GM’s Volt is the new Edsel, selling far few cars than that famous bomb did in the 1950′s and 1960′s. In fact, compared to the Volt, the Edsel was a blockbuster.
 |
 |
| 116,000
sold in three years |
55,000
sold in three years |
Ford sold 116,000 Edsels between 1958 and 1960. GM sold 7,671 Volts in 2011 and 23,461 in 2012. GM announced this week that they have dropped the price $5,000, but that hasn’t goosed sales. The company had a record-setting June, with 2,698 sold, however, sales started to slide again in July with 1,788 sold. Considering that between January and May, only 7,157 Volts were sold, that means the brand has sold only 11,643 to date. The company must sell over 2,300 Volts a month just to equal last year’s number.
Even if Volt sales were to suddenly hit near record levels for the next five months, the brand will have sold well under 55,000 units over three years.
Score:
GM Volt 55,000 (if REALLY lucky)
Ford Edsel 116,000
We called this bomb early here.