The Chevy Volt to be Priced $41,000 (or $33,500)

pricey

It's a nice car but I still have high hopes for the Tesla model S even though it is a lot more money.

It might not be a bad idea to get electric, if war breaks with Iran or NK who knows how high gas prices will go.

$33.5K is expensive, but looking at lease option it's ridiculously cheap. At $350/month a lot of people will lease it.
Don't see a reason to buy, as there is no way to tell how it will perform in 5 years.

for that price you might as well get the traverse.

So if you aren't signed up for a green electricity tariff or make your own, it's 100% fossil-fuel driven.

All these cars should come with a green electricity tariff for your home.

Bring back the EV!

EV 1!*****

You know I find it funny that everyone talks about the middle east and war and gas prices... You do know that we get 80%!!!! of our oil from Canada right?

Where exactly do you 'know' this from?

It's not 80% from Canada, but they are our #1 source of imports.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas [...] mport.html

I like the fact that electrics are so financially sensible that we need to give the first few thousand users a free home charging station. This is paid for by the taxpayers, of course...

What person in their right mind would buy the car for that price? That is simply insanity. It's similar to the pricey overhead that Ford places on their hybrids. Between the price difference of a hybrid and the normal model, you can pay the fuel difference easily and still come out with more money in your pocket.

No one is mentioning the fact that this (seemingly) only does 40 miles on batteries, which is fine if you live in a city and charge it every night, but pretty much useless as an eco option for anyone else.

Gimmick.

Wish there were cost figures included for charging daily!

So, what's the difference between the $41K Volt and a Honda or Toyota hybrid at half the price - a larger LiOn battery pack? Yes I know the Volt is plug-in rechargeable, but you can buy a mod kit for the hybrids for far less than $20K..

Even with gas at $5 a gallon, you would have to drive 200K miles at 50 mpg before you'd break even..

+1!
GM doesn't want to advertise factors of electricity usage like they do with fuel. I'm sure it'll double your household electric bill if your a daily commuter! btw, only the first 40 miles is total electric, who here drives less then this a day so they can be proud to not use the fossil fuels? Plugging/Unplugging a car daily would be a pain that I wouldn't care for, give me a big gas guzzling hemi and watch me lay rubber past this overpriced toy!

Yes, let's move forward even though they already predicted not having enough lithium ion available to even mass produce electric cars, nevermind the fact that nickel refinement is toxic and requires the batteries to go to multiple countries onboard fossil fuel burning huge ships, gas cars are actually far better for the environment lol

Just run an extension cord to your neighbors house. Problem solved!

Holy Cow, 41K? That makes $5 a gallon gas look cheap if you ask me. Guess I am not completely sold on the "green" thing. Wait, I understand, "green" is what GM is planning on making off this thing.

It looks nice however at the 41K price range, it's the price of a BMW and i'm sure the repair costs will most likely be in the similar price range... It's nice that people are coming out with more economical cars but its a crying shame when it's only the rich and wealthy who can afford to own it...

WTF Chevy...

Awesome I want one!!!!!

Wait its made by GM????? nevermind.

so the electric motor and all electric systems except for the batteries themselves are covered for only 3 years...
HA! I can see Chevy service mechanics telling everyone that brings it in that the charging system or motor/alternator was not producing the right current and since it was at fault the batteries won't be covered either.

"The Chevrolet Volt will be the best vehicle in its class…because it's in a class by itself," said Joel Ewanick, vice president of U.S. marketing for General Motors

A truer statement was never said: the only way GM could have the best car in a class would be if it is the only car.

I prefer to wait 3-4 years and see the new models and prices. today its not cost effective. and we don't know what the technology will become in the future. Maybe suddenly they decide to stop creating it because another technology is better and finding a new battery will cost a lot.
We have to wait to have some standard in the battery insuring that we are not locked to the manufacturer (and the price will be lower due to competition)

So can you also say "The Chevrolet Volt will be the WORST vehicle in its class…because it's in a class by itself!"

Hmmm...lets see...

Chevy Volt = $41,000 + TTL = ~$43,000
Charge cost = assume 8 hr charge at night * 120v * 15 watt * 300 charging days = 4,320 Kilowatts * $0.12 / Kilowatt = $518 for electricity


Chevy Cobalt = $13,000 + TTL = ~ $15,000
assume city driving for 20,000 miles/year = ~27 MPG = ~ 800 gallons of fuel * ~$3.00 / gallon = $2400 per year for gas


So, lets see here... I could drive a Chevy Cobalt for 11.666 years, averaging 20,000 miles per year and paying ~$3.00 per gallon, before breaking even on the purchase price of the Chevy Volt

Ok, you say, but what about the tax refund???...fine...take off 3 years (~$7500 of fuel) and you're still at a minimum of an 8 year payback - WITHOUT taking in to account the cost of the electricity to charge the Volt...



Volt = EPIC FAIL!!!!!!!

Why not just say 100%, since you are making this number up.

It took 10 seconds to find YTD figures which show 22% (http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html)

It would help this discussion if you did not post total nonsense. Then again, since the figure is so obviously unbelievable it doesn't make much difference.

A marketing gimmick and nothing more. EV's just aren't there yet in terms of technology and real world utility. This is for the pie-in-the-sky enviro-nazi's and early adopters with more money than sense. For $41k, I'll take a nice BMW 3 series.

It has a 16-kWh lithium-ion battery. The cost to charge would depend on electric rates in your area. In my area, 1 kWh is $0.08. So, I'm assuming that fully charging the car would cost about $1.30.

That's not bad for 40 miles of driving. That's roughly the equivalent of 2 gallons of gas for conventional cars while driving within the city limits. The big difference is that the Volt would have zero emissions and save roughly $4. My daily commute is roughly 40 miles round-trip, so I can see the value in this.

I really don't understand the "breaking even" analogy as someone else posted. Comparing cars of different classes makes the break-even point have nothing to do with fuel costs.

Ha for that price range I could have a Camaro SS loaded or a F150 Raptor real vehicles worth that money.

FAIL

I'll wait for Hydrogen fuel cell cars. They have a much brighter future IMO.

As was stated before, "0 emissions for 40 miles" is a sort of ruse. Not even counting the initial production and transportation of said batteries, the electricity has to be created somewhere, and most electricity is created via fossil fuels.