GM consulant: Volt may have a halo, but it will not be GM's savior
Click above for a high res gallery of the 2011 Chevy Volt
At auto shows and gatherings with friends, I'm often asked what I think will happen with GM and if the Chevy Volt will ever really come out. My answer is that while Volts on the sales floor won't guarantee that GM survives, if GM survives, they most certainly will build and sell the Volt. I certainly don't know if this is true, but it's the best I can do with the information I've seen and read. It appears that I'm not alone.
Rob Kleinbaum, who worked at GM for nine years before taking on a consulting role for 15, wrote a white paper in January called "Retooling GM's Culture" (PDF). In it, Kleinbaum writes:
The mainstay belief is that all will turn out well if only they [GM leaders] have the chance to implement their plans, starting with the much heralded Volt. Then they will consider turning their attention to considering these types of "secondary" issues [labor contracts, cost issues, etc.].Kleinbaum also spoke with HybridCars about his white paper and said that the Volt program is "set up to fail." The car itself might work as advertised, but, "The way they set it up as saving everything. There's tremendous risk that it won't meet expectations. [...] Even if the Volt meets all its targets, GM will not survive unless the entire product line is well executed...GM has shown it can execute world-class products; they just cannot execute a broad portfolio of them." I guess my answer to the GM/Volt question just got a bit more detailed.
Gallery: 2011 Chevy Volt
[Source: HybridCars]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Yikes 2:04PM (2/16/2009)
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......
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Tim 2:23PM (2/16/2009)
GM is "too big to fail". Comrade Obama will just print $Billions more in US debt for them. After all, the UAW contributed to Obama's election and Barry and his "progressive" FIENDS (no typo) pays their debts with other people's debased currency.
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mika 2:51PM (2/16/2009)
I have such ill feelings towards The Big Three, that I really shouldn't comment. I do wish them a speedy demise.
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Gary 11:20AM (2/17/2009)
I also can't wait for America haters to get what they are deserving.
mika 11:28AM (2/17/2009)
Yeah, because GM = America
analog 3:03PM (2/16/2009)
Tim, your CAPITALIZED political rants are getting old. Are you trying to out-troll Gorr?
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Scott K 3:29PM (2/16/2009)
What puzzles me is how GM expects to survive because of just one car with only about 10,000 units in the first year at a price many can't afford before incentives/other price cuts. Wouldn't it be their more mainstream offerings that would have a better chance of helping them?
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diffrunt 4:52PM (2/16/2009)
With all their faults, Gm cars,some anyway, seem to fit me . I,ve been in the car biz all my long life & have always felt that GM,s biggest failures were caused by snubbing the public and dealer service technicians.
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Pedro 5:14PM (2/16/2009)
Looks like a spot-on analysis. It will be the Cruzes, the Malibus, the CTSs, etc. that will save or doom GM, not the Volt. The Volt does have a HUGE potential of of making people look towards GM as something different from the "old dinossaur" image it now has.
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Rick 5:17PM (2/16/2009)
So if GM's portfolio of products fail, how does that equate to the Volt program being set up to fail? That makes no sense to me. If the Volt succeeds, but 4 of say 8 products fail, then it's the Volt program's fault? I don't follow.
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gslippy 6:21PM (2/16/2009)
The only way the $40,000 Volt "economy car" will be sold is with heavy goverment subsidies.
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gorr 7:24PM (2/16/2009)
Gm won't survive or die with this insignifiant car, this car mean nothing, it's 1900 technology
where batteries, gasoline, sheet metal, wheel, electricity, rubber, grease, glass, paint, were invented. Since ford released the ford-t for the common bum in the streets along christ-ler
high-financial human work traders, Gm, renauld, tesla, zenn, nissan, ferraris, volkwagen, yamaha, audi, mercedes, hitler, u.s goverment, toyota, general electric, exxon-mobil,shell, bp, texaco, chevron, hess, 66, have rule and regulate
car construction, engineering, trading, taxing, devellopment, performance, constitution, safety . They can be call the natural ressources cartel, where human workers, salaries, petrol, gold, diamonds, platinum, wind, forests, taxation, security, laws, science should be own and operated by them and constitute a menace to anyone not in this natural ressources cartel. That's why they impeded eco-fueler, green algae fuel and hydrogen. These technologies are too easy, non-polluting an every small business can get into that.
So the green car is just prohibited because it rely on the same technologies that were present in 1900 so if you realize it then brand name products like, gm, toyota, cia, us army, madscientist laboratory subsidized by tax money like zone 51, abc studios, epa, doe, exxon-mobil, japan goverment, opec, chinese goverment, canada goverment, shell, al gore pain sessions, all these brand names suddently appear stupids, obsoletes and painful. So they buy time as much as you're private of the green car for the common bum.
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BoomBoom 9:55AM (2/17/2009)
Wow. That is off the charts (as usual). I guess gorr heard analogs comment and just had to show up. Is "Al Gore Pain Sessions" a brand name? What do they sell? Eco-vicodin?
I'm not a fan of the Volt, but I don't think it could have been built in 1900.
majortom1981 7:58PM (2/16/2009)
Ther eis no way the volt will be gms savior. By the time it comes out the prius and honda insight will have the same fuel economy and will be cheaper.
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AH 9:51PM (2/16/2009)
It's hard to imagine a first-generation model of a totally new mass-production line for GM is going to save them. As with all cars, the first generation model always has a few bugs that tarnish the overall image (look at the first generation Honda Civic Hybrid and Toyota Prius... both had minor bugs that caused various annoyances for a % of the buyers pool). I would imagine that a lot of people will hold out for a 2nd generation model that will most likely prove to be a more polished product (I'm one of these people).
Also, can anyone definitively say that GM is ready to really go through with this new concept drivetrain/platform? Electric cars generally have uncanny reliability/maintenance histories, which will have an impact on the revenue GM earns from its service and spare parts organizations?
Also, I'm still very dissappointed in the Obama's administration's biased towards only supporting the "Big 3". Imagine the spur in innovation if foreign automakers were given some concessions as well? That would force the Big 3 to haul their rear ends into an era of progress.....
I believe that Toyota's and Honda's approach is going to be bigger game changers. Toyota set the stage with their quirky but overall awesome Prius, and now Honda is knocking out the walls and bringing the competition to the sub $20k bracket with their 2010 Insight. And in the corner we have the Volt, priced at the mid $45k (minus $7500 tax rebate)? With unproven engineering reliability (first generation product)?
Most likely Honda's new combatant will prove to be the real game changer for the next couple of years... with a IMA Fit not too far behind?
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BillySharps 1:37AM (2/17/2009)
Of course the Volt won't save GM. They'll probably lose money on each one they sell. Tax rebates can help lower the final cost to the consumer, but GM will still have to subsidize it.
On the other hand, I doubt anyone at GM ever claimed that the Volt would save them. The car and the architecture it's built on are revolutionary, in a way, but GM must be successful in the other areas of its business for the Volt to succeed. If GM can find a way to reduce the cost of the platform, they may be able to turn a profit on the second generation Volt in five or ten years. If they can do that, other cars can be based on the same platform. The Volt is an entire generation ahead of the Insight and the Prius because it can run without any gas the majority of the time. It's the perfect step between gas cars and electric cars.
If GM can survive the financial crisis and bring the Volt to market, it will certainly change the way people think about the company. The Volt will not save GM, even if wildly successful, but it will change perceptions of the company and that will put them in a much better position to survive when gas prices rise once again.
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Mister D Barton 11:13AM (2/17/2009)
I'm sorry, but $30,000+ for a car that can only get 40 miles on a single charge (and then another 200 or so on gas) isn't going to sell well long-term. GM should take the Volt and turn it into what the Prius is, an actual Hybrid.
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DKB_SATX 1:05PM (2/17/2009)
Ummm... so you contend somehow that the Volt is *not* an actual hybrid? What then is it? It's not a parallel hybrid like the current Prius, but it's still a hybrid and it has a significantly higher all-electric range than the current Prius.
Martin 3:15PM (2/17/2009)
200 or so? Reading that difficult for you? 360-400 miles on a 7 gallon tank is what's estimated, not the 200 you pulled out of your a$$.
blckstrm 8:49AM (2/23/2009)
I think everyone here - and even Kleinbaum to some degree - is missing the point.
Right or wrong, the idea is that the Volt will finally help turn the tide in the public image category.
Just last week my wife mentioned that she likes the look of the Malibu, and was pleasantly surprised when I told her the mileage and power (and how favorably they compare to Toyota and Honda). And then she says, "Too bad I'd never buy a Chevy car. Truck or SUV sure, but car - never."
Even if people like my wife never buy a Volt, the car exists to convince people that GM's not irrelevant.
And whether it can do THAT - that's the question. Not if it will work or not (it will), or whether GM will make money on it (they won't).
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