GM to kill the Volt

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Great idea but the wrong form factor. Would have done well as a compact crossover... forget about building cars nobody wants, pretty much nobody wants cars period.
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Great idea but the wrong form factor. Would have done well as a compact crossover... forget about building cars nobody wants, pretty much nobody wants cars period.
+1
I really liked the idea of the Volt(and if it had met my needs I'd probably have owned one instead of my Leafs) just couldn't stand it's cramped space :( The Bolt isn't much better and cramped space is the main reason I don't own one of those either :(
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Great idea but the wrong form factor. Would have done well as a compact crossover...
GM has talked about it and thrown out strong hints laced with plausible deniability -- you know, GM crapola.

So GM certainly considered it
 
If I was a single man and a 1-car household I probably would have gotten a Volt since it is the only PHEV that'll make my daily commute all electric. I thought they were nice looking, responsive, handled well, and had a nice infotainment system. That said, the back seat was not suited for anyone over 5'6" and calling it a 5-seater was a joke so I can see why it wasn't a huge seller for them especially with $2.50 gas the last few years... I agree that an equinox PHEV probably would have done better.

Either way it is a shame to see it go IMO, the car was definitely ahead of its time in a lot of ways.
 
I've told this before, but this may be the last time: the original Volt show car was a Camaro show car with a golf cart drive train. It was never meant to be produced, and the few times it was driven for journalists it either broke down or was, well, as slow as a golf cart. The GM reps even asked a PBS team if they could "speed up the film" from a demonstration vid. But the interest in the car was so strong that GM was almost literally forced to produce the Volt. Since there was no real car there, just a vague concept and a body already intended for another car, they had to start from scratch. The really amazing thing was - and continues to be - that they succeeded, and built a very good PHEV.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The really amazing thing was - and continues to be - that they succeeded, and built a very good PHEV.
Bah. It took them 10 years to copy the Prius
 
SageBrush said:
LeftieBiker said:
The really amazing thing was - and continues to be - that they succeeded, and built a very good PHEV.
Bah. It took them 10 years to copy the Prius
I thought the Volt was a completely different system that ran on the electric motor full time, and the gas engine was just a generator that charged the battery. I don't know. Is it really just a Prius copy? :?
 
The power split devices that serve in place of a transmission in both are similar, but the Volt is more a serial hybrid and the Prius more a parallel. So no, the Volt isn't a copy of the Prius. It would be more accurate to say that they tried to build a PHEV that did what the Prius didn't: provide a large electric range, with electric heat and plenty of horsepower. If they hadn't locked themselves into a body that was squashed down because the Camaro/Volt showcar was squashed down, they could indeed have built a real winner.
 
The Volt is NOT a serial hybrid and the Prius is NOT a parallel hybrid. Both cars route battery and/or ICE power through a power split device implemented via a planetary gear set. GM certainly jawed about a serial hybrid but it was never built. GM made 3 changes to the Prius design:

1. A larger motor
2. A swap of the PSD inputs
3. A clutch was added to bypass the PSD in ICE only mode. This was an infrequently used mode meant to simulate a long gear during highway driving and to compensate for the poor efficiency of the ICE.
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Great idea but the wrong form factor. Would have done well as a compact crossover... forget about building cars nobody wants, pretty much nobody wants cars period.

I would have argued the same with the Leaf, particularly with the 2018 model, since the trend away from sedans and hatchbacks towards SUV/CUV would have been clear by the time the car was in its design stages.
 
RonDawg said:
LTLFTcomposite said:
Great idea but the wrong form factor. Would have done well as a compact crossover... forget about building cars nobody wants, pretty much nobody wants cars period.

I would have argued the same with the Leaf, particularly with the 2018 model, since the trend away from sedans and hatchbacks towards SUV/CUV would have been clear by the time the car was in its design stages.

The goal with the Leaf "2" was to re-use as much of the car - including body parts - as possible, while still claiming it was "new." They wanted price point over any improvements other than range and power. They should be building prototypes for that electric CUV right about now, in typical Nissan "timeliness."
 
LeftieBiker said:
RonDawg said:
LTLFTcomposite said:
Great idea but the wrong form factor. Would have done well as a compact crossover... forget about building cars nobody wants, pretty much nobody wants cars period.

I would have argued the same with the Leaf, particularly with the 2018 model, since the trend away from sedans and hatchbacks towards SUV/CUV would have been clear by the time the car was in its design stages.

The goal with the Leaf "2" was to re-use as much of the car - including body parts - as possible, while still claiming it was "new." They wanted price point over any improvements other than range and power. They should be building prototypes for that electric CUV right about now, in typical Nissan "timeliness."

They could have done this without too much of a redesign. Many of the smaller CUVs are already based on small car platforms; for example, the Honda HR-V is based on the Fit. And if they're going to re-skin the car as Nissan did, they could have done with GM did to the Spark:

Screen-Shot-2018-03-12-at-10.03.12-AM-1024x310.png


(Semi)CUV styling, minimal engineering changes. And if that's not "butch" enough for you, witness the Subaru CrossTrek, which is little more than an Impreza hatchback with a jacked up suspension and body cladding:

image.jpg


image.jpg
 
Except that Nissan didn't "Re-skin the car." The entire midsection is virtually the same on the outside and largely the same inside, dash excepted. I wonder if the doors are interchangeable with the Gen I...
 
They did re-skin the existing car. The door frames are the exact same size but there are creases on the 2018 that aren’t there in the earlier models. Interior door cards look like they will fit on the older cars. Front clip and rear hatch/tail lamp are about the biggest changes.

My point is that for the effort Nissan put into trying to make the car look less weird, they should have put into taking advantage of the trend towards CUVs, for which consumers are willing to open their wallets.
 
I understand your point, but how would you like a Leaf CUV that cost $5k more and had the same crappy air cooled 40kwh pack and no AWD option? They should have done both.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I understand your point, but how would you like a Leaf CUV that cost $5k more and had the same crappy air cooled 40kwh pack and no AWD option? They should have done both.

By having more CUV-like styling, buyers might be more willing to pay the prices that Nissan is currently asking. As far as lack of AWD, there are some small CUVs currently on the market where AWD is not even an option, like the Nissan Kicks or the Toyota C-HR.
 
Drumroll - IEVS:
Chevy Volt Production Has Officially Come To An End
https://insideevs.com/chevy-volt-production-officially-ends/

. . . The plug-in hybrid that helped kick-start the electric vehicle revolution will no longer roll from the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant. The cessation seems to be a bit earlier than expected. When contacted after news of model’s upcoming demise first broke, the automaker had said production would stop in March of this year. . . .
Get 'em while you can.
 
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