The bottom line: They're losing money on every single vehicle and lying about it.
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General Motors is dismissing a media report describing the Chevrolet Volt, it's extended-range electric car, as a major money loser. Those reports, the automakers says in a statement, are "grossly wrong."
Reuters estimates that GM is losing as much as $49,000 on every Volt. That's $10,000 more than the extended-range electric car's sales price. But the automaker said the wire service's calculations ignored that development costs are typically spread out among all vehicles sold over the course of the model's lifetime.
GM has acknowledged it's losing money on the Volt, but won't say how much. But GM argued that its investment will pay off over time as Volt sales accelerate and the cost of the extended-range electric/generator powertrain comes down and is offered in other models over time.
The car, which can travel up to 38 miles on a battery charge before a gasoline-powered generator kicks in, has missed GM's original sales targets for 2012. It sells for $39,995 as its base price. Sales are picking up after some dealers started offering a cheap lease, California certified that single drivers can drive the Volt in carpool lanes. Chevrolet sold 2,831 Volts last month, its strongest month since its launch.
Reuters wrote that "the loss per vehicle will shrink as more are built and sold."
"Every investment in technology that GM makes is designed to have a payoff for our customers, to meet future regulatory requirements and add to the bottom line," GM said in a statement. "The Volt is no different, even if it takes longer to become profitable."
It's the latest in a series of publicity challenges for the Volt, which conservatives have criticized as the Obama-mobile, despite the fact that it was in the works years before Barack Obama considered running for the White House. The car was first introduced as a concept vehicle in January
2007, two years before Obama took office, and was first sold in fall 2010.
Sales of gasoline-electric hybrids that don't need to be recharged have risen 65% this year through August to 278,680, led by Toyota's family of Prius models, which accounted for 57% of that market segment.
new technology loses money in the beginnings. but a conservative would never understand that, technology scares them.
=A0but upon careful examination "THE CONSERVATIVES" =A0feeble attempts at confusion and dishonesty does not stand up to the light. they live in a counter-factual universe, the product of the hermetically sealed "CONSERVATIVE" subculture. Trying to see the world through the lens of "THE CONSERVATIVE", is like looking at a fun-house mirror; everything=92s backwards and distorted.
"THE CONSERVATIVES" world view is flawed because its based upon a small and particularly rosy sliver of reality.=A0 To preserve that world view, "THE CONSERVATIVES" believe that people had morally earned their =93just=94 desserts, and had to ignore those whining liberals who tried to point out that the world didn=92t actually work that way.=A0 I think this shows why "THE CONSERVATIVES" put so much effort into =93creat[ing] their own reality,=94 into fostering distrust of liberals, experts, scientists, and academics, and why they won=92t let a campaign =93be dictated by fact-checkers=94 (as a Romney pollster put it).=A0 It explains why study after study shows that avid consumers of "THE CONSERVATIVE"- oriented media are more poorly informed than people who use other news sources or don=92t bother to follow the news at all.
why do "CONSERVATIVES" lie so much?:not only do they lie/they have no real comprehension skills about product development and costs:how a business spreads those costs over time:Why GM Is Not Losing $49k Per Chevy Volt
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Reuters' Math Fail! Why GM Is Not Losing $49k Per Chevy Volt
Right-wingers couldn=92t have been more thrilled to read a Reuters story revealing that GM is losing $49k on every Chevy Volt. Electric car haters and anti-government zealots rejoice! Except, Reuters =97 and the three journalists bylined on this story =97 it turns out are really bad at basic business math. Reuters writes, =93Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds.=94 So where=92s the problem? The International Business Times explains: General Motors has sold approximately 21,500 Volts since the gasoline- electric hybrid was introduced in December 2010, and development costs of the high-tech car are estimated at between $1 billion and $1.2 billion by Reuters' calculations. Production costs for the Volt are estimated at between $20,000 and $32,000, a wide margin to be sure. The Volt retails for a base price of $39,145 (before a federal tax credit of $7,500). The issue with Reuters' math, though, is that it only takes into account the 21,500 Volts sold so far, as if GM would never sell another one. If that is taken to be true, then each Volt sold has cost GM around $55,000 in development costs. However, each Volt sold spreads out the development costs incrementally, pushing down the R&D cost per unit. GM has acknowledged that it has not yet sold enough Volts to break even, but it suspects that it will reach the break-even point by the time the second- generation Volt is introduced onto the market in about three years' time. Conservatives had a field-day of course, running with Reuters poor reporting. As Wonkette details: But look at the capitalism experts at sites like The Blaze, or Free Republic, or Townhall, or the hideously named =93Twitchy.com=94 =97 The typical comment goes something like this: =93They=92re losing $50K per car, but don=92t worry, they=92ll make it up in volume!!! HAW HAW HAW!=94 Um. Yeah. Actually, that is how development costs work. We thought you guys understood business?
That may or may not be true. Personally, I think the number is wrong, but I don't have inside costs and forecasts to say for sure either way.
Correct, but you have to have the volume. So far, lots of development cost, very little volume. Actual sales less than half the projections.
If the projects are for more than double the sales, there are significant cost not being carried by the low volume. Either GM did a poor job of forecasting, or someone inflated expectations to scam investors. That has been done millions of time both by conservatives and liberals in all sort of business deals. .
Right now. all anyone can really say is "we'll see". Lets revisit this in a year or two. Right now, it is a poor showing anyway.
the number could be way off, after all, it looks like "CONSERVATIVES" did the math.
it matters not. have you any idea how many products never make money, even though projections said different. now be careful, the industrial revolution goes back centuries, and covers perhaps many millions of products, and of course in those products, lots of market failures.
not every product becomes a beany baby. even though market research says otherwise.
as it is with millions of products that fail. a "CONSERVATIVE" would never understand that. not saying you are, just understand, the markets are full of failures costing untold dollars over centuries.
GM is expanding the tech into future products, probably only way to meet obunglers cafe standards, they are already expanded to opel, and holden and a future caddy, and also going to build the impala and overflow malibus in the same building which will lower costs for all, i think it will work Gm never said they would make money in the first generation and maybe the second also, everyone says the nbrs arnt there, i think gm is holding back production so as to not lose more money on ist gen but get it out to the field for what its worth.
But we are talking about one product from one company here. Many products fail, even good ones.
But we are talking one product from a company that took tons of taxpayer dollars. It is OUR investment. You political affiliations should not matter, only where OUR money is going. There has to be accountability along with risk in a new product.
it still matters not. market failures are part of business. but its still not a failure yet. and it proves how little "CONSERVATIVES" know about business.
there is risk daily in every project, regardless how its funded. if you think that there should be no risk, we would have never gone to the moon, and nasa would not have created so many successful spin off technologies. its expensive being cutting edge, it takes big thinkers, "CONSERVATIVES" are small thinkers. the majority of the founders were liberals, and they started out loaning money to the private sector almost from day one. they wanted innovation and production. you probably are unaware of how much was and is funded by government, and who takes that money.
the founders of the american government loaned paul revere start up money for industrial production:america was founded on a strong government with broad based powers to tax/legislate/regulate and to promote and provide for the general welfare
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Paul Revere, U.S. manufacturer, saved the day--237 years ago today Posted by scapozzola on 04/18/2012
Today is April 18, 2012... On this day in 1775, Paul Revere rode to Lexington, Massachusetts, to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were marching to arrest them. After being rowed across the Charles River to Charlestown by two associates, Revere borrowed a horse from his friend Deacon John Larkin and set out on horseback.=E2=80=A8=E2=80=A8On the way to= Lexington, Revere "alarmed" the country-side, stopping at each house to announce that "The British are coming." Revere's ride was made famous in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride."=C2=A0 But Revere is also recognized as one of the nation's first great manufacturers.=C2=A0 A metalworker and silversmith, Revere's work became highly prized, and he produced more than 5,000 products in his shop, including buckles, buttons, rings and beads. Revere understood the need for a nation to be industrially self- sufficient.=C2=A0 To rectify desperate shortages of gunpowder during the Revolutionary War, Revere studied the one working gunpowder mill in the colonies, located in Philadelphia.=C2=A0 He subsequently built a new powder mill in Canton, Massachusetts that produced tons of gunpowder for the revolutionary army. After the war, and finding the silver trade to be more difficult, Revere became a pioneer in the production of rolled copper, opening North America's first copper mill south of Boston in Canton, in 1800. Revere had initially launched his copper works at the behest of the U.S. government.=C2=A0 Concerned about a possible second war with the British, the U.S. Navy loaned Revere $10,000 to launch a foundry that couuld sheathe the hulls of naval vessels with protective copper layering.=C2=A0 The early U.S. government astutely feared a potential second conflict with the British and, in recognizing the need for both greater domestic manufacturing and national secturity, funded the start-up of Revere's company. After the initial naval work, copper from the Revere Copper Company was used to cover the original wooden dome of the Massachusetts State House in 1802. The firm also cast the first church bell made in Boston and ultimately produced more than 900 church bells. This church bell worked helped Revere to pay off his debts to the U.S. government and expand his business.=E2=80=A8=E2=80=A8Revere's copper and brass works event= ually grew into a large national corporation, Revere Copper and Brass, Inc. That company continues today as the Revere Copper Products in Rome, New York. Revere Copper's Chairman, Brian O'Shaughnessy, says that Revere's legacy is still exceptionally relevant today, and that his spirit of craftsmanship and innovation lives on, fused with the copper industry's most advanced technologies and highest standards of excellence.=C2=A0 Revere Copper continues to advocate for domestic U.S. manufacturers and is outspoken in its concerns about America remaining competitive in the face of "the mercantilism of China and other countries."
Your problem is, you hate conservatives for everything. You can't have a rational discussion about the success or failure of the Volt unless you bring politics into it.
what rational discussion? your type has little or no understandings about how business works. you merely hate.
the republican party is simply running out of al bundy, homer simpson, archie bunker types. people so stupid, they cannot even do basic math, let alone come in from the rain. the constitution of the united states was a anti-conservative statement by the majority of the founders of the united states of america.
Ah, proves my point. What is "my type"? I'm not under either the conservative or liberal label. I hate no one, but it seems you hate conservatives, at least the extreme right.
I run a business. In my career, I've owned or run a few with good success.
Not my problem, I'm not a Republican.
I though we were discussing the success and/or failure of the Volt. See, you can't discuss automotive topics, you have to go to politics. If you want to discuss the Volt or GM in general, please continue. If you want to discuss politics, I'm not interested.
Just curious, have you ever once taken one of the many, many conservative posters to task for injecting politics? If the answer is yes, can you provide an example? If the answer is either no or you are unable to provide that example, then your response or lack thereof speaks volumes.
then whats the point about the obsession over the volt. its simply R&D, which has a high investment up front, and perhaps a payoff at the end. its simple business stuff. the real reason for the obsession is of course hate, and of course the average "CONSERVATIVE" has no real understanding of simple things like basic math.
good for you. so have i. i own copyrights and patents. some i crafted with my own hands. i ship the stuff all over the world. its a small market, but i make a living. i understand risk. i am not driven by a "CONSERVATIVE" idiotology and stupidity. to go green will require massive investments, and a lot of it will be failures, but in the end, there could be a huge payoff. what we are witnessing today, is a "CONSERVATIVE" obsession with fear, fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of something different, a lack of comprehension skills, and of course, stupidity, bigotry, racism, and hatreds.
then if you are not. you will simply ignore the poster for what it is.
the poster crossed posted to a economics newsgroup. if the volt fails, the technology involved, may open the doors for further technologies.
the republican party is simply running out of al bundy, homer simpson, archie bunker types. people so stupid, they cannot even do basic math, let alone come in from the rain. the constitution of the united states was a anti-conservative statement by the majority of the founders of the united states of america.
=A0but upon careful examination "THE CONSERVATIVES" =A0feeble attempts at confusion and dishonesty does not stand up to the light. they live in a counter-factual universe, the product of the hermetically sealed "CONSERVATIVE" subculture. Trying to see the world through the lens of "THE CONSERVATIVE", is like looking at a fun-house mirror; everything=92s backwards and distorted.
"THE CONSERVATIVES" world view is flawed because its based upon a small and particularly rosy sliver of reality.=A0 To preserve that world view, "THE CONSERVATIVES" believe that people had morally earned their =93just=94 desserts, and had to ignore those whining liberals who tried to point out that the world didn=92t actually work that way.=A0 I think this shows why "THE CONSERVATIVES" put so much effort into =93creat[ing] their own reality,=94 into fostering distrust of liberals, experts, scientists, and academics, and why they won=92t let a campaign =93be dictated by fact-checkers=94 (as a Romney pollster put it).=A0 It explains why study after study shows that avid consumers of "THE CONSERVATIVE"- oriented media are more poorly informed than people who use other news sources or don=92t bother to follow the news at all.
the original poster had it loaded with "CONSERVATIVE" bullshit. i went and looked at one today, nice care, nice concept, and even if it a sales failure, it opens the door to more technological advances, as with many prototypes. so its not a wash.
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