Questions the feds don't ask when they run a car company

Is there a market? Does it cost too much? The stats in this article answer the questions.

Some Chevy dealers spurn Volt allocation

DETROIT -- Some Chevrolet dealers are turning down Volts that General Motors wants to ship to them, a potential stumbling block as GM looks to accelerate sales of the plug-in hybrid.

For example, consider the New York City market. Last month, GM allocated 104 Volts to 14 dealerships in the area, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Dealers took just 31 of them, the lowest take rate for any Chevy model in that market last month. That group of dealers ordered more than 90 percent of the other vehicles they were eligible to take, the source said.

In Clovis, Calif., meanwhile, Brett Hedrick, dealer principal at Hedrick's Chevrolet, sold 10 Volts last year. But in December and January he turned down all six Volts allocated to him under GM's "turn-and-earn" system, which distributes vehicles based on past sales volumes and inventory levels.

GM's "thinking we need six more Volts is just crazy," Hedrick says. "We've never sold more than two in a month." Hedrick says he usually takes just about every vehicle that GM allocates to him.

GM spokesman Rob Peterson confirmed that "dealer ordering is down" for the Volt...

...Industry insiders are closely watching sales of the Volt and Nissan Leaf as barometers of market demand for electric vehicles. Several other automakers are set to launch EVs this year.

At the Detroit auto show this month, GM executives said they wouldn't chase a previous Volt production target set for 2012 -- 60,000 units, three-quarters of which would be for U.S. sales -- and vowed simply to build as many as customers want.

GM sold 7,671 Volts in the United States in 2011, short of its 10,000-unit target. It launched the car in seven key markets starting in late 2010, but didn't begin a national rollout until this past autumn.

"We haven't satisfied demand," GM North America President Mark Reuss said on the sidelines of the Detroit show. He said GM will be able to gauge Volt demand by sometime in the second quarter.

Many dealers say they no longer have customers waiting in the wings...

Again, an expensive POS that has no market. Now I found this comment interesting.

Gas will be aproaching record levels as early as May. I would wait untill the end of summer before ordering Volt's tombstone. The car is a little overpriced but the last time we had a gas spike I witnessed dealers paying $33,000 for a used Prius at auction. That dealer might be a fool, but he probably had a willing buyer for more money back at the store. We are rapidly aproaching the end of the era for cheap gas. When the economy comes back (and it will) we will live in a time of cheap Gold and expensive gas.

And expensive everything else. This moron seems to now comprehend high fuel costs will inflate the prices of other items (food, housing, etc) that will keep the economy depressed. And if B Hussein Obama is not thrown the hell out of officer in November out economy is shot.