Sales of the GM Volt.

[joshh]

Are you the only person who has replied to this thread when you look at it??


No, you illiterate, 433K is only 12% more than 386K.

Pretty sure I mentioned that several times in the GM thread...

So you would rather focus on a one month peak sales instead of 20 month totals? Or focus on a trend but ignore the most recent diversion from it?

You want to pose that I somehow wasn't aware of the Japan supply issues (although mentioning it in the GM thread), YET you then go a few lines later and want to say the Cruze sales are in a slump compared to when Japan had supply issues? Really? You telling someone doesn't have strong logical abilities is LAUGHABLE.

Like I mentioned, when you compare to the Civic or Camry, you are using a big yardstick... which is kinda a dumb basis. Cruze is still in the Top 5 for its segment. It's not like people are predicting horrible things because the Mazda3 didn't sell as much as the Camry or Civic.



Wow... you're like such an expert in this industry... how long have you worked in automotive manufacturing?


Hmmm... so you say that a car has to sell poorly to be able to be able to shut down production to re-tool...

Why not look at the #2 top selling vehicle in 2011?

http://rumors.automobilemag.com/new-silverado-is-nigh-gm-schedules-retooling-of-full-size-truck-plants-97047.html

Even Camry production retools. The prior generation retool took 45 days. (Current gen retool was sped up to only 15 but still needed to stop the machines to change them out in the process) Did you expect that they overnight start making the next generation of car?

No you fucking retard. The point is honda has proven it can and has sold 33k per month. And the Cruze can't break 25k. The totals are because of supply problems from last years weather in Japan. Get that through your ignorant fucking head.
Yet Honda and Toyota are *still* beating the Cruze..lol.

Obviously GM is an expert in the industry...they needed a bailout.

[rwh11385]

No you fucking retard. The point is honda has proven it can and has sold 33k per month. And the Cruze can't break 25k. The totals are because of supply problems from last years weather in Japan. Get that through your ignorant fucking head.
Yet Honda and Toyota are *still* beating the Cruze..lol.

Obviously GM is an expert in the industry...they needed a bailout.

So the only thing that matters is a one month peak sales figure? Your original post sounded like you were claiming that the Cruze had never beat the Civic in any month, not once. But it did last year a few times as well as last month. Yet even having the Cruze beat the Civic last month, you claim it isn't? Was there a supply issue for the civic last month? Did August 2012 sales negate your sales trend you were talking about previously? Or are you just completely ignoring it?

And a car company is doomed to failure if they are not #1 in every category? Someone better tell BMW that they are only a 2% market share and going down the tubes!


I think your absolute determination to make a point regardless of ignorance demonstates your failure to make any sense. GM used to be a finance company that also happened to sell cars. It was their strive to remain #1 in car sales at the sacrifice of everything else that doomed them to bankruptcy, a point that seems to be lost on you.

[joshh]

So the only thing that matters is a one month peak sales figure? Your original post sounded like you were claiming that the Cruze had never beat the Civic in any month, not once. But it did last year a few times as well as last month. Yet even having the Cruze beat the Civic last month, you claim it isn't? Was there a supply issue for the civic last month? Did August 2012 sales negate your sales trend you were talking about previously? Or are you just completely ignoring it?

And a car company is doomed to failure if they are not #1 in every category? Someone better tell BMW that they are only a 2% market share and going down the tubes!


I think your absolute determination to make a point regardless of ignorance demonstates your failure to make any sense. GM used to be a finance company that also happened to sell cars. It was their strive to remain #1 in car sales at the sacrifice of everything else that doomed them to bankruptcy, a point that seems to be lost on you.

It's going to go right back to where it was before for GM. They took advantage of the lack of supply from Japan. Soon they'll start to roll out the incentive programs because they're too busy paying the UAW instead of trying to make competitive cars. So their cars are too expensive. It's a matter of time literally.

LMFAO....what doomed them to *bancruptcy* (which they never filed because they got a fucking bailout) is the fact they're shoveling so much money to the union they can't make competitive cars to the better car manufacturers. They're now trying and the cars are too expensive. Time for rebates and incentives just as soon as the sales drop off again....give it a few more months.
GM failed once, they'll fail again.

[rwh11385]

It's going to go right back to where it was before for GM. They took advantage of the lack of supply from Japan. Soon they'll start to roll out the incentive programs because they're too busy paying the UAW instead of trying to make competitive cars. So their cars are too expensive. It's a matter of time literally.

LMFAO....what doomed them to *bancruptcy* (which they never filed because they got a fucking bailout) is the fact they're shoveling so much money to the union they can't make competitive cars to the better car manufacturers. They're now trying and the cars are too expensive. Time for rebates and incentives just as soon as the sales drop off again....give it a few more months.
GM failed once, they'll fail again.

You are aware that none of your argument is based in fact and solely on bias and what your opinion is of what "you know" they will do in the future. Kinda pathetic. Especially considering your entire disconnect with reality and all of your views are not based on actual information, but the same poor biased opinion you repeat in every thread.

You are ignorant and I can't believe the arrogance of someone so poorly aware of facts would dare to act like they are informed at all.

Here's a copy of it the bankruptcy filing: http://online.wsj.com/public/resourc...on60012009.pdf

But hey, you KNOW everything about this subject and that filing didn't actually happen? LMFAO.

If I were you, I'd either educated myself or just plainly STFU. The choice is up to you if you actually want to be relevant in any discussion ever, other than the tinfoil-wearing idiot everyone has labeled you as.

[Morrison]

Something else to consider. Higher paid UAW workers can better afford to buy the vehicles they produce along with money hopefully left over to shop at the establishments of local small business owners. You see, the businesses get that money right back. It's not like anyone actually "saves" money these days. Okay maybe some people save some, but often that will be invested in a 401k or something, which again still goes to support a business.

The economy is a closed loop control system. Consider it Ectronic 1.3.

Although, I can predict many of you will be quick to equate BHO's spending... to Megasquirt.

[rwh11385]

Something else to consider, GM has now a two tier pay system so logistics and other UAW workers are paid less for less skilled jobs. It's the only way they could make a subcompact competitevely in America.

But joshh was probably ignorant to that change as well. Totally just the same old same old, if you never care to educate yourself and keep basing opinion on outdated views and misinformation.

[BraveUlysses]

If joshh were anything more than a troll he could at least find the data which tells us what percentage of the cost of a GM vehicle is due to assembly labor. If you wanted to make accusations that the cost of the vehicles is too high due to union labor you'd have to compare it to the labor costs of other vehicle manufacturers (don't forget most of them are unionized in other first world countries).

trolls gonna troll

[gwb72tii]

If joshh were anything more than a troll he could at least find the data which tells us what percentage of the cost of a GM vehicle is due to assembly labor. If you wanted to make accusations that the cost of the vehicles is too high due to union labor you'd have to compare it to the labor costs of other vehicle manufacturers (don't forget most of them are unionized in other first world countries).

trolls gonna troll

You should fucking know better than most

[Vedubin01]

volt in the news yet again...


Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-generalmotors-autos-volt-idUSBRE88904J20120910

[BraveUlysses]

You should fucking know better than most

excellent contribution! this forum is so much better with your keen insight.

[rwh11385]

volt in the news yet again...


Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...88904J20120910

I think you are challenged again by reading.

The actual cost to build the Volt is estimated to be an additional $20,000 to $32,000 per vehicle, according to Munro and the other industry consultants.

That's the variable cost. Judging an investment in new technology after less than 2 years is the same logic that would have stopped Toyota from having one of the top selling cars right now.

The independent cost estimates obtained by Reuters factor in GM's initial investment in development of the Volt and its key components, as well as new tooling for battery, stamping, assembly and supplier plants — a price tag that totals "a little over" $1 billion,

GM's investment in the Volt has so far been a fraction of the $5 billion that Nissan said it is spending to develop and tool global production of the Leaf and its associated technologies and the reported $10 billion or more that Toyota has plowed into the Prius and various derivatives over the past decade.

Parks said the company also is continuously reducing production costs on the current Volt and its successor. "There is a strong push on the cost of the Gen 2 to get the car to make money and to be more affordable . . . Virtually every component in the next-gen car is going to be cheaper," he said.

If GM didn't want to invest in technology, they could have just kept dated tech in their cars like they had in the 90s. But how well did that work out?

[Vedubin01]

I think you are challenged again by reading.

I think you are challenged in the fact that I just posted a headline that was in the news about a thread we have here in R3v.

I was just relaying information, not expressing my personal views on the subject.

[rwh11385]

I think you are challenged in the fact that I just posted a headline that was in the news about a thread we have here in R3v.

I was just relaying information, not expressing my personal views on the subject.

You bolded the quote to underline the somewhat suspect conclusion.

The article's logic is like saying the first Prius lost several billion dollars. Fixed costs need to be spread out over units produced, but two years is unreasonable. There are multiple models and future gens that will be built off the investment, it's not solely the US GenI Volt that will leverage it. Configuration and body changes won't be as substantial cost (still way cheaper than Nissan's or Toyota's - due to using a global platform to base the Volt on).

If they sat on the sidelines as usual, they would just be paying to catch up later. Having been the first mover and building customer loyalty is valuable. A lot easier than trying to ease in late to the game.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/boblutz/2012/09/10/the-real-story-on-gms-volt-costs/

Bob Lutz is again the man.

The statement that GM “loses” over $40K per Volt is preposterous. What the “analyst” in whom poor Ben Klayman placed his faith has done is to divide the total development cost and plant investment by the number of Volts produced thus far. That’s like saying that a real estate company that puts up a $10 million building and has rental income of one million the first year is “losing” 9 million dollars, or several hundred thousand per renter.

Thus, the “Volt”, by my estimate, is either close to “variable break-even” or may be on the cusp of a positive gross margin. Deduct the per-unit allocation for all fixed cost, depreciation and amortization and it is, surely, still “under water”….but not by much, and less and less so as the volume builds and other, higher-margin GM cars, like the Cadillac ELR, piggy-back off of the Volt’s initial investment.

Maybe the Volt, a first-generation technology masterpiece and the most-awarded car in automotive history, will never make a really decent profit.

But succeeding generations of the same technology will. Meanwhile, the happy Volt buyers (most satisfied owners of any nameplate in the market) are getting more that they paid for. (Is that so bad?)

We won’t even factor in the profound halo effect the introduction of the Volt has had on GM’s reputation as a leader in environmental automotive technology; it’s priceless, and could never have been achieved without it.

So, once again, the knee-jerk Volt bashers, devoid of any real knowledge, have had their usual joyous verbal catharsis, but the car doesn’t care: The volumes are building globally and it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.

http://wot.motortrend.com/spied-cadillac-elr-range-extended-electric-coupe-caught-in-the-wild-258001.html

ELR testing in camo

[Vedubin01]

here ya go, more info on .gov purchasing the volt to help green up the military.


The Pentagon is buying Chevrolet Volts to help “green up” the military—while propping up sales of the bailed-out automaker’s most politicized car.
The Department of Defense began purchasing the struggling luxury electric car, which retails at $40,000, this summer as part of its goal to purchase 1,500 such green vehicles. The Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, Calif. purchased its first two Volts in July, and 18 more vehicles will come shortly to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where Air Force One is based, according to military magazine Stars and Stripes.

http://freebeacon.com/great-green-car-fleet/

[gwb72tii]

why is gm producing a car that loses money when the taxpayers are on the line?
shouldn't they place more emphasis on profits until the taxpayer is paid back?