Volt Birth Watch 119: Aborted. Or Not.
Speaking of wedge issues. In a bizzare inversion of those tabloid baby-bump rumors, there’s a hot tip flying around the autoblogosphere that GM is aborting the Volt program and firing engineers. Things started with an anonymous tip to Jalopnik, saying “My uncle works on the Volt as an engineer. He’s getting laid off Friday because apparantly the project (aka VOLT) is on hold indefinitely.” Early responses from PR flacks was inconclusive, but Autoblog has apparently received word from GM spokesman Terry Rhadigan that “there’s no truth in that statement whatsoever.” Rhadigan went on to hedge a bit, saying “I’m not going to respond to specific speculation. The Volt remains a top priority for our Company and there are no changes to the timing of the program.” With a bailout compromise announcement expected at any time, this little rumor could mean one of two things. Either it’s true, and GM is cutting everything it can to make its “survive to March 31” bill as palatable as possible, or it’s untrue and GM is spreading a lie/allowing it to fester to scare more money out of the pols. Either way, file this under “unpleasant.”
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They'd be smart to put the Volt on the backburner right now and spend the money developing more fuel efficient smaller and mid-sized cars. The Volt was never more than a PR stunt for a very small niche market, like the EV1. If they are serious about hybrid technology they'd be better off putting the money into a Prius and Insight competitor that takes lithium batteries. The Volt is just too expensive for what it has to offer, especially now that gas is cheap again. The way the credit market is nobody will be willing or able to shell out $40k for a hybrid like that.
The amazing thing is that 3-6 months ago, people who predicted that GM would be out of money before they could build the Volt were shouted down by the other 99% of the crowd at gm-volt.com. (Yes, I was one of the bankruptcy-predictors, but not the only one). Now, it's seen as imperative there that we must rescue GM or the Volt will never get built. We have always been at war with Oceania.
Hmmmm... this reminds me of the rumor that sprang up that Chrysler's Phoenix engine project was cancelled/suspended. That was not true. Test mules are on the road now. Kinda like the "Chrysler has no products in the pipeline" nonsense. I guess those spyshots of the HD Ram and the electric vehicle (different from the 3 shown in the dog and pony show earlier) are just photoshops. There is all kind of FUD on the interwebs now. Take E V E R Y T H I N G with a grain of salt. Hell with that, use the whole damn shaker.
I think this is BS, it's too soon for them to have to cancel or slow down the Volt before others get canned. It would be too smart of them the slow down the time line for the Volt so they could put more time and money into "GM saving" products that will sell at a decent profit and in volume to generate the cash the company needs(Cruze, Aveo, Astra Impala, etc.), not some small plug-in that is little or no profit at very low numbers but cost a boatload of money they don't have to develop. GM doesn't usually do the smart thing. They will start messing with the Camaro right before the Volt starts to get it's budget cut. The bailout money was always riding on this "game changer" for so long they have to make it look like it's really coming for as long as possible even if the money has really dried up. Don't get me wrong I'm one of those people who never though and still don't think the Volt will ever see a showroom but I think it will be almost a month before they slowly start pulling the plug on the Volt. Even with the bailout billions it's not going to be enough money to toss in the furnace of monthly burn and keep the Volt in development AND the other cars & trucks under development AND marketing for new launches AND investments into new markets AND restructuring costs...