Volt Production Plan Revealed: GM Says Its 'EREV' Will Be in Every State by 2012
By John O'Dell July 1, 2010
General Motors plans to build 10,000 electric-drive Chevrolet Volts in 2010-2011 and 30,000 in 2010 2012, the car's marketing manager said in a Webcast today.
Tony DiSalle, in a chat co-hosted earlier today on Green Car Advisor, revealed the numbers as part of a discussion of the Volt marketing roll-out plan.
He repeated GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre's announcement of earlier in the day that the extended range plug-in hybrid - or what General Motors likes to call the extended range electric vehicle, or EREV - would be on sale in every state by mid-2012, with initial sales slated for California; Michigan; Washington, D.C.; Austin, Texas; and New York City at the end of this year.
Videos of the presentations by Whitacre and DiSalle can be viewed on GM's Volt site.
Sales will spread to the rest of Texas and New York state, plus the sates of New Jersey and Connecticut at the beginning of 2011 and will roll through the nation from there - hitting the most populous and electric-drive savvy regions first, we imagine.
DiSalle said GM is asking all of its Chevrolet dealers - even those not in the initial sales regions - to consider adding trained Volt technicians to their service staff to be able to offer service to drivers who are far from home. Unlike an all-electric or battery electric vehicle, the Volt has an on-board engine-generator that runs of gasoline and can keep delivering power to the car's electric motor after the grid-charged battery is depleted.
GM said the Volt should deliver at least 340 miles of range on one battery charge and a tank of gas, and can keep running indefinitely without being recharged as long as the driver keeps filling the fuel tank.
Recharging the battery regularly, however, helps boost fuel economy by providing more all-electric miles of travel. The Volt is designed to run for up to 40 miles on a battery charge before the engine-generator kicks on. Recharging overnight means the first 40 miles each day can be driven without using gasoline.
In addition to representing a unique bridge between conventional hybrids and long-range zero emissions vehicles (most battery EVs today are limited to distances of under 150 miles between charges), the Volt is the car GM has chosen to restore its green credentials after the decision earlier in the decade to cancel the EV-1 electric car program - a decision that made the automaker the villain in the film "Who Killed the Electric Car."
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Error in your first paragraph. You probably meant "...and 30,000 in 2012" not 2010.
boomer - Thanks. Fixed it.
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