General Motors has temporarily suspended production of its Volt electric car, the company announced Friday.
GM, which is based in Detroit, announced to employees at one of its facilities that it was halting production of the beleaguered electric car for five weeks and temporarily laying off 1,300 employees.
A GM spokesman told The Hill on Friday that production of the Volt would resume April 23.
“We needed to maintain proper inventory and make sure that we continued to meet market demand,” GM spokesman Chris Lee said in a telephone interview.
Lee noted that sales of the Volt were higher in February than they were in January, and added that California recently decided to allow the electric car to qualify for High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes in the state.
“We see positive trends, but we needed to make this market adjustment,” he said.
The Chevy Volt has come under criticism from Republicans in Congress because of reports of its batteries catching on fire during testing. President Obama gave the electric vehicle a vote of confidence in a speech to the United Auto Workers union this week, promising he would buy a Volt “five years from now, when I’m not president anymore.”
Hopefully that opportunity will present itself much sooner.
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What, pray tell, is so “wonderful” about a vehicle that couldn’t live up to it’s initial design, so much so, in fact, that they had to add an internal combustion engine in order to meet it’s expectations? Sorry, GM, but your “technological wonder” is nothing more than another addition to the auto industries’ fleet of “hybrid” vehicles.
I understand that each volt comes with a fire extinguisher.
@johngalt:
Let’s be fair here… the internal combustion engine in the Volt was not an afterthought. It was always a part of the design. It’s just an extended range hybrid. Unlike the stock Prius, it can drive a (too short) distance on battery power before the gas engine cuts in to recharge the battery. It’s an interesting idea, but poorly executed, mainly due to the expensive and immature battery technology.
@Jim S:
Perhaps I should have clarified it further, Jim. The ICE was coupled to the drivetrain itself as an addition, mainly because of that poor range on the battery(40 miles or so). I’m not sure but I don’t believe the original design had that intention.
I forget, how many of these lemons did the Federal Government buy? Can they put armor on one of these and use it for Obama’s limo?