GM Touts Happy Volt Owners and MPG Edge as Prius Sales Jump

Posted by Dale Buss on June 8, 2012 12:57 PM

Toyota Prius has it all over Chevrolet Volt as a brand these days except among a rabid core of Volt fans who believe the car is the greatest thing since the Model T. But at least in one area, General Motors has won bragging rights for now for its Volt over a Prius model: the mileage and range of the apples-to-apples versions of each product line.

GM, which is featuring "Happy Volt Owners" in a new online video push on its YouTube channel, said this week that changes to the battery of the Volt will extend the range of the 2013 model to 38 miles on a single charge, an increase of three miles. And its "mpg-equivalent" — a term the auto industry and regulators have come up with to try to help consumers understand how little gasoline they're using in hybrids compared with conventional vehicles — will rise to 98 miles from 94 when it goes on sale in August.

Meanwhile, the new plug-in hybrid version of Prius, using a similar combination of an all-electric propulsion system boosted from time to time by a gasoline engine, gets 95 mpg-equivalent and can travel only 15 miles on electricity alone.

"I always like it when our numbers are bigger — when bigger is better," Andrew Farah, Volt chief engineer, said in a conference call with reporters this week.

Of course, there's no way Volt will ever touch the overall Prius franchise for total sales, at least not in our lifetimes. On sale for more than a decade, Prius has reached more than 1.2 million in global sales and became the world's third-best-selling car line during the first quarter, thanks in large part due to surging U.S. demand.

Meanwhile, Volt sales have tacked up and down over the last several months as the brand has dealt with a U.S.-government investigatoin of a fire in a crash of the car, temporary production cutbacks and lately falling gasoline prices. Of course, Volt is experiencing strong demand in California right now after GM tweaked the car so that Volt drivers could qualify to drive solo in the state's high-occupancy vehicle lanes.

With a middling 1,680 sales in May, Volt is stuck in a sort of neutral. So every little bit of good news may help — along with those happy Volt owners spreading the world.

More about: Automotive, GM, Volt, Toyota, Prius, EV, Sustainability, Campaigns, Advertising

detfan says:

Why does author state that the Prius Plug In gets 15 miles on electric, when Toyota's own website says it gets 11?. Plus, a little known fact is that that Voltec is outselling the pace of the Toyota Prius over like timelines.

June 8, 2012 02:59 PM #

Tim Blake says:

Truth is, no matter how much they promote this crap, NOBODY wants a car that can't go more than 50 miles on a single charge. Unless you live in a metropolitan area and drive across the street to work, it's worthless! And don't get me started on the batteries lifespan — that's if it doesn't catch on fire first!
The government forced GM to build this piece of crap and now GM wants me to believe that the handful of people who've bought one are happy with it? Give me a break.

June 8, 2012 06:02 PM #

Tim, talking head for Rush Limbaugh says:

Well, you obviously don't even realize, the car can go 388 miles total, you obviously don't know 270,000 gas cars catch fire and burn out every year, and you obviously don't realize the Volt started when Bush was President. You obviously are a ditto head for a bunch of faux news uninformationalists. Good luck wearing the coat of a pathetic, unthinking life.

June 14, 2012 05:59 PM #

Mark says:

In the last sentence I think the word you are looking for is "word" not "world"
Otherwise nicely done on an mostly unbiased piece on the volt !

You might what to remove the bit about fires as this was a bogus bit of anti EV propaganda. No volts have ever caught fire in the real world.

I do however Disagree with you on when volt sales will rival the Prius , remember the most commonly trade in car on a volt purchase is the Prius.

June 8, 2012 10:22 PM #