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General Motors had another disappointing month of sales for its much-hyped green wonder-car in October. Sales for the Chevy Volt plunged over 31 percent from last year, down to 2,022 units for the month. To put that number in perspective, Toyota sells that many Toyota Camrys in about two days. Or, GM is selling less than one Volt per Chevy dealership per month. Despite the dismal sales figures, the loss to taxpayers for federal tax credits of $7,500 per vehicle that go to the wealthy buyers of Volts tallies out to $15,165,000 in October. If GM had come anywhere close...

It looks like General Motors is going through an identity crisis as its marketing strategy has flip-flopped by changing its targeted audience. The new General Motors' truck ad, "Strong," targets conservatives by honoring a heroic and manly GM truck buyer with lyrics that describe him as a "love one woman for all his life" type of guy who arrived at work on time for twenty straight years. The rugged, heterosexual identity of today's GM differs greatly from last year's politically correct version when the company won praise for running a "gay" Chevy Volt ad and for flying rainbow banners to...

General Motors reported unimpressive sales results for the month of September as sales fell 11%. Core division, Chevrolet, performed the worst with sales down almost 15% year over year. Within that division, sales for the much-hyped Chevy Volt could not even be propped up with its recent $5,000 price cut as results declined to a measly 1,766 units (less than one per dealership) in September. That is a decline of over 38% year over year and just over half of what sold in the previous month. The floundering sales of the Volt saved taxpayers some money over August when federal...

It looks like General Motors is attempting to make up for the money it loses on every Chevy Volt in volume as August sales, spurred by recent price cuts, reached an all-time high of 3,351. The fact that the car has been on the market for about three years and initial much-hyped proclamations from GM would have put sales at 20,000 per month by now goes unrecognized by those that think 3,351 vehicles is a lot of cars to sell in a month. To put the sales in perspective, it took Toyota about 2 ½ days to sell that many...

According to the carefully crafted plan of the Obama administration, there would be one million electric cars cruising around America's streets and highways by 2015. According to the plan, almost half of those vehicles would be Chevrolet Volts. So how well are President Obama's industrial policy plans working out in the real world? The easiest way to find out is to count up the number of Chevrolet Volt sales over time. Electric vehicle industry observer InsideEVs provides a monthly scorecard of the number of sales recorded for each primarily electricity-powered automobile in the U.S., from which we extracted the...

The Chevy Volt madness continued this week with General Motors announcing that consumers will see a $5,000 decrease in the price of President Obama's favorite green wonder-car. Sales of the Volt have been dismal, with most consumers refusing to be as smitten with the car as the President and the few enthusiastic green ideologues who seemed to believe that spending approximately $20,000 more for a car (over a gas-powered rival) that can save them about $3 a day in gas makes sense. What seems to go unrecognized is the fact that the price cut comes at the expense of GM...

General Motors announced Tuesday that it will knock $5,000 off the sticker price of a new Chevy Volt, making it the latest electric car to be steeply discounted as automakers battle for buyers.

LogicDesigner wrote: It seems that John Ransom is at it again. I can just see his thought process. "Oh dangit, the GM has lowered the price of the Volt and now they had a record sales month. I better find some way to spin this story into how the Volt is an utter failure! If anyone disagrees with me I'll just call them a troll and question their conservative credentials!" (It seems John also deleted his comment where he called one of his critics a troll and accused them of pretending to be a conservative). "Someone should give me a...

The US Chamber of Commerce's "On the Road with Free Enterprise" tour has quietly entered its second month. The main story currently on the "Free Enterprise" website is a piece titled " First Ever Sushi Tech Combats Fish Fraud." The fact that General Motors is hypocritically co-sponsoring a free enterprise tour might bring to mind the words fishy and fraud as well. "Beneath the deep purple cuts of healthy tuna and the smell of fresh wasabi, there lies a sushi underbelly in America that will make your stomach turn," reads the first line of the all-important "fish fraud" story. Likewise,...

The good news for GM these days is that no one has been consumed in a fiery death due to engine compartment fires since the Chevy Volt was discovered to spontaneous combust after accidents shortly after production began. The bad news for the company is that while Chevy Volt sales in June set a record, prior to June their sales for 2013 sucked despite general auto sales setting post-crash records. “With signs that sales of its Chevrolet Volt battery car could be coming unplugged,” reported NBC News in June, “General Motors is offering potential buyers as much as $5,000 in...

It appears that there is no end in sight to the Obama Administration's costly quest to electrify America's auto fleet, despite the recent flurry of reports that continue to confirm that the benefits of electric vehicles (EVs) are practically nonexistent in comparison to the costs. One of these reports even came from Obama's own NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) panel which downplayed the importance of EVs and claimed that electric cars will only need to account for between one and three percent of car manufacturer's product portfolios by 2025 for lofty government EPA requirements to be met. The Autoguide.com...

General Motors has announced a $4,000 rebate (or $3,000 and a four year, zero interest loan from government-owned Ally Financial) on the slow-selling Chevy Volt. The company had a choice regarding how to deal with an excess supply of Volts that is growing faster than demand. GM could have, once again, temporarily halted production until inventory (currently at about a 6 month supply) came down to reasonable levels. It instead chooses to lose more millions of dollars by spending on incentives designed to manufacture demand that otherwise is practically nonexistent. The much-hyped Chevy Volt was originally presented by GM...

A recent search for new Chevy Volts on cars.com unearthed 9,254 vehicles currently at dealerships for sale. There were another 258 late-model, used Volts available. About half of those had less than 5,000 miles on them. Considering the abysmal sales rate for the self-proclaimed electric wonder-car (1,306 in April for those keeping track), the unofficial inventory numbers point to about a seven month supply of Volts available. Ideal inventory levels are considered to be in the two month range. It may be near time for General Motors to halt production, yet again, for the floundering Volt. The inventory numbers for...

Great news for consumers who are considering buying General Motors' green wonder car, the Chevy Volt. I know how excited those environmentally conscientious Volt enthusiasts can get, but a little patience can pay off big time if potential buyers hold off for a year or so on their purchase. According to GM CEO Dan Akerson and following another dismal month of Volt sales (1,306 in April), the car that defies logic will soon be available for up to $10,000 less money. The good news extends to shareholders of GM as the next generation of the Volt will supposedly be profitable...

It appears that the Mainstream Media folks may finally be starting to expose one of the worst cases of taxpayer abuse that this country has ever seen. Kudos to Deepa Seetharaman who wrote a piece for Reuters which questions the feasibility of the government-subsidized, lithium-ion based battery technology behind electric vehicles (EVs) like the Chevy Volt. While Seetharaman acknowledges the limitations of lithium-ion batteries, what remains unchallenged is the continued waste of billions of taxpayer dollars to support the failing, pseudo-green technology. The evidence that the Obama Administration's EV subsidization has been a costly fiasco (particularly regarding the Chevy Volt...

President Obama and eco-mandarins around him made a very bad call when they calculated that a mix of appeals to greenies, lavish subsidies, and a marketing push from General Motors could convince the public to buy lithium-ion battery-powered electric cars in commercial quantities. The program has been an utter failure, with Volt sales falling 35% in March, on a year-to-year basis, to a paltry 1,478 units - roughly one Volt sale every other month per dealership. Mark Modica of the National Legal and Policy Center has assembled the grim data. GM's excuses for the poor performance seem to be drying...

The Chevy Volt has inarguably been the poster child for President Obama's push to electrify America's auto fleet. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to produce and subsidize the plug-in electric car. For years we have heard about the supposedly amazing technology for the Volt which would lead America to energy independence, be a "game-changer" for General Motors and provide a multitude of new green jobs. Proclamations were made that supply for the wonder-car could not keep up with the demand. Well, March's sales figures are in and give further confirmation that the lofty claims were all lies. March's...

Perhaps General Motors should have put more focus on competing in the largest segment of the auto market instead of focusing on being the market leader in the least popular, plug-in, electric vehicle (EV) field. A Detroit Free Press article reported that GM had to slash Chevy Malibu prices by hundreds of dollars to try and catch up with vehicles like the Toyota Camry, which is currently eating the Malibu's lunch. Chevy spokesman Michael Albino is quoted as admitting that, "The midsize segment is the largest and most competitive in the industry." Maybe GM should have realized that when they...

According to Toyota Vice Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada, "Because of its shortcomings - driving range, cost and recharging time - the electric vehicle is not a viable replacement for most conventional cars; we need something entirely new." Uchiyamada is considered the "father of the Prius." An article by Reuter's exposes the limitations of EVs and focuses on Toyota's, along with Nissan's, change in strategy, which is now moving away from EVs. Even the most ideological and extreme green energy proponents and backers of the Chevy Volt will have to open their eyes to the sad truth uncovered by the latest report....

January's dismal numbers for Chevy Volt sales may give a clue as to how successful (or not) President Obama will be in reaching his goal of having a million electric vehicles (EVs) on American roads within the next few years, a goal that is increasingly becoming unlikely. It also gives us a glimpse into a bizarre strategy General Motors has had by focusing so strongly on plug-in cars while they lose market share elsewhere. The numbers are in, and GM can proudly say that they are the market leader in an insignificant field with a paltry 1,140 Volts sold in...