The bigger question is whether Model 3's will eventually see the 914 Syndrome.
I can pretty much guarantee Bolts won't experience that.
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Chevy Bolt - 200 mile range for $30k base price (after incentive)
- Thread starter FredTMC
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- bolt chevy Electric Vehicles review
The bigger question is whether Model 3's will eventually see the 914 Syndrome.
I can pretty much guarantee Bolts won't experience that.
When links are provided, and the comments made, that most (or all) people have problems with Bolt seats?
You would hear an awful lot more uproar if 1/2 or more of the seats were defective.
Neither of the two I drove was defective, but that is besides the point. You'd be reading it in 1/2 the drive reviews. Even Tesla owners aren't reporting it.
mmd
Active Member
Hmm, ok. they have changed it now.
Yes, same places. But they can't afford a Tesla S or X. Bolt they may be able to buy.
That's strange. Those who add up Tesla priduced vs delivered numbers, can count Tesla inventory at 8k-10k, with worldwide deliveries open. Bolt has 4K waiting list just in Norway. But they want to force the ZEV state dealers to sell their allotment, so you see local inventory pile up right now.
Check this flyover video to see why Tesla has parking problem at its factory.
Here is another place where you can see the tip of the iceberg: www.ev-cpo.com
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
FlatSix911
Porsche 918 Hybrid
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GM should not be bragging about the Bolt at #5 on the Monthly sales list
I must have missed that quote. It wasn't in the post you were directly replying to, and that I subsequently commented on. But you emphasized the claim was being made that most people have problems with the seats.
Can you provide a link to who said that?
So your litmus test for accepting first hand data is that someone must also provide an arbitrary number of links to other sites to have a valid experience, otherwise you are justified accusing them essentially attempting character assignation with your strawman?
Like I say, rather hypocritical, given the number of pro-Bolt posts here I've not seen you apply that "standard" to.
Should be bragging about the Volt being #1 then? Despite the Bolt cannibalizing some Volt sales?
FlatSix911
Porsche 918 Hybrid
The bigger question is whether Model 3's will eventually see the 914 Syndrome.
I can pretty much guarantee Bolts won't experience that.
I agree ... but how many on this forum remember the Porsche 914?
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
No, since it's half the price of the S and X, barely beating them in sales, and it's a plugin hybrid not an actual EV, so the barrier to entry is lower. Considering those points, it's doing horribly.
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
I'm not sure it's considered cannibalizing when GM uses the Volt as an alternative to investing in charging infrastructure...
It was #2 in April and May. Beaten by the Prius Cannibal.
Volt is #1 YTD, although given that it's hit-the-quarterly-numbers month for Tesla we should expect the Model S to be #1 for 2017H1.
Tesla has new inventory cars cycling through their sales locations all the time. Service centers also have some new cars they give out for loaners. All those cars are for sale.
Tesla has a little over 600 new S and 600 new X in inventory on the above site. They also have 120 sales locations in the US (I just counted them). The Portland sales location at the mall had two inside the mall and sometimes a third and they had 2-4 cars for test drives. That's 7 in one location. That's 840 of the inventory cars right there. If each service center has only a couple, that's all the inventory cars.
One time when I was in the service center one of the staff was complaining to me they couldn't keep enough loaner cars because they kept getting sold.
To get an idea if they are storing a lot of cars at the factory, you would have to shoot video over a period of several days to weeks to see how fast inventory turns over. When they are building cars for overseas, they will pile up a lot of cars and fill a whole train with them, which go to a port and get loaded on a ship. Even when they are building for domestic deliveries, the cars destined for the east coast probably pile up for a few days to fill out at least a few cars on a car train. The cars destined for western deliveries get loaded on trucks. I've seen the trucks up and down the west coast several times.
Production is now up to 2000 cars a week, that's 400 a day. Just one day's production is going to look like a lot when parked at the factory, even if every single car is already sold.
If someone shoots video over many days and it appears the same cars are sitting there for many days in a row, then I will buy the argument that Tesla has a problem with inventory, but I don't buy it. They can do a song and dance to cover an inventory problem for a short period, but it's going to become impossible to hide in very short order if they did.
For one thing they'd run out of space at the factory in about 1-2 weeks and they would have to ship the excess cars somewhere. The most likely place would be the Gigafactory, which is the only other property they own with enough space to store a lot of excess cars and nobody has uncovered anything more than work vehicles there. Even if they did find someplace else to stash them, it would be uncovered fairly quickly. Tesla news is like catnip for a lot of people and any evidence of anything newsworthy going on there is going to attract attention like crazy.
With a dealer system, traditional car dealers can shove off their inventory problems on their dealers and hide all but the worst problems. Most car companies are also producing many times the cars Tesla is. Subaru is small by car industry standards and their production is 5X Tesla's. A large volume of cars with a lot of dealers to offload inventory on, the mainstream car business is designed to absorb over production.
Tesla's production/sales model and volume can't tolerate much overproduction. Inventory pile up would become obvious very quickly and would become a threat to the company's survival in short order. Tesla might over produce a little here and there, but demand for their cars is still strong.
They did go back to free supercharging for life recently probably because the Model 3 was Osborning sales a little and the pay as you go supercharging was not popular with the S and X buyers. But if sales are off, they aren't off by much.
As for the Bolt, I think GM is going to find the Ampera-e is more popular in Europe than the Bolt in the US. Americans probably have more range anxiety than Europeans. US cities are further apart sometimes with some pretty barren landscapes in between. Places like Norway also have been putting a lot into infrastructure and a number of European cities will be banning ICE entirely in the coming years. On top of all that, gasoline/petrol prices in the US are among the lowest in the developed world (low gas taxes). All those things together make EVs more attractive in Europe than in the US. A decent range, reasonably priced EV is very attractive there. Americans want their pickups and are willing to get 12 MPG for it.
On the top-of-the-hour national news spot on CBS radio this morning: A story about disappointing Chevy Bolt sales for GM and excess inventory that isn't moving. Specific mention of them not selling as well as the Nissan Leaf or the Tesla models, despite being less expensive than the latter.
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With 16,000 Chevrolet EV/EREVs sold this year, at this point, they are the #1 US manufacturer of EVs for 2017.
Religion aside, the Volt is a de facto EV. It can operate at 100% advertised performance without burning fuel, and 75% of Volt miles are logged as such and climbing as the number of higher range Volts dilutes the mix between 35, 38, and 53 mile versions.
diamond.g
Active Member
Hey, as a side note, did GM fix the degraded performance if the fuel tank is empty in Gen 2?
Work has a Gen 2 for deliveries and so does my son. Both will go 101mph uphill (6%) with 0 miles listed on the battery meter.
In theory, if the mountain was tall enough, the Gen 2 will eventually switch to 'reduced power' which is 101 HP. Plenty to get a speeding ticket.
1) It was news story about the Bolt, not the Volt, but of course you knew that. I even like how you tossed in "manufacturer", rather than "seller".
B) Huh, I thought range was part of a cars performance spec.
III) What does your post have to do with the lackadaisical Bolt sales being a national news item?
diamond.g
Active Member
That isn't what I asked. If I run out of gas, but still have battery in my Gen 1 the Volt still goes into limp mode. I was wondering if that has been fixed in Gen 2.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
It's not, it never will be as long as it's a hybrid, using the existing petroleum infrastructure in the exact same way as any ICE. EV's don't do that. The only religion is pretending it's something which it is not.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
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