Yahoo is one of the biggest flops of the Internet bubble.

I wish I could have a flop where I sell every one of something I can make.

Anyway any editorial from the Wall Street crowd is so anti-Obama that anything he is perceived to have touched is a failure.

The Yahoo article is a poorly written one, that passes over the fact that the battery fires happened way after the engineered accident, and also that the 125 sales in july constantly went up month after month to attain 1137 deliveries in november. The Hamtrack plant was closed for retooling, thus did not produce much Volts on that month.
Tomorrow, sales numbers for december will get out, and I am ready to bet that this number will be even higher, even if december has less selling days than november.
GM was planning 10000 sales for the calendar year, they will be at around 8000-9000 which is not too far from the sales objective for a $43000 car.

We will see increasing sales as people get more informed about the car and sees some more in the wild. The Volt owner group is by far the most satisfied owners of new cars around and they stay behind the car, as it is a game changer in the personal transportation world.

Also, thanks Jose G for digging up those reference. But if you all can avoid it, don't click on the Yahoo or 24/7 links posted above -- that will just give them more ad views. Thanks Eric for not linking to it (seriously). This crap should be ignored, or laughed at like Brad's great round up of EV ignorance on Youtube: http://www.plugincars.com/parade-youtube-ignorance-about-electric-cars-1...

The "investigation" of the Chevy Volt for fires started by the battery is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard of. These fires are said to be possible when the vehicle is involved in an accident. Well, duhhh! Did anyone bother to mention that gasoline-powered vehicles often catch on fire when involved in an accident? Given how much potential energy is being stored in a small place inside a car, almost ANY source of energy is likely to cause a fire if involved in an accident.
This sort of thing is a red herring, written by a biased writer intent on trying to scare people away from electric vehicles.

@Anonymous, you may not like the Volt. You may not think the government should have bailed out GM and save the American automobile industry in the process. But to call the Volt a piece of crap is just uninformed right wing BS. According to CR it has their highest marks for reliability and owner satisfaction. It also got 70 MPG in their 150 mile MPG test run.

Next time you call something a piece of crap, please back it up with data.

It's important to separate Yahoo, the company, and Yahoo, the content aggregator. The former is a strong supporter of green tech, and the local plugin fleet at Yahoo in Sunnyvale is formidable. The latter does not exercise editorial control over all its content, like a traditional newspaper would. That's at least how I understand it - see also Jose's comment above.

Be it as it may, the original news source and the author of the criticized article were properly and prominently displayed.

I was going to criticize Eric for picking such a sensationalist headline, but it turns out that other blogs went the same route before plugincars.com ran the story. However, autoblog.com is an example of how this could have been handled more appropriately.

Fiat 500, Chevy Volt listed among biggest product flops of 2011... but should they be?

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/12/29/fiat-500-chevy-volt-listed-among-bigg...

@ Jose G,

"I think the Volt is priced right."

Unfortunately, the actual data is contradicting with your statement, and data can't lie.

"As they ramp up production, they should gradually lower the price."

Only in your wish list will this happen. In fact, you may not even want that to happen. You said it yourself - GM needs to make EV with profits. Although it isn't really making much, if any, profit on the Volt right now, what would make GM to decrease the selling price? Economics 101 tells us that manufacturer will decrease as much cost as possible, so that they will make more profit per unit sold. In fact, if possible, they will raise the selling price to make more profit. If you look at auto industry as a whole, car prices have kept on increasing and not the other way around. In fact, GM CEO himself have confirmed this in a way (increase production hopefully will decrease cost, with no mentioning of any reduction in MSRP.)

You want to see a decrease in Volt MSRP? That may be when Volt is no longer for sales...

You can't speak to Rush-bots. Their intelligence, at first seems genuine, until you realize they all repeat the same lies throughout the USA. Much like their leader, they lack real knowledge, (facts).

When confronted by a Rush-bot who told me my car was going to cause rolling blackouts, I told him that just refining gas uses 49 billion kilowatt hours of 'lectricity', so his car was in fact a sudo-electric. (Add drilling, pumping, transporting, etc. And you have a whole lot of those "volts" being used by his car). When I told him that the juice not used for gas I don't burn will not go to the refinery, but to mhow all plug, he was phased. I could tell he wanted to run home and check with Rush for an answer.

Really, Rush makes me laugh. I mean, anyone caught with someone else's Viagra at an airport and then saying he had Bob Doles luggage has some spark of funny. I think he's laughing all the way to the bank and some day it will come to light and his army of bots will suddenly go into sleep mode. That would be cool.

I just wonder what the introduction of the BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar and Cadillac extended range vehicles will do for the Volt. I don't think it will hurt. Especially if GM makes a real basic Volt with the same range. A true commuter. I mean, I love my Volt, and I wouldn't change it because I'm retired and I dont want basic. But, If I were working, a very basic Volt would be very appealing.

I was a Prius owner, now I am a Volt owner. I agree to the extent that a Volt is a limited EV/Hybrid. If I only drive my daily limited range, I'm driving an EV (my daily average is 28 miles). Drive to the next town, and I'm driving a Hybrid. Given my locale is a little secluded from the world (next town is 40 miles away), I consider this the best option for me. A Leaf is available at the same dealership as the Volt here, but it isn't selling due to its inability to reliably make it to the next town and back. Once an EV with a 150+ range becomes available, I will gladly pursue a full EV when my three year lease is up.

BTW: I dislike balloon residuals. It's a crock. That is another marketing issue that I believe Chevy messed up on. Who would buy an inflated residual vehicle at the end of the lease, not to mention letting anyone "double-dip" the $7,500 (once at the beginning of the lease from the government, and once at the end from the consumer?)

I would stay away from any company that gave this car an award! Worst buy I ever have made in my life. I have no agenda and wanted to save money on fuel. Brakes are the worst. Try to parallel park this and feel the herky jerky pulls while you try to be calm!!!! Service was always at least a week wait and the cramped conditions with a baby seat is an absolute joke. If you hit the HDD button at the wrong time your display will also go into a continuous loop. If someone writes a good experience with this car they are being payed to promote IMHO. I have talked to too many in the dealer waiting room to be convinced of any of these so called fans.

Still mad at losing 20 grand driving it off the lot. A MAJOR JOKE THIS CAR IS!!!!!! No wonder GE is getting them for their employees. My advice is first is do not buy this thing or even get one for free. My next pearl is to stay away from GE they must be part of the problem.

I've continued to scratch my head at this Yahoo / 24-7WS article -- I'm just amazed that it got written at all. I've come to feel sorry for the writer, one Charles B. Stockdale, ("if that IS your real name", as they say) for clearly he must be in an awful position of being fed storylines like this from sponsors or over the newsroom wall from the advertising side of the house to appease sponsors or some crazy publisher. Probably gets paid beans too, and won't ever be able to afford a car as amazing as a Volt, much less a Model S. So he's got to be feeling pretty bad about his lot in life. Hang in there, man ...

Bruce, you sound like a Rush-bot. However, if you're not, GM is buying back the Volts, no questions asked. Sell the car back and get off this forum. I owned Caddy's for 35 years and this car is awesome!