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GM dealers unhappy about pickup prices

The backlash is beginning. Following General Motors' price hike of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra last week, dealers across the country are expressing their ire over increasing prices in the face of rebates and discounts on trucks from Ford and Ram.
Speaking to Automotive News, Sam Pilato, the general manager at Dimmitt Chevrolet in Clearwater, FL, Silverados are "selling very poorly." W. Carrol Smith, the president of Monument Chevrolet in the heart of truck country, Texas, said, "[GM's] position is that the vehicle stands on its own and it doesn't need a bigger rebate. That's not what the market is telling us."
According to AN, that's the general attitude amongst Chevy and GMC dealers across the country, where the twin pickups are getting butchered in sales by competitors offering up to $9,000 off their sticker prices. Part of the problem for GM is that its trucks are arriving on the market near the end of the current F-150's lifecycle, a fact that Ford has taken advantage of.

GM will make Chevy Volt production announcement tomorrow

Thing are apparently happening to get the next-generation Chevy Volt ready for public consumption. The most obvious proof is in a preview of an announcement (possibly coming tomorrow) that the two main places where General Motors gets the Volt ready -the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant and the Brownstown Township battery assembly facility - will be getting big money upgrades and lots of new positions. The Hamtramck plant builds the Volt and its fancier cousin, the Cadillac ELR, as well as the global versions of the Volt. The Detroit News reports that GM will add 1,400 jobs and spend roughly $450 million at the two locations in order to build the redesigned Volt. What's less clear is exactly what the updates will bring us. We've heard that the new volt will be a 2016 model and come on a new chassis. Speculation in The Detroit News about tomorrow's announcement runs the gamut from a new compact PHEV with less electric range and a lower price (which makes sense) to an updated Volt with more electric range (heard it before) to a new all-electric vehicle (the moon shot). If there's any hints to be gleaned in the international Volts, there are also reports coming in that the Opel brand will get an all-electric vehicle that is cheaper than the Ampera. Read into that what you will. We pestered GM's Kevin Kelly on the new Volt (again) and he said (again) that he couldn't give out any more detail other than what's been reported. He just told AutoblogGreen that there will be an announcement tomorrow and that it will be about the Hamtramck and Brownstown facilities and involve the Volt. So, stay tuned.

Personal testimonies show real-world effect of plugging in with Chevy Volt

At this point, there are tens of thousands of individual stories about what it's like to live with a Chevrolet Volt. But it also remains informative to take a look at one of these in depth. For example, one Atlanta-area Volt owner says he's cut his cents-per-mile ownership costs by almost 40 percent compared to his previous car primarily because of his ability to drive almost all the time on electric power. Jeffrey Cohen told Clean Technica that he put about 14,000 miles on his Volt extended-range plug-in hybrid for the year that ended October 2013, and that more than 92 percent of those were on electrons. He estimates his "lifetime" miles per gallon rating at a whopping 384 mpg, a figure pushed upward by the fact that he installed a Level 2 charger at home while his employer added an external 110-volt charger at work. Cohen is spending 45 cents a mile for his car, compared to 73 cents in his Infiniti M35. As a result, he's spending 45 cents a mile for his car, compared to 73 cents a mile with his prior vehicle, an Infiniti M35. About two-thirds of those Volt costs are for the $349-a-month lease payments, while 15 percent is insurance, 11 percent is for the charger and seven percent for the gas and electricity that actually powers the car. Helping lower that last figure is an overnight electricity rate that's about 10 percent of Cohen's daytime rate. Chevy parent General Motors hopes such testimonies will re-trigger sales for the Volt in 2014. Last year, GM sold 23,094 Volts, down 1.6 percent from 2012. We expect our readers have similar stories they'd like to share in the Comments. Related Gallery 2011 Chevrolet Volt: Review View 22 Photos News Source: Clean TechnicaImage Credit: Lead image: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong Green Chevrolet GM Electric running costs