GM scraps European version of Chevy Volt

[PoliticAverse]

The head of General Motors’ money-losing European unit Opel said Wednesday the automaker will halt sales of the Detroit-built plug-in hybrid Opel Ampera after disappointing sales.

"After the eventual run-out of the current generation Ampera, we'll introduce a successor product in the electric vehicle segment," Opel chief Karl-Thomas Neumann said in a posting on Twitter. "Our next electric vehicle will be part of our massive product offensive — with 27 new vehicles in the 2014-2018 time frame."

The Ampera is the European version of the Chevrolet Volt and was a winner of the 2012 European Car of the Year. Both the Volt and Ampera are assembled at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant. GM is working on the second-generation of the Volt.

Volt sales have also struggled and never met GM's initial forecasts for sales growth.

Read the rest at: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140723/AUTO0103/307230062/GM-scraps-European-version-Chevy-Volt

[happyslug]

1. But its half sister, the Cruze did

The problem was the Volt and Cruze were design to share as many parts as possible, to spread out the cost of cost to produce the Volt. Thus the Volt and Cruse share the same frame and body, interior, electric power steering, electric Air conditioner, and electric power brakes.

The regular Cruse uses a larger engine then the Volt, but the Cruse Eco uses the same gasoline engine, through the Eco's is Turbo=Charged, while the Volt's is only to charge the batteries. The Eco also uses the same tires and wheels of the Volt (The regular Cruze uses a traditional tire, the Eco and the Volt uses

248,224 Cruzes were sold in 2013, compared to just 23,092 Volts sold the same year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Cruze#First_generation_.28J300.3B_2008.E2.80.93present.29

Compare to the 54,552 Volts sold ion the US From 2010 through 2013.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt#United_States_2

Toyota sold 145,200 Prius 2013 in the US for comparison:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius

World wide the Prius is the third most popular car sold"

With a total of 247,230 vehicles sold during the first quarter of 2012, the Toyota Prius family became the third top selling nameplate in the world in terms of total global sales, after the Toyota Corolla (300,800 units) and the Ford Focus (277,000 units)

Now, I tried to use only US Sales records, but the last quote is world wide (And only for the first Quarter of 2012). GM is much larger then Ford in the US, but outside the US Ford is much larger (Thus Ford was the #2 auto maker in the world for decades, GM was #1, Toyota recently passed both, through last year GM regained the top stop). More New Cars are now sold in China then in the US, through the US has more cars do to the fact the US was the # 1 market for cars for decades.

The Cruze outsold the Prius in the US in 2013. No one expected the Volt to the same thing.

GM was #1 in US Sales in the first Quarter of 2014.

Ford was #2

Toyata was #3.

http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2014/05/usa-auto-sales-brand-results-rankings-april-2014-ytd.html

Please note when it came to Ford vs Chevrolet. Ford (without Lincoln) was #1, Chevrolet was #2 (i.e GM without GMC. Buick and Cadillac).

In April 2014 GM sold just 254,076 cars. Thus the Cruze sales in the US is roughly 1/12th of all GM Sales, that includes the rest of the Chevrolet Line up, GMC, Buick and Cadillac. Chevrolet sold just 181,648 total cars in April 2014, so Total Cruze sales is over 10% of total GM sales (and remember Chevrolet total sales includes light trucks).