First Generation Chevy Volt To Cost $40,000

Bob Lutz, the vice chairman of GM, tells Wired News the Volt will be cost for more than the originally estimate of $30,000. But how much more? Costs might go down on the second-generation Volt but Lutz leaves open a price close to $40,000 for the first-gen Volts. Here is exactly what he said:

WN: What's the target market for the car? Will it be a high-end car, a mid-range car?

Lutz: I've always said I'd like to be able to sell it at around $30,000. The way things look now, it doesn't look like that's going to be possible. It looks like it's going to be more.

WN: How much more?

Lutz: I don't know. You'd like to have it at about $30,000 for the customer, but what I'm hearing from the team is we're not going to get there. They say we might get there on the second generation, and they say if they had a lot more time they might be able to cost-optimize it. I don't want to wait for cost optimization. I'd rather come out in 2010, and if it costs closer to 40 than 30, well, that's too bad.

WN: When will we get to the see the new Volt design?

Lutz That I can't tell you. Sooner rather than later. I'll just say that.

Hopefully the design change of the Volt won't be so big. Because most people won!'t pay so much money on a bland looking car.

GM To Compete With Tata Nano

GM is looking at building cheap cars which compete with Tata's Nano. And GM's part-ownership stake in Wuling Motors, a Chinese manufacturer of sub-$3,000 utility vehicles as a possible source of a GM Nano competitor.

Lutz said that one way to make an inexpensive car for the developing world is to repurpose a legacy platform that has become obsolete. The tooling and design will have long been paid off, and there'll be plenty of experience from the manufacturing side, too. This is what GM China is already doing with the Daewoo Matiz/Chevrolet Spark. It might be not good of dumping an old product that isn't safe or clean enough for mature markets, but it is good enough in other parts of the world. That said, it could also be a way to maximize the life of an investment while also providing developing markets with a better product than they'd have otherwise.