“Who is propagandizing?”
That little part where they state:
“April was mostly good news for the Chevrolet Volt.”
Then a little further down, they persist in their monthly fantasy that more Volts would sell, if only they could make more:
“Additionally, with focus away from the Cadillac ELR, inventories finally ballooned up to a more reasonable level in April with the Volt’s Hamtramck assembly line bumping out cars much faster than they could be sold for a change.”
What an objective story would say:
GM has dumped half a billion dollars into the plant alone, for the Volt, and its year to year sales aren’t even holding even. The Volt is following a sales pattern almost identical to that of the Pontiac Aztec, which was properly cancelled. However, GM has chosen not to kill the Volt program like it did to the Aztec, and is planning to dump another half billion into their plant.
I don’t pay much attention to the full EV vehicles. My monthly fascination is with the Volt, which is a terrible idea.
Sales up in April is not “mostly good news” for Arpil?
““Additionally, with focus away from the Cadillac ELR, inventories finally ballooned up to a more reasonable level in April with the Volt’s Hamtramck assembly line bumping out cars much faster than they could be sold for a change.”
Saying they are making more than they can sell therefore increasing inventory is “propaganda?”
Any car sells more with more inventory. More choices of options and more incentive for dealers to sell causes sales to increase and prices to fall. Basic supply and demand. Does not necessarily mean increased profits per unit, usually the opposite.
“GM has dumped half a billion dollars into the plant alone, for the Volt, and its year to year sales aren’t even holding even. The Volt is following a sales pattern almost identical to that of the Pontiac Aztec, which was properly cancelled. However, GM has chosen not to kill the Volt program like it did to the Aztec, and is planning to dump another half billion into their plant.”
That is not objective.
That is irrational hatred for a car.
The Pontiac Aztec was an appearance package for the Chevy Blazer. It did not have any special automotive engineering or special tooling. Dumping it did not cause GM to reevaluate special tooling investment to zero.
Volt program is a $1.3B program. Dumping it requires GM to admit it gets nothing back and will never recover its investment. Spending $480M for a next generation of vehicle is par for the course in the automotive industry.
The Volt kinda sucked when introduced because it was a Cruze that needed to be driven about 140k miles to recover the premium paid over the Cruze.
Without some massive upgrade and price cut the Volt and ELR will be completely obsolete when the Tesla Model E debuts in 2017 or so. I guess you can do a victory dance at the cancellation of the Volt then.
Taking irrational pleasure and delight in the failure of an American company is not very patriotic.
Cheers!