GM is suspending production of the electric car for five weeks. Brad Plumer suggests that the Volt might be too expensive:
The car gets about 94 miles per gallon, according to the EPA, but it starts at $39,195, and only upper-income buyers with a big tax bill can qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit. As auto blogger Jonathan Welsh writes, “Even if you never used gasoline in the Volt, you’d wait about 12 years before you saved enough on gas to make up for the Volt’s price premium.” (The Volt has a gas engine that kicks in when the battery runs out.) Indeed, plenty of analysts have pointed out that the Volt is essentially a hybrid version of the Chevy Cruze, a compact car that gets around 40 miles per gallon but costs just half as much. And sales of the Cruze have been booming. Fuel-efficient cars are doing well in this age of high pump prices. It’s just that, when consumers do the math on how much they’re likely to save on gasoline, the Volt doesn’t seem to add up.
The Dish 