Saturday, March 03, 2012

Setting Low Standards...

...and consistently failing to meet them.

The free market is a brutal force. In a society such as America marginally remains, it is possible to choose between products. We don't buy a Lada or Yugo because we have a choice and we tend to choose value, style, quality, and performance. Our auto market remains competitive and across the nation the demand in America is for dependable pickup trucks, practical cross-over SUVs and high-performance muscle cars. Fill the gaps with practical family sedans and there is not remaining space for an over-priced novelty that requires a heavy-duty extension cord, an $8,000 subsidy and an escorting fire engine.

GM Announces Silencing of Volt Line

When nobody buys your product, it makes no sense to keep building it. Take your corporate capacity and use it to produce product that will sell and make you a profit. That is economic but apparently not political sense.

Will this last longer than five weeks? They aren't saying, but eighteen months into the production of the electric lemon the market surge hasn't yet occurred and there is little reason to think it's going to come this month.

Last year the goal was 10,000 units and they fell 30% short. For 2012 the target was originally 60,000 which was then modified to 45,000. Now there is no target specified but with less than 2000 sold in the first two months and almost 4000 units clogging inventory it would be reasonable to think this is going to be very much a collector's vehicle.

Sort of like a mint 1958 Edsel.

1 comment:

Anna said...

Match supply to demand?

Does that mean when someone walks into a Chevy dealership and says, "I want to order a Volt." The dealership then calls the plant who calls in a small crew of workers. Who then build the Volt. And then Fed-Ex the Volt to the buyer once built?

Talk about a boutique car. That would be worse than the Karma Fiskers. Insane, but this what happens when a government selects the winners or buys the winners.