Chevy Volt Helps Cruze Sales

The Chevrolet Volt hasn’t exactly taken off as expected, with only about 4,000 U.S. sales so far, but that’s OK with GM’s top brass, according to USA Today.

That’s because the Volt acts as an important catalyst for the Chevrolet Cruze, one of the top-selling vehicles in the country since its launch last fall. Chevy has sold 187,524 Cruzes year-to-date through September.

"The Volt is leading to a lot of Cruze sales," said Mark Reuss, GM's CEO for North America. Customers are coming in to see the Volt, but “not everyone can buy a Volt,” Reuss said. The Volt has a starting price that’s nearly two and half times greater than the Cruze’s price.

In that respect, you can think of the Volt as more of a marketing device for GM than a revenue generator. In the automotive industry that's often referred to as a halo vehicle. Even so, GM still plans to put 10,000 Volts in the hands of American consumers by year’s end and wants to build more than 60,000 Volts in 2012. The plan is for the Volt to be its own market force, too.

Chevrolet Volt's magic rubs off on sales of cheaper Cruze (USA Today)

Cars.com Chevy Volt WebChat Live

Use the window above to join our live chat starting at 2:30 p.m. eastern to 3:30 p.m. today.

Cars.com's Chevy Volt Webchat is Tomorrow

Check KickingTires at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time Friday for a live webchat about the Chevy Volt featuring Cars.com Executive Editor Joe Wiesenfelder. The chat is hosted by General Motors. It also will feature GM’s Volt product experts and a real-life Volt customer.

Cars.com is a real-life customer, as well, purchasing the Volt nine months ago and driving it daily ever since. You can see all our coverage of the long-term Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf here.

You’ll be able to ask questions about the Volt, so don’t be late.

Cars.com Chevy Volt Hits 10,000 Miles: The Good and Bad

The Cars.com 2011 Chevrolet Volt just passed the 10,000-mile mark, so we're taking the opportunity to report some of our lasting impressions, including the good and the bad. As all car owners know, some initial grievances fade away over time and others emerge and grow, sometimes becoming an ever-present burr in the proverbial saddle. Thankfully, for an all-new model, the Volt has been practically trouble-free. I said practically…

Some trauma has been visited upon the Volt by a hungry varmint and an unfortunate but enlightening collision, but with the exception of a software upgrade, the car itself has been trouble-free. Only the 120-volt charging unit had to be replaced, under warranty, when it failed after seven months.

Cars.com Experiences First Chevy Volt Defect

Cars.com's Chevrolet Volt ownership hasn't exactly been uneventful, but now, seven months in, we came across our first actual defect and warranty claim. Our 120-volt charging apparatus — a controller box with a short plug on one end and a long cord and EV connector on the other — failed a few weeks ago.

Working away in one of our editors' garages, the unit overheated and stopped charging. The cord was hot to the touch, and the plug had softened and had begun to separate. I tried the unit again at my house, and it worked for about 40 minutes before failing. The indicator lights went out, and only after a long cooling-off period did the unit come back to life. I tried again, and this time it lasted only a few minutes.

Chevy Volt Battery Could Be Emergency Generator

GM and power grid company ABB Group have been looking at what to do with all those giant lithium-ion batteries in the Chevy Volt after their lives of powering the car are over.

While the batteries lose capacity over time and won’t be able to perform in the Volt forever — there’s an eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty on the battery — GM wants to reuse the batteries as energy storage devices.

A recent study conducted by the two companies found that 33 Volt batteries rendered unfit for vehicle use could power 50 homes for up to four hours.

As someone who recently went through a power outage from a storm for 24 hours, this could handle about two or three blocks of my suburban street for four hours. Not enough to save the fridge, but rarely is the power out that long. Of course, it would be hard to find a place in my neighborhood to store 33 used Volt battery packs.

However, utilities will likely use the systems to store energy during off-peak hours and then discharge that power during peak times to lower costs, hopefully to the consumer.

There was no word on how long this second life of the Volt battery would last before it would eventually be drained and require disposal and recycling.

Car Talk Weighs in on Cars.com Chevy Volt Repair

Tom and Ray Magliozzi, Click and Clack of Car Talk fame, are the two guys you’d want to listen to when talking about repairing an electric car. This week the two take a look at our long-term Volt’s recent time at the shop and why it might have gone the way it did.

"If I were fixing one I might err on the side of caution, go overboard, and fix anything that even looked like it might be damaged. As we gain familiarity with these cars, though, the cost of repairs will come down. It will be a long time before they’re as well understood as gasoline cars," Ray said.

Fixing Electric Cars: Will the Bill Be Big? (Car Talk)

Chevrolet Volt Joins Long Arm of the Law

There’s a new silent predator on the streets of New York City, seeking out freeloaders and the crooked. No, we’re not talking about some real-life Batman, but if you’re accustomed to dodging parking meter fees in New York, you might want to watch out for the city’s latest addition to traffic enforcement: the Chevrolet Volt. The Volts will be used to cruise the city to issue parking tickets … not to go on high-speed pursuits.

The new Volts are part of a recent purchase by the New York government totaling 70 new electric vehicles: 50 Volts, 10 Ford Transit Connect Electrics and 10 Navistar eStar utility trucks. The Fire Department, Department of Correction and other agencies will also get EVs.

New York already has 360 electric vehicles in its municipal fleet. With the latest batch, the city now runs the largest fleet of electric cars of any municipality in America.

Chevy Volt Newest New York City Police Car (CNN Money)

Wrecked Cars.com Chevy Volt Repaired: What Did It Cost?

As we reported in May, Cars.com's long-term Chevrolet Volt was involved in a collision that sent it to the body shop, and we just got it back. Though it cost more than the initial estimate, we were pleased to determine that the cost to repair a plug-in car wasn't as high as we had feared. In fact, it was only $2,181 more expensive than it would be to repair a 2011 Chevrolet Malibu subjected to a similar front-end "hit," according to West Loop Auto Body, which restored our Volt. It also took longer.

After the quick $10,500 eyeballed estimate reported in our original notice about the Volt, the written account was $11,588. The final total was $14,187. Why the discrepancy? Two things: First, an error in the ordering system suggested that a parts package incorporated a few items that actually were not included. These parts then had to be ordered at added cost. Ryan Tamblyn, who managed the repairs at West Loop, said it's not uncommon for such ordering quirks to emerge for new models — or even for cars that are a few years old. Overall, he said, "It seems like GM is on top of this car and trying to make everything work right."

The second added expense came once the Volt was reassembled and the various cooling systems re-pressurized. Coolant began to spray and an auxiliary cooling pump had to be replaced. This development was typical, Tamblyn said, because some damage can't be determined by eye until the car is reassembled. Likewise, we got a check-engine light after we took the Volt home a week ago, and it had to return to the shop for a couple of days of diagnosis and replacement of a pinched wiring harness.

What made up close to $2,200 in costs over a best-guess estimate for a 2011 Malibu?

Chevy Volt Supply to be Extremely Limited This Summer

GM built zero Chevrolet Volts in June, but don’t worry, the stoppage was planned, says company spokesman Robert Peterson.

Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, where the Volt is built, is currently undergoing upgrades for the model-year changeover, which adds new features to the Volt at a reduced price. Volt production will begin again in mid-July, Peterson says.The stoppage means the Volt will have extremely limited availability until August. Currently there are about 200 units available nationwide, he says.

The Volt took an early lead in the EV race at the beginning of 2011 — outselling the Nissan Leaf as Nissan struggled to recover from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan – but now those roles have reversed. Chevrolet has sold 2,745 Volts so far this year, while Nissan has sold 3,875 Leafs. Peterson says the automaker still expects to deliver 16,000 Volts by the end of the year — 10,000 into the hands of American customers, 3,500 for export and 2,500 to be used as demonstration cars at Chevy dealerships. Nissan hopes to deliver 6,000 to 7,000 Leafs by the end of the summer.

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2012 Chevy Volt Gets Lower Price, Heads to All 50 States
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