Will
you buy a $40,000 Chevy Volt in 2011
Friday, February 01, 2008
Worth
$40,000?
By 2011, according
to Jonathon Lauckner, GM's VP for global program
management, GM will be building 10's of thousands of Chevy
Volts. Still, GM is hoping to debut the Chevy
Volt by 2010.
Of course, anything can happen between now and then.
"We're still fairly early in the program. We haven't
sourced the battery yet."
Additionally, Lauckner admitted that the Volt will
probably be priced closer to $40,000 than $30,000, which
really isn't surprising.
At NAIAS GM debuted the Saturn Vue plug-in hybrid concept,
which should launch a little before the Volt. When I asked
Micky Bly, GM's Director of Global Hybrids, about the
reasoning behind two plug-ins, I was told that there would
be a considerable price difference between the Chevy Volt
and the Saturn
Vue plug-in hybrid, for example.
Considering that the dual mode Saturn Vue is probably
going to be priced close to $30,000, one can only assume
the plug-in version will be more expensive - maybe much
more expensive.
So, a $40,000 Volt sounds about right, maybe even a little
low.
Yet, Volt pricing might not end with the sticker. There
has been a lot of discussion by GM officials regarding
leasing the battery packs for this vehicle. Would this be
an extra cost beyond the $40,000?
Ultimately, GM is still almost 3 years away from
mass-production of the Volt, so almost anything it still
possible.
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