GM To Idle Volt Plant Again

by Derek Kreindler

Published: August 28th, 2012

General Motors will idle production of the Chevrolet Volt for four weeks in total, according to a report by Automotive News.

This round of idling, the second instance this year, will start in mid-September. GM claims that they are continuing to match supply and demand, though inventories are at 84 days right before the shutdown, compared to 154 when the Detroit-Hamtramck plant was closed earlier this year.

So far, GM has sold just under 10,666 units of the Volt in 2012, well up from 2010, but still far off projections that were as high as 45,000 Volts sold in 2012.

#Chevrolet #ChevroletVolt #GeneralMotors #Production

Derek Kreindler

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21 of 93 comments

Oboylepr on Aug 28, 2012

Okay so now that the B&B have had their pissing contest between the (RE)volting GM apologists and the 'GM is dead' crowd (that's me:-)), answer me this: Is the Chevrolet Volt a success by any measure? forget technically because we already know it is but what about minor things like return on investment, contribution to GM's profits, overall sales, public acceptance etc. Or is it another sink hole for copius amounts of cash, you know, like the Soltice/Sky, Chevy SSR debacles?

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- Sunridge place on Aug 28, 2012
  
  I'm not really in a pissing contest...I tend to post facts. To your question, it depends how you want to look at it. I don't really think the Volt is out there for immediate ROI/profit. I do know that the owners of the Volt tend to be a happy bunch. It is tracking about where the Prius was as far as US sales and even global sales at this point although not being in the Japanese market will probably hurt it at keeping pace. Success in China could change that but they will have to build it in China to sell it successfully in China. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2010/10/worldwide-prius-cumulative-sales-top-2m-mark-toyota-reportedly-plans-two-new-prius-variants-for-the-.html The only successful hybrid ever was a vehicle designed to be such a vehicle from the ground up--Prius...just like the Volt in that its not just a variant of another vehicle. That doesn't necessarily mean the Volt will be a success. If you look at the chart in the link and compare, the Volt will probably be around 18k-19k units in the US this year...right around where the Prius was. You will also notice that the Prius really took off when Gen 2 came out in 03/04. Gen 2 also had increased production #'s and was well-timed for the doubling of gas prices between 05 and 08. Once the Prius got that momentum, it was all over. So, a short-term view of the Volt profitability is probably short-sighted. Can Gen 2 of the Volt get better and cheaper? That will probably tell the story.
  
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- Ronnie Schreiber on Aug 29, 2012
  
  The SSR was profitable. Maximum anticipated production was about 13,000 units annually, and with the number of Chevy stores at the time, that was about enough to have one on the showroom floor, a demo for test drives, and a new unit available for sale for each of the dealers. Besides, the purpose of the SSR was to bring people into the showrooms. According to a market survey done for ASC, a major vendor for the SSR, GM sold about 70,000 full size trucks and SUVs a year to people who came in to look at the SSR. There's a lot of profit in 70K trucks.
  
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- Sunridge place on Aug 29, 2012
  
  @Ronnie Schreiber 'The SSR was profitable' 'According to a market survey done for ASC, a major vendor for the SSR, GM sold about 70,000 full size trucks and SUVs a year to people who came in to look at the SSR.' http://www.autoweek.com/article/20041213/FREE/412130720 Either you have a bad memory or this was the type of math that led old GM into bankruptcy. This article references 22,000 sales...not 70,000 sales. And, the source of the survey is a bit suspect. Kind of like reading a study from RJ Reynolds about the health risks of smoking. 300 day supply? I know niche vehicles can give strange #'s...but the SSR wasn't a success. It didn't bring GM down, but its hard to argue it was profitable. It also never got above 10k in annual sales despite the 13k possibility...far below where the Volt is now.
  
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- Ajla on Aug 29, 2012
  
  @Ronnie Schreiber The SSR was just one of many Lutz-inspired niche misadventures for GM. In 2001 GM announced the end of the F-body claiming the market for performance cars was too small to justify updating the car. So down the drain goes decades of history and fandom. Then, only a few months after the last F-body is built, GM sends out some crazy retro convertible halo truck that proceeds to sell far below expectations and is only defendable today by a survey conducted by the company that helped build the car for GM. Then, we are sent a Miata compeitior ON A WHOLE NEW PLATFORM that sells way below expectations. At the same time, we get a Monaro wearing a GTO badge that sells below expectations. Even when you combine the annual sales of the SSR, Kappas, and GTO you get far less than what the F-body managed in its final years. Finally, GM decides that maybe they had something good going, and brings back the Camaro.
  
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- Doctor olds on Aug 29, 2012
  
  @ajla- Actually, SSR was Wagoner's baby. He drove a concept and decided it ought to go into production. He something along the lines of "I am no product guy, but this thing has to be built!" He was right on the first point, anyway. The vehicle looked great, to some eyes, but had neither performance nor load capacity. Not much of a sports car and not much of a truck. Its failure was a foregone conclusion, at least in my mind back in the day. Wagoner realized he was no product guy and was smart enough to bring Lutz on and empower him to move the product in a much better direction. As for Solstice/Sky- They outsold their direct competitor, Mazda Miata and were unqualified market successes from the standpoint of segment share.
  
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Doctor olds on Aug 28, 2012

Volt is certainly the best selling car that can be driven under electric power at any speed, roughly twice the sales rate of the only competitor, Nissan Leaf. A lot of fools around here made up the story that Volt was to "Save" GM. It was never intended to be a profit generator, but a first application of a practical, electrically driven automobile and it is doing very well at that. Dangerous to believe much of anything you read here, except, of course, my posts.

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- Geozinger on Aug 28, 2012
  
  @Doctor Olds: "Dangerous to believe much of anything you read here, except, of course, my posts." I had to login just to let you know I laughed out loud at your post... This whole thread is laughable, but for other reasons. Flogger, meet dead horse. Dead horse, flogger...
  
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- Mcs on Aug 28, 2012
  
  "Volt is certainly the best selling car that can be driven under electric power at any speed" You might want to change that definition. Just yesterday I ran an unmodified Gen II Prius at over 55 in pure EV mode. I was wondering why it wasn't accelerating and noticed the fuel economy bars were maxed at 99.9 mpg, and the graphic was showing basically that it was in EV mode. At the top of the display was the answer: "Add Fuel." Anyway, the regen braking on the exit ramp gave us just enough power to crawl into a gas station. Anyway, as far as bragging rights for sales numbers go, I suppose I could buy Rolex, re-price their watches at $1.99, and probably get to be the number one selling watch in the world overnight. Then go broke very quickly and go with hat in hand to the Swiss government to bail me out. But, then again, I didn't go to GMI/Kettering (other than a couple of parties). I was taught to make a profit on my products.
  
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- BrianL on Aug 28, 2012
  
  @mcs So, you are really going to admit that you ran out of gas... Anyway, doesn't look like you could drive it at 70 mph in electric mode.
  
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- Doctor olds on Aug 29, 2012
  
  @geozinger- I was hoping for a laugh. @MCS- Coasting while you are out of gas is hardly running in EV mode! Doesn't the Volt have a top speed higher than your Prius can manage with the gas engine? It will run circles around your car from an acceleration perspective, too. You may want to catch up on your facts. GM made all time record profit last year. I know,I know, it is a new company, but the new company made more than the old one did in the best of times on today's much smaller dollar sales volume. Also, as a point of interest, GM is currently running manufacturing plants in America at 108% of straight time capacity. Don't come here to learn, just to be entertained.
  
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- Ronnie Schreiber on Aug 29, 2012
  
  @geozinger Doc Olds, according to what I saw in the DetNews this morning, all three domestics are running at 100%+ capacity.
  
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- Mikey on Aug 29, 2012
  
  @geozinger Me to...Geo wins post of the day award. Sorry Doc you will have to settle for second place.
  
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- Pch101 on Aug 29, 2012
  
  @geozinger "Sorry Doc you will have to settle for second place." I do hope that you realize that Dr. Olds blames the blue collar work force and its unions (read: guys like you) for the GM bankruptcy. He doesn't take any responsibility for the bankruptcy at all, even though he participated in the design of the cars that allowed Toyota and Honda to surpass them. He'd rather point the finger at the people who worked on the assembly line.
  
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- Doctor olds on Aug 29, 2012
  
  @PCH- as usual, you are ignorant of which you write, particularly about what you think my role in GM was. I have never condemned the blue collar man. I have great respect for the many capable people in the UAW. By and large, they are good people trying to get a good day's pay for a good day's work. I put many UAW folks well above lots of salaried people in their competence, conscientiousness and capability. I have stated a clear and absolute fact: All three US carmakers were burdened with contractual obligations that couldn't be sustained in the face of global competition and depleted all of them over time such that the financial collapse of 2008 killed two of the three. I have also stated that the primary reason for the financial success of all three today is the breakthrough UAW contract of 2007, particularly the VEBA and elimination of Jobs Bank which relieved an $8B drain off the bottom line of GM, alone. Additionally, I never claim GM was perfect, didn't make mistakes, just that they, as the largest manufacturing company in the country, were also caught up in the downward spiral of American manufacturing competitiveness in the face of fierce global competition. Far from perfect, there are many factors in addition to management decisions that brought the industry down. To believe otherwise is to ignore empirical reality and simply assume all the Americans are stupid. I don't buy into that and have a very, very long and broad and deep understanding of the issues and dynamics of the industry. Does the P stand for Presumptuous? Typical presumptuous lib, put words in the other's mouth and attack the individual. Mikey and Geo, Thanks! Second place is a lot better than being called a drooling troll.
  
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Doctor olds on Aug 29, 2012

I know some knock anyone connected with GM, as a know nothing failure, but I just consider the source. Retiring from the Powertrain Product Engineering staff in 2008, I can assert with absolute surety that GM well knew Volt would not be a profit generator long before the sideline chatterers here knew much of anything about the car, or even initiated the silly GM death watch. Test drive one for yourself. It is a fantastic car and there are almost 2 cars per dealership in inventory, on average, so you might be able to get in one.

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- Highdesertcat on Aug 29, 2012
  
  I don't consider you or anyone else connected with GM "a know nothing failure". I have many friends who made a career out of working for GM and they are not happy with the way things turned out for them, or for GM. You are smart enough to know that each individual either buys or shuns a GM product for their own reasons, or based on their own ownership experiences of the past. No one forced buyers to join the mass exodus away from GM and the domestics. They did that all on their own. Regardless of the merits of the Volt, actual buyers seem to shun them and choose a Prius variant instead. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
  
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- Doctor olds on Aug 29, 2012
  
  @highdesertcat- I agree that folks should buy what they want on the merits of the product. Your "Mass Exodus" phrase is inapt, though. The reality is that strong global competitors entered our market. The existing players had to lose share, simple arithmetic. The more pieces of the pie, the smaller they are.
  
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- Highdesertcat on Aug 29, 2012
  
  @highdesertcat Olds, I have to agree with you about my use of the "Mass Exodus" phrase being inadequate. It cannot begin to describe what happened over the decades. But I didn't know of a stronger illustration to describe it. Full disclosure here: my brothers made a lot of money when they started selling the foreign brands next to their domestic brands, so it wasn't equally bad for everyone. As a driver of solely-domestic vehicles in the US until 2008 when we bought our very first foreign-brand SUV, a Japan-built Toyota Highlander Limited, I never even considered buying anything but domestic until then. Never drove anything else. Didn't know any better. And again, you're right with "The reality is that strong global competitors entered our market." And I've often questioned why the US government actively recruited foreign companies to set up shop in America which, in spite of creating some jobs for unemployed Americans in states that needed jobs, actually caused more harm to the US auto industry and the UAW. To me, it would seem that allowing foreign imports would have done much less damage to the US auto makers and the UAW. As in let the buyer decide what flies and what dies. But all that aside, the crowning glory of the US government has to be the NAFTA trade agreement. Don't misunderstand me, I've said this before to much criticism, but I would like to see ALL the foreigners pack up their toys and move to Mexico and import under NAFTA. That would keep a lot more Mexicans home, instead of over here, sucking us dry. (And before someone accuses me of anything, let me add I have a Mexican-born daughter-in-law who got here illegally at age 3 and is now a naturalized American citizen after marrying my son, years back. She feels even stronger about illegals being here, sucking up the benefits that she is paying taxes for.)
  
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Doctor olds on Aug 29, 2012

Another thing,every manufacturer sells to dealers. That is the correct definition of a factory sale. The dealers are their customers and pay them for the vehicles. A lot of the discussion around this topic conveniently ignores this hard and fast reality.

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- Sunridge place on Aug 29, 2012
  
  Yes and No. Some of the so-called B&B have a problem grasping the difference between a reported 'sale' or 'delivery' on the month end sales report and when the OEM books the revenue. The revenue is booked at 'sale' to the dealership but the monthly sales data in the US is a true delivery to a customer/business.
  
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