The Chevy Volt made its world debut at the 2007 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which would have put me somewhere in the middle of my first senior year of college. The Chevy Volt that went on sale in December of 2010 looked almost nothing like the concept, but GM still managed to sell over 70,000 of them to early adopters.
As GM ramps prepares to launch the all-new 2016 Chevy Volt, production of the first generation must come to an end. The Wall St. Journal reports the last first-gen Volt will be built next month, as GM hopes to take its extended-range electric vehicle mainstream. Since the 2016 Chevy Volt debuted as the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, sales of the first-gen model have fallen off a cliff; just over 1,800 Volts were sold in the first quarter of 2015, less than half what the Nissan LEAF sold in the same three months.
That’s to be expected, considering just how much better the next-gen Volt is over its predecessor. The 38-mile electric driving range of the 2015 Volt has been boosted to 50 miles in the 2016 model, a fifth (albeit small) seat has been added in the back, the interior quality looks and feels worlds better, among the many, many improvements GM has made. With ambitions of selling as many as 50,000 second-gen Volts per year (even more if they can swing it), the first-gen vehicles must say adieu.
Will the earliest Chevy Volts one day cross the auction block as high-valued classics from the beginning of the green car era? This guy likes to think so.
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