> What dumbass metric is causing these stupid decisions?
Sales and margin for the most part. The sales part, I imagine it's largely a failure of successfully marketing the vehicles, but I could be wrong.
The Volt to me was largely a failure of marketing at the time. Practically no normal people I know have any clue about what the Volt was. I went to a few dealerships to look at one and most salespeople didn't have a clue about the car (common though with car sales) or didn't even have any on hand to show. There was practically zero mindshare of GM equating with hybrids; the vast majority of car buyers I knew interested in hybrids essentially only knew/cared about Toyota. With declining sedan popularity in the US the writing was on the wall.
The Bolt was seen by many US car buyers as too small of a car and often confused for the several years older PHEV Volt. The amount of normal people I've heard use Volt/Bolt interchangeably is incredibly high. The people I talked to about the Bolt EUV figured it was just a different trim level of the same car, not realizing it was a good bit bigger.
Three different cars with different capabilities and yet so many people would just think they're the same V/Bolt thing GM talked about a decade or so ago.
> The amount of normal people I've heard use Volt/Bolt interchangeably is incredibly high.
Yes, this is / was a real issue and might be the biggest fuck-up for GM. I’m an EV nerd and when I talk about these cars I emphasize the first letter like I’m moderating a spelling bee…
Their CEO seems to be reacting to a perception that Chevy is “behind” and trying to get ahead of the market on EVs. If they were smart they’d still be making the Volt, since it’s an extremely reasonable PHEV that many people with garages in the US would appreciate. It would increase the number of electric miles driven.
I have a Volt and love it - it's the perfect car for someone like me with a 30 mi round trip commute. Partner recently got the plugin hybrid version of the BMW X5 (gets about 50 miles on electric), and so far we love that car, too.
Don't understand at all why GM doesn't make a PHEV SUV. They would be the perfect car for lots of people in the US.
Eh. If foreign carmakers want to compete in the US they can do what Toyota did and set up shop in the US. Employ Americans with market wages and under American labor standards.
We had a generation of globalism. It gutted the middle class.
Toyota did that because they saw the value of being in the US based on the then existing demand. Other manufacturers aren't getting that chance, and I'm not convinced those that banned 'em will be willing to let 'em manufacture here. Just look at how they're treating something with basically no stakes: TikTok.
They dropped the Volt which you can only pry out of owners cold, dead hands. They dropped the Bolt EUV which seems to be similarly adored.
What dumbass metric is causing these stupid decisions?