GM has been bailed out so much lately that it beggars description. Before bankruptcy, during and now with the stimulus package. Money has been earmarked for GM to make available hundreds of Volts to fleet and individual customers, but when will the cars be available?
Frank Weber was asked this very question on the gm-volt website. Let's have a peek.
From GM-Volt.com
Recently the DOE announced a $30 million grant for GM to use to release a test fleet of 500 Chevy Volts to consumers, and 125 to commercial entities. GM has not officially indicated their specific plans about this keeping it rather coy.
I had the chance to briefly ask Volt executive Frank Weber about it.
He said the grant, “means when we do our development activities with charging infrastructure activities and vehicles and provide test data that we will make available to the DOE, they can learn from the vehicle to understand how the vehicles operate.”
Asked specifically if these cars would be distributed prior to November 2010, he said “it is part of rolling it out for Nov 2010.”
Pressing for more specifics as to whether it would before or after November 2010 he said “its (both) coming to November 2010 and after November 2010.”
Understanding that to mean some cars would be released prior to November 2010, and undeterred, I asked specifically “Will consumers get into those cars before Nov 2010?” At that point Weber looked at me wryly, smiled, and said nothing.
You can take that anyway you want, but don’t say I didn’t try.
Some sources are suggesting that the Volt production run for 2010 will be extremely limited anyway. According to Automotive News, “GM plans to build only 200 to 400 cars in November and December 2010, as 2011 models.”
They also report GM will build just 10,000 copies during the entire year of 2011.
It is also clear GM will limit roullout geographically.
So no matter how you cut it, assuming you can afford it, getting an early Volt won’t be easy.
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