What does a Chevy Volt cost?

I've been using the manufacturer's suggested retail price of $40,295 for making cost calculations. But the reality is that the Volt is in such demand that most dealers are marking it up. We bought our Volt from F.H.Dailey in San Leandro. Their markup was $3,220. Our salesperson, Jim Moran, told us that that the markups have ranged from $2,500 to $5,000 for the 17 Volts that they have sold. He expects that this markup will continue with the 2012 model since they will once again still only have about 17 Volts to sell.

He explained that GM will be making 30,000 - 40,000 Volts for 2012 and that these will be sold in 47 states. California will still only get about 4,000 Volts. He said that the reason for the markup is that the volume is so small that the dealer needs to mark up the price to make a profit. I also think that the law of supply and demand is at play here--the car is in high demand, so the price goes up.

The June 3 LA Times reports that some dealers are marking up the price by $20,000! Some are also claiming that the cars are "used" even if they only have 100 miles on the odometer. In that way the dealer can collect the $7,500 tax credit--unscrupulous, but apparently not illegal.  Chevy says they cannot find any evidence of this practice and are investigating--stay tuned.

On the bright side, I have read that the 2012 Volt will qualify for California's $5,000 tax credit for electric vehicles. Apparently the 2011 model did not qualify since the battery did not have a 150,000 mile warranty (it has 100,000 miles) and the gas generator could not guarantee low enough nitrogen oxide emissions.