GM Begins Volt Manufacturing on Production Assembly Line

The 2011 MY Chevy Volt











Another major milestone has been reached for the Chevy Volt as the very first car has rolled of the production Hamtramck line. Unfortunately for GM, (which seems to be their luck these days) their milestone was overshadowed by the announcement of Nissan Leaf's MSRP (earlier post).

From USAToday.com:

General Motors is to finish building the first Chevrolet Volt battery car using production tooling today, at the Hamtramck, Mich., factory that will begin regular production of the radical electric car in November.

The pre-production Volt will be kept for GM testing. Such practice runs are tense for automakers. They show whether the tooling is designed correctly, the factory laid out properly, the workers trained sufficiently. The interim before regular production this fall gives GM time to make changes, though major hiccups weren't reported.

"Never seen a first, pre-production build go as smoothly as this one," said Andrew Farah, Volt chief engineer.

Although the first factory-built Volt is to roll off the line today, it began down the line Monday, showing how painstaking such dry runs can be.

Volt's moment nearly coincides with rival Nissan announcing pricing Tuesday for its Leaf compact battery sedan. It was lower than expected -- $33,600 before federal tax credit, $26,100 after the buyer gets the federal $7,500 credit on that year's tax bill.

And it appears to undercut numbers that have floated out from GM. If those have been real, rather than stalking horses, Volt could be about $40,000 before the $7,500 credit.

GM continued to say nothing specific about the price. Volt marketing manager John Hughes did tell Drive On, however: "It takes all kinds of EVs (electric vehicles) at different price points to meet the needs of consumers, just as there are all different types of SUVs at different prices."

He deflected comparisons between Volt and Leaf, whether for price or features: "Both are electric drive all the time and both provide the electric-drive experience. But Volt will propel the vehicle another 300 miles" after the batteries' 40-mile range.

Volt carries a gasoline engine that kicks in to drive a generator that keeps the electric motor humming when the batteries are juiced-out. Leaf, on the other hand, is battery-only. Nissan says it'll go 100 miles on a charge before the driver has to plug in and recharge the car.

Automakers say that government data show roughly three-fourths of Americans drive 40 miles or less per day.