GM vaulted back from dismal July sales of 142 Volts to a rousing sales volume of 302 units in August. GM’s reason for the low volume seems a little tired as it is pretty much a repeat of last month. From AutoblogGreen:
GM spokesman Rob Peterson recently told AutoblogGreen that Volt production is whizzing along at “roughly 150 units per day,” so we’d assume it won’t be long before Volt sales creep up.
And FoxNews.com reports this:
Sales of the four-seat hatchback were hampered by a July shutdown of the Hamtramck, Michigan assembly line where it is built. The closure needed in order to retool the plant to increase production for the 2012 model year.
As a result, supplies at dealerships — where Volts reportedly sit on the lot for less than 10 days, about as quick as a car can be processed and turned around for a customer — have been tighter than usual.
Of the 2,395 cars that were produced in August, a GM spokesman tells FoxNews.com that a third are in transit and another 700 or so earmarked for dealers for use as demos as new markets for the car are added across the country. So, even with production up to steam, the supply chain isn’t quite at full speed.
Nevertheless, GM has repeatedly said that it will sell 10,000 Volts by the end of 2011, and reconfirmed that goal for this report. The total stands at approximately 3,772. (Error in this Fox Report-actual is 3172)
With over 7,500 built since production began in late 2010, many of which are tied up as demos, and production currently running at 150 cars a day, GM is certainly on track to build more than 10,000 cars by Christmas break, but are the customers there to buy them?
Ok, so they have built over 7500. From that we subtract, 3172 sold and 700 used as demos. This math, which may be too simple but it can’t be far off, says that 3678 Volts are unsold. That is more than they have sold. Repeating Fox News’s question “…but are the customers there to buy them?”
cbdakota
Climate Change Sanity 