Let's see. Buy a Volt for $33,000 or a Malibu for $22,000.
The Mailbu is $11,000 less, and over ten years would you ever get that money back in gasoline savings dolllars? Not unless you spend more than $90 a month on gasoline for your Malibu over and above the cost of energy for the Volt.
Then there are all the hazardous materials in the Volt, and the raw materials mined from all over the world, and disposal costs. In a hard study, the Mailbu would likely be much more "green".
Perhaps the most buzzed-about electric vehicle (really, any sort of vehicle) of 2010 is Chevy’s Volt. It’s supposed to be the car that shows the world that GM, and American automakers as a whole, can still innovate and put out a great car.
GM’s vice president of US marketing said as much, in a carefully worded, zinger-filled statement announcing the Volt’s pre-order availability.
“The Chevrolet Volt will be the best vehicle in its class…because it’s in a class by itself,” said Joel Ewanick, vice president of U.S. marketing for General Motors, who made the announcement at the Plug-In 2010 conference. “No other automaker offers an electrically driven vehicle that can be your everyday driver, to take you wherever, whenever. The Volt will be packed with premium content and innovation, standard.”
The taglines and puns are cheesy, sure, but the Volt is a genuinely exciting car, and it’s getting a major push from the beleaguered auto giant. So how about the particulars?
The Volt will be available to customers in only a few states at first: California, Michigan, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and “the Washington, DC area,” which might mean the metropolitan area stretching into parts of Maryland and/or Virginia. Pre-orders began today–you can locate a dealer here.
Though the Volt will start at $41,000, tax credits may result in up to $7,500 taken off that price, for a possible starting price of $33,500. It’s a very impressive EV, though not the cheapest–that award would go to India’s Tata Nano, though the Nissan Leaf, the Volt’s closest competitor, will sell for less than $33,000 before the tax credit. The Volt has a range of about 340 miles per charge.
What do you all think? Will the Volt take off at that price?
