Akerson: GM wants to build 60,000 Chevy Volts in 2012

Yes, yes, yes. We know. There are a lot of questions out there about just how popular the Chevy Volt really is, and whether it's restricted supply or soft demand that's holding sales back. According to GM CEO Dan Akerson, though, supply won't be a problem come 2012.

In the past, we're heard all sorts of possible Volt production numbers for 2012 – everything from 35,000 to 120,000 – but now that the new year is less than two weeks away, you'd think GM would know how many halo cars it wants to build, right? Right. And that number is, apparently, 60,000. In an interview with the AP recently, Akerson said:

We want to ramp Volt production to roughly 60,000 in 2012. I think Prius in its second year did a lot less than that, half. By this summer we will (be in) what I call the second generation, where we will achieve certain scale, and we should see an appreciable drop in the cost of the production of the Volt.

The AP also asked what Akerson would do to GM if he had a magic wand. He answered, half-jokingly, "I want a miracle solution on Volt in the next week. That's not going to happen." Fire safety questions aside – and with sales trending upwards – perhaps the solution is just to make a lot of Volts and get them into customer hands.



Source: Autoblog Green