What’s ailing the Chevy Volt?

On Friday, GM announced it was halting production of the Chevrolet Volt until April, so as to maintain “proper inventory levels.” Sales of the electric vehicle have been disappointing, with the company missing its target of 10,000 Volts sold last year. Why hasn’t the car caught on?  But the scare over batteries is only a partial explanation. After all, Volt sales rebounded in February to 1,023 vehicles sold, and it looks like the fire scare is slowly subsiding. But neither the pre-panic nor post-panic numbers were anywhere near the rate needed to meet GM’s goal of 45,000 Volt deliveries this year. A more likely explanation is that the Volt is just far too expensive for many customers. The car gets about 94 miles per gallon, according to the EPA, but it starts at $39,195, and only upper-income buyers with a big tax bill can qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit. As auto blogger Jonathan Welsh writes, “Even if you never used gasoline in the Volt, you’d wait about 12 years before you saved enough on gas to make up for the Volt’s price premium.”...more