Detroit: General Motors (GM) is resuming the production of the Chevrolet Volt a week earlier than planned as it seeks to boost sales of the $39,000 (Dh10,617) electric car more than 30 per cent in the coming months.
US sales of the Volt rose to 2,289 in March, beating the model's previous best month in December when 1,529 cars were delivered. Sales fell from that high as the Volt underwent a congressional hearing after a federal safety investigation.
"It seems like we've sustained ourselves through this difficult period," CEO Dan Akerson said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio's A Closer Look With Arthur Levitt scheduled to air in May. "We hope to get up to 3,000-plus in the coming months and are certainly positioning it."
Safety in question
Volt sales were hurt after a US investigation into the safety of the car was announced in November, GM executives have said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed the probe in January, saying the Volt or other electric vehicles pose no more of a fire risk than other cars. The Volt figures into political debates whether the US should have bailed out GM in 2009. The US still owns 32 per cent of GM.
Production on the Volt will resume on April 16 at the automaker's Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, Chris Lee, a GM spokesman, said Friday in an e-mail. The Detroit-based automaker had planned to halt production from March 19 through April 23.
"Employees are being called back one week earlier than previously announced due to increased Volt sales since January and the need to meet demand in our strong markets, including California," Lee said.
GM announced its plans to halt production in early March after selling 1,023 Volts in February and 603 in January, below the rate needed to meet Akerson's goal of 45,000 deliveries in the US this year. Customers are returning to Chevrolet dealerships to get the Volt after GM addressed earlier safety concerns, Mark Reuss, president of GM North America, told Bloomberg Television.
