2011 Chevy Volt appears in order schedule, Job 1 set for November 1
2011 Chevrolet Volt – Click above for high-res image gallery
Up until now, General Motors has remained deliberately vague in public about the scheduled Job 1 date for Chevrolet Volt production. Given the complexity and new technology involved in the program, the automaker's reluctance is understandable. After all when you don't know what the future holds or what problems will crop up, you don't want to put a misleading date out there, years in advance.
Internal schedules, on the other hand, are something else altogether. Every program needs to have deadlines so that people know how much time and resources to allot for a given task. Those internal gantt charts have undoubtedly had the magic Volt Job 1 date on them for several years. Among the stakeholders that need to when a vehicle will launch are the dealers that have to schedule orders for inventory. Around about this time of year, automakers usually brief dealers on when the current model year vehicles will end production and new ones will start.
With less than ten months to go, GM has set November 1, 2010 as the Chevrolet Volt Job 1 date on the production start list for dealers. By September, dealerships will need to start giving GM an indication of how many Volts they want to order so that the head office can determine allocations. Interestingly, the GM chart indicates that dealers won't know their allocations until two weeks after production starts, and won't be able to start placing orders until then. Typically, those last two items happen about two months before production starts. The timing for the Volt production kickoff is still far enough out that those dates may yet change in the months to come.
A final item of interest is that the Cruze, which was originally slated to launch in April and subsequently pushed back to September, is listed as TBD.
Gallery: Quick Spin: 2011 Chevrolet Volt
Photos Copyright ©2009 Sam Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc.
[Source: GM-Volt.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Tourian 5:23PM (2/06/2010)
Hmmm, so it takes about 25 days to build a car and then a couple of more weeks to get it shipped, that'll put the first Volts arriving mid late December. That's very late for a model year 2011 car or are they going to call it a 2012?
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Dr. Greenthumb 5:42PM (2/06/2010)
They don't operate on a build one car/ship one car model. The will build hundreds or more before they start shipping.
ngiotta 5:43PM (2/06/2010)
I'm not sure, that's a very good question.
All I know is that if they keep the price at ~$40k before "rebate", then this will have a very short run. Especially when you can get a Prius/Insight for ~$20k.
Tourian 5:52PM (2/06/2010)
@ Dr Greenthumb
Lol. I know they aren't going to build one at a time. I'm saying start to finish its about 28 days to build a car. If they put 1000 into production on day one, they'll roll out of QC around the same time about a month later.
Dr. Greenthumb 6:11PM (2/06/2010)
ngiotta: If this were just another Hybrid, I'd agree with you. However, this car is a game changer. Hybrids as we know them, will soon vanish from the landscape. This car is the best transportation we will have until fuel cell vehicles become commonplace.
Forget plug-in electrics. Even if the range doubles, the draw back to electrics is charging time. Any car that requires more time to refuel than the present standard, is a commercial FAILURE.
Tony 6:34PM (2/06/2010)
"A game changer" Dr Greenthumb? Man did you buy that line, hook line and sinker. I have some wonderful ocean "view" lots in Haiti if your interested.
Tony 6:36PM (2/06/2010)
My bad it should read "if you're interested"
Matt 7:16PM (2/06/2010)
I still don't understand how they can get away with calling a car that goes on sale in 2010 a 2011 model...
caddy-v 7:45PM (2/06/2010)
It takes 25-35 hours to build a car, not days.
ngiotta 12:25AM (2/07/2010)
@dr greenthumb
"This car is the best transportation we will have until fuel cell vehicles become commonplace."
You're kidding right? This is a vehicle that will take 10-15 years to make back it's money under normal driving conditions, compared to a standard hybrid (which already take enough time to pay back as it is). After it pays back, you'll most likely be paying another 10k for a replacement battery pack-- provided the car has lasted that long. Then guess what? You have another 10 years to pay back.
Fuel cell vehicles are pipe dreams. They have been for decades. Every few years they tell us: "just a few more years". There's no infrastructure for them and no storage solution has been developed for cars that would net anything over a 150 mile range. Period.
No Sir. I'm not buying it. This Cobalt... errr... Volt is nothing more than an electric vehicle with a briggs & stratton generator on board to recharge the battery pack. It may be a "one of a kind" at the moment as far as system configuration, but when it debuts to market, the Chinese will have a car that costs 10-17k less that is almost exactly the same-- and it will be here in the States.
The future to me would be EV's that had more advanced battery technology that stored more power and could recharge 90-100% in the same time as filling up at the gas pump. The Volt is, like a Prius, a stepping stone to that eventuality. It just follows a slightly different path.
Dr. Greenthumb 8:31AM (2/07/2010)
Tony: I actually wouldn't mind buying a piece of beach-front property in Haiti. Just not in Port-Au-Prince.
Back to the Volt. Yes it is a "Game Changer" and not because GM said so, because it actually is. The Volt is a gasoline-electric vehicle that will do to the auto-industry what the diesel-electric locomotive did to the railway industry.
The gasoline-electric power plant will not reap the maximum benefits in passenger cars, it is in the bus & truck (larger commercial vehicles) where the economics will be magnified.
Imagine being able to use an LS3 motor to drive a generator that powers four or six 250hp hub motors in an 18 wheeler. The LS3 running between 2500 -3000 rpms would probably average 30+ mpg. 18 wheelers, currently average between 4.5 - 7.5 mpg. Even if I am being too optimistic, and it only gets 10 mpg, that is still one hell of a jump.
Hybrids as we know them today, are all but dead.
spin cycle 4:32PM (2/07/2010)
How are you going to run 6 250HP motors from an engine that produces only 430HP? Even if you had a 100% efficient conversion from the output shaft, you'll only get 430HP out, not 1500HP.
I also believe your hoped-for fuel economy is far too high. It energy to pull a load, and the energy is going to come from the fuel tank. If you want to do a lot of work (i.e pull a load), you're going to have to use a fair amount of fuel. Replacing a driveshaft with a generator, wires and motors isn't a miracle.
Tourian 9:30AM (2/08/2010)
@caddy
Maybe you are right about the assembly part. I do not know where I got days from. But I do think it takes that long for quality control and delivery. So from component pieces to sitting at a dealer, I still think it takes about a month.
ronzorelli 5:36PM (2/06/2010)
Can we get a "Volt-less" Autoblog option?
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Konrad 5:39PM (2/06/2010)
There already is one. Had you actually read the post about the /exclude/ option, you would see you can put any tag and it will keep those posts off your page.
So all you have to do us add /exclude/volt to the URL and you'll have your own little volt-less autoblog.
Taglane 5:44PM (2/06/2010)
It's not like it's been overly talked about recently....
Greg Aryous 5:41PM (2/06/2010)
See Chevy has delayed the Cruze to TBD... must be going back to the drawing board after seeing the awesome new 2012 Ford Focus thats going to rock their world... more powerful 2.0L DI TiVCT engine, efficient dual-dry clutch 6-speed, great driving dynamics, stunning design and brilliant MyFord Touch infotainment system and interior... RIP Chevy!
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Dr. Greenthumb 5:44PM (2/06/2010)
Why does everyone of your posts have to be grounded in idiocy?
Thunderbuck 5:51PM (2/06/2010)
I don't know that it's "idiocy". It's really hard to see how the Cruze provides a significant improvement over the current Cobalt. It doesn't even look better.
If I were a GM product planner, I'd be taking a long, hard look at the Cruze and see if there's anything that can be done to improve it before sending it out to market.
texmln 9:32PM (2/06/2010)
The Focus isn't going to destroy Chevy. Chevy will destroy itself - again - and the Volt will be one of the primary drivers.