GM’s EV Van Sets Range World Record

[RACarvalho]

Originally Posted by Chance

Big Brother didn’t cause Camaro sales to drop to 1/4 of what they were a few years earlier. Buyers have been moving away from cars/sedans and towards SUV-type of vehicles for years. Camaro with very low profile, practically no trunk or back seat compared to SUV was just the wrong product for buyers. It may be a good car but with limited mass appeal. It’s amazing the Mustang is still around, though even that “brand” was made into SUV/CUB.

The Volt and pretty much all other plug-in hybrids have not really caught on as many auto “experts” predicted. As a commuter the newer BEV options are much better and cheaper, and for long trips fuel economy was not great. It tried to straddle the fence and failed for most buyers.

GM is doing better with other electric vehicles, and seems to be moving away from plug-in hybrids. In my opinion both of these vehicles failed because they couldn’t compete in market due to their designs and or value.

I respectfully disagree with you on the big brother statement....

Anyway, the numbers above are FACTS and as they are, they are telling a story.
and that story seems to indicate that people are more interested in a muscle car (very focused product made for a niche of the market) than a "cheap" family EV.
That is the story, as simple as that!

If GM was not so afraid of big brother, the project would never come see the light of the day or it would be canceled at year 3.

Another FACT:
As for sedans, it is interesting that Mercedes, BMW, Audi, VW, KIA, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota and every other manufacturer in the world keep selling sedans here....
Even TESLA produces sedans!!!

Which to me means one of two things:
Those that say that the American people don't want sedans anymore are wrong OR all the world is wrong and GM and Ford are right.... What is the the most likely to happen???

As for the electric vehicles not selling what the "experts" predicted, we always fall in error when we consider that the people are , in general, dumb and can't see the "catch".

I'm not saying everybody that buys those cars are dumb but I'm saying that in its majority, people will not do a bad business (pay more for less) just because the TV man is saying it is a good deal and "everybody is/will be buying it".
There are people that see the "catch" and buy anyway because they want, but those are highly outnumbered by those that don't do it.

There is what big brother wants to do( and the reason companies fear going against the narrative, even though no 1/2 decent business case would support that) and there is what the paying consumer wants to do....

BTW, I believe the SUV thing is a one generation thing.
I have two teenagers at home and their dream cars are.... sedans...

[ducksface]

Chevy spark
The battery status has gone from
Back order
To
It's no longer listed with a part number so it can't be ordered at all.

Chevy did some corporate
'Supply chain'
Lie.

The supply chain did not remove it from the parts catalog,

Time will tell how/why.

[Matthew]

You forgot to mention Dodge.
Year after year their two sedans keep selling more and more (but they go electric in '24).

"The first reason that the Dodge Challenger and Charger sell so well is also the most obvious – they offer more power than either of the competitors. Four different V8 engines with 375, 485, 707 and 840 horsepower (and a after market hemi made by Dodge with 1000hp, call the Hellaphant). Chevrolet has two V8s – one with 455 horsepower and another with 650 horsepower – while Ford also has two V8s with output of 460 horsepower and 526 horsepower."

[RACarvalho]

Originally Posted by Matthew

You forgot to mention Dodge.
Year after year their two sedans keep selling more and more (but they go electric in '24).

"The first reason that the Dodge Challenger and Charger sell so well is also the most obvious – they offer more power than either of the competitors. Four different V8 engines with 375, 485, 707 and 840 horsepower (and a after market hemi made by Dodge with 1000hp, call the Hellaphant). Chevrolet has two V8s – one with 455 horsepower and another with 650 horsepower – while Ford also has two V8s with output of 460 horsepower and 526 horsepower."

Ask me what my teenager kids dream about?

[Lt Keefer]

I watched a TED talk on youTube this morning that explained the problem with electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are not zero emission vehicles. Since 67% of our energy is generated by fossil fuels the best they do is move the emissions from the city to the countryside where the power plants are located. Another problem with electric vehicles is that when brand new, the manufacturing of the batteries is equivalent to 80,000 miles of internal combustion engine operation. The guy on the TED talk explained how you have to drive an electric vehicle 400,000 miles on it's original batteries before it emits less overall emissions than an ICE vehicle at the same mileage. Don't fall for the environmental argument. The green movement and the politicians that support it are selling a bunch of malarkey. It may make sense, economically, to consumers as long as the government is subsidizing the production, distribution and purchasing of electric vehicles. But, if you add those costs into the model, it probably falls short again.

[Chance]

Originally Posted by RACarvalho

I respectfully disagree with you on the big brother statement....

Anyway, the numbers above are FACTS and as they are, they are telling a story.
and that story seems to indicate that people are more interested in a muscle car (very focused product made for a niche of the market) than a "cheap" family EV.
That is the story, as simple as that!

.....cut.....

Why do we need to complicate everything so freaking much in order to blame Big Brother? “FACTS” are that Camaro sales were so low for a company the size of GM that it’s not worth their effort. When they have vehicles that sell in the hundreds of thousands, it’s hard to turn a profit on 20,000-a-year slow mover headed for death on its own.

Note most on top list are pickups, SUV or foreign low-cost compacts (where GM and Ford can’t turn a profit).

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g3...ing-cars-2021/

[Chateau_Nomad]

One thing about my F-150 made me question the "shell game" Ford started playing to appease the fleet MPG police... that little "disable stop/start" switch on the dash. Especially after I looked up how much gasoline an idling 3.5 liter Ford engine "sips". AND... the fact that the feature can be disabled by a prominent dash button?? Virtue signaling??

[RACarvalho]

Originally Posted by Chance

Why do we need to complicate everything so freaking much in order to blame Big Brother? “FACTS” are that Camaro sales were so low for a company the size of GM that it’s not worth their effort. When they have vehicles that sell in the hundreds of thousands, it’s hard to turn a profit on 20,000-a-year slow mover headed for death on its own.

Note most on top list are pickups, SUV or foreign low-cost compacts (where GM and Ford can’t turn a profit).

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g3...ing-cars-2021/

The only complication is to try to explain why Volt was on sale for 10 years if its annualized demand never reached 26K/year, which is the demand that Camaro had in US when they stopped production....
That 26k/year was only in North America, if you add to that demand the rest of the World the picture becomes even worst for the Volt...

Why keep in production a Vehicle (Volt) that the consumer clearly doesn't want????
Again, Camaro is a NICHE focused product, a pony car, so no one expects to sell 100s of thousands / year....while Volt is not...

The only explanation I can think of is that Volt is a complete financial disaster that GM had to endure in order to try to reach the mandated fleet mpg average...

No complication, just simple thinking.

Worth of note is that nobody is gaining anything with this lunacy except big brother....

[RACarvalho]

Originally Posted by Chateau_Nomad

One thing about my F-150 made me question the "shell game" Ford started playing to appease the fleet MPG police... that little "disable stop/start" switch on the dash. Especially after I looked up how much gasoline an idling 3.5 liter Ford engine "sips". AND... the fact that the feature can be disabled by a prominent dash button?? Virtue signaling??

I had that in my F150...

Second worst feature of the vehicle just after the 10spd transmission...

If you go to the F150 forums you will notice that this is the most hated feature on the vehicle and there are several solutions to permanently disable it.
In mine I applied the little jump cable at the back of that button and for the 3 years I had the F150 I never had to push that button again...

[Bob Denman]

EVs...
The power grid (very little of which is "green"): dimply lacks capacity. If there were to be a major jump to these vehicles: it could not begin to meet the power demand.
So until we see a major upgrade to where and how we get power: these vehicles are impractical pipe dreams...

[Ottosails]

Interesting topic. In my world, the increase in volume of EV's on the road and in the wholesale auto auction/retail industry we are needing to learn how to manage the re-sale of EV's and most importantly figure out the battery life issue of a used EV. I find this fascinating as I have been in the wholesale/auction industry my entire career and was brought up to believe miles on a car were the determining factor in its remaining life and value. Until just recently the industry didn’t know how to deal with EV’s and is just now learning how to determine and report what an EV's expected life is. Shocker, it has nothing to do with miles, t’s all about the battery. So how do you know how a battery has been treated? A replacement battery can cost between $5,000 and $20,000. If interested in learning more about EV cars and batteries this site covers associated costs, charging habits, life span and much more. For this old used car guy, “Times sure are a changing”. https://www.recurrentauto.com/