especially GM. It's the EV1 all over again right? Not so fast. What if I were to tell you hybrids in general don't sell, at least not here anyway. "Wallio, you're dreaming, there's Priuses everywhere!" I thought so too, but then I did some digging. It turns out that in all of automotive history (since 1844) only 2.2 million hybrids have sold in the US. Now to be fair hybrids only have been around in America since 2001. So in 11 years 2.2 million hybrids (all makes combined) sold in the US. Think that's impressive? In 2011 GM alone sold 2.2 million cars in nine months! While America is number 2 in the world in hybrid sales behind Japan, we're also number 1 in the world by a large margin in V8 sales. And hybrids make up only about 2% of all cars in America! So I guess green really isn't the new black huh? (More proof that Cheri Sundra is indeed the new black)
So why don't hybrids in general sell? Well some do. The Prius of course dominates with one out of every two hybrids sold . And the Leaf sold over 11,000 units in 2011 but for the most part hybrids have several problems:
1.) Looks. Most hybrids are ugly as sin, due to packaging those massive batteries and still having to be able to cut through the wind to save gas. Look at a Nssan Leaf without gagging, go ahead, I dare ya.
2.) Poor build quality. Let's face it: most hybrids are just crappy cars. And I'm not talking about from performance standpoint. Interiors, wheels, and even nuts and bolts all suffer, in order to keep the car reasonably priced. Because of how expensive the batteries are, even the Japanese, the undisputed kings of car interiors, fill their hybrids with cheap grey plastic. Also the complicated electrics can only take so many recharges and rarely last even a decade. And that sucks. Oh and remember the stuck throttle recall? Affected the Priuses, and so did the ABS-Failure recall, and the steering recall........
3.) Cost. While not all hybrids start at $41k, most are overpriced. Especially when you can get a Korean eco-box for 10k that'll do just about the same stuff. This dooms hybrids that are eco-versions of normal cars, like the Fusion. Why pay 5-10k more? For what? 5mpg? Sure there's a tax break, and you will save a bit of gas, but it'll take a long time to recoup that extra dough.
4.) They're not really green. Most hybrids are all talk. Toyota claims well over 60mpg for the Prius. Good luck breaking 50, even if you drive like Hollywood. Also, a British study (which was ignored by the media) showed that with how brutal the batteries and electrics are to produce, a Prius will do more harm to the environment than a V8 Land Rover. And the most mpg you can get out of a car is 76, from the VW Polo Blue Motion, a "dirty" diesel. Which leads us to..........
5.) The rise of the diesels. Americans are finally waking up to what the rest of the world has always known. Diesels rock. Slowly but surely diesel cars are selling in the US, lead by the VW TDI revolution. Long story short, they get better gas mileage than a hybrid, and they don't suck!
6.) We're Americans. We don't drive eco-cars. We invented hot-roddingPrius. And yea you may get a few chicks, but they'll be the crazy PETA bitches. No one wants them.
So long story short, despite what the media and Toyota are telling us, hybrids don't sell. Why? Because people aren't stupid. The cars are overpriced, crappy, slow, ugly, and not very green or well put together. Now while the 90-mile and its dead Leaf is still selling (proving there really is one born every minute) if you want a car that screams "I'm cheap!" Buy a Kia. If you want a fun car that's good on gas, get a Cruze, or Imprezza, or Maxima, or Fusion. And if you want to be smart, get a diesel. Just don't buy a hybrid. Please. And judging by the numbers for the last 12 years, you're not. No one is.
And give GM credit, they tried. Uncle Sam forced their hand and it ended up pear shaped. So it goes.
Oh and if anyone questions my numbers from the first part, you can find them on Wikipedia, Consumer Reports, and HybridCars.com
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