GM Denies Losses of $49,000 on every Chevrolet Volt

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General Motors is dismissing a media report describing the Chevrolet Volt, its extended-range electric car, as a major money loser. Those reports, the automakers says in a statement, are "grossly wrong."

Reuters estimates that GM is losing as much as $49,000 on every Volt. That's $10,000 more than the extended-range electric car's sales price. But the automaker said the wire service's calculations ignored that development costs are typically spread out among all vehicles sold over the course of the model's lifetime.

GM has acknowledged it's losing money on the Volt, but won't say how much. But GM argued that its investment will pay off over time as Volt sales accelerate and the cost of the extended-range electric/generator powertrain comes down and is offered in other models over time.

The car, which can travel up to 38 miles on a battery charge before a gasoline-powered generator kicks in, has missed GM's original sales targets for 2012. It sells for $39,995 as its base price. Sales are picking up after some dealers started offering a cheap lease, California certified that single drivers can drive the Volt in carpool lanes. Chevrolet sold 2,831 Volts last month, its strongest month since its launch.

Reuters wrote that "the loss per vehicle will shrink as more are built and sold."

"Every investment in technology that GM makes is designed to have a payoff for our customers, to meet future regulatory requirements and add to the bottom line," GM said in a statement. "The Volt is no different, even if it takes longer to become profitable."

It's the latest in a series of publicity challenges for the Volt, which conservatives have criticized as the Obama-mobile, despite the fact that it was in the works years before Barack Obama considered running for the White House. The car was first introduced as a concept vehicle in January 2007, two years before Obama took office, and was first sold in fall 2010.

Sales of gasoline-electric hybrids that don't need to be recharged have risen 65% this year through August to 278,680, led by Toyota's family of Prius models, which accounted for 57% of that market segment.


GM denies losses of $49,000 on every Chevrolet Volt

this is the reason why we need the government to fund investments on technologies like this. the first cycle of technologies are money pits. its hard for corporations to invest in something that will lose money like this. hopefully this will benefit GM in the future by putting them ahead of the curve in production of electric vehicles. i need all the kinks to be worked out by time i buy a new vehicle

ok so the government funds 5years worth of new renewable fuel in cars (or something along those lines) and then what?

then the technology is adopted by coroporations. the internet, microchips, tracking technology, etc were heavily influences via contracts by the govt. texas instruments is a prime example of this. the same probably happened in germany as well. give incentive and contracts to these companies and let them innovate technologies that will benefit us all without[..]uming all of the risk of being first in market

that sounds great. great idea i promise... but why haven't they done this yet? it seems so obvious to do with rising gas prices and a need for a renewable source of energy. Why not just invest in a way to use 3 sources of renewable energy (air,hydro,eletric) and make a perpetual source of energy for everyone.

Unfortunately not a lot of people care enough to want to spend 40k on an upgraded Prius. The people who have that much money to spend would much rather spend it on something else. But for the treehuggers who actually want to save the earth, most cant afford it. Electric car technology is still too expensive to make any kind of impact at this point [pic]

If the Government paid for such research, wouldn't that make us as tax payers essentially the owners of said patents and technology? That's socialism, no?

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No, they get tax breaks so they have to pay less money in taxes. GM is trying to be ahead of the curve. Problem is like someone said GM is trying to break in a tough market 40k car that not many people would pick up really only tree hugger type people who can't afford it. Most dude who spend 40k wouldn't touch a volt, and would gladly pay for gas.