GM offers big price cut on Chevy Volt

[PoliticAverse]

15. GM slashes Chevy Volt prices to spur flagging sales

With signs that sales of its Chevrolet Volt battery car could be coming unplugged, General Motors is offering potential buyers as much as $5,000 in incentives – making it the latest maker to try to cut prices in a bid to boost lagging demand for electric vehicles.

Whether the move will work remains to be seen, as GM has already trimmed the price on the Volt plug-in hybrid. But rival Nissan has had some clear success after cutting the price on its own Leaf battery-electric vehicle, or BEV, earlier this year.

Both vehicles were introduced to high expectations nearly three years ago, but they have so far consistently missed sales targets. Only a handful of battery-based vehicles have come close to meeting expectations, most notably the Tesla Model S.

That might be enough to convince a maker to pull the plug on a vehicle like Volt. But manufacturers like GM and Nissan are under heavy pressure to make their electric vehicle programs a success – at almost any cost – in part because of pressure they face in the nation’s largest state, California, where regulators require all major makers to offer a minimum number of so-called Zero-Emission Vehicles.

Read the rest at: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/gm-slashes-chevy-volt-prices-spur-flagging-sales-6C10272201