[staff]

Chevy Volt coming ... Good luck getting one

CHEVY VOLT FORUM - General Motors is set to begin sales of the Chevrolet Volt electric car by the end of this year. But if you have your heart set on buying one, you'd better cool your heels.

GM plans to build only 10,000 Volts in 2011.

That works out to a selling rate of, at the most, about 835 Volts a month. GM currently sells more Cadillac Escalades than that and it's a fraction of the sales for a popular model like the Chevrolet Malibu, of which GM sold 21,000 last month.

In 2012, GM plans to increase production to 30,000 Volts, but even that won't meet demand for the car, said Lyle Dennis, a New Jersey neurologist who runs the blog GM-Volt.com.

Dennis's blog, started shortly after the Volt was unveiled as a concept car in early 2007, has allowed people to add their names to a list of potential buyers. That list now has about 53,000 names, Dennis said.

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While "hand raisers," as such list-signers are called in the industry, don't always translate into real buyers, GM spokesman Rob Peterson agrees that GM almost certainly could sell more Volts than it's producing.

Powered by a lithium-ion battery pack, the Volt will be capable of traveling up to 40 miles on purely electric power once it's been fully charged. For driving beyond 40 miles, the Volt will have a four-cylinder gasoline engine that will generate electricity to power the wheels.

But, as it enters largely unknown territory, GM is proceeding with extreme caution, he said.

"We want to make sure, at the beginning, that everything is right," Peterson said.
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