Would you pay $60,000 for a Holden Volt?

When EFTM first drove the Holden VOLT in December we were hoping for a price around $45,000, but expecting something over $65,000. Today, Holden released their long awaited Volt pricing: $59,990 plus on-road costs.

Pricing is useful information, availability is another thing. There is still no firm release date, with Holden still claiming the car will be available at the “end of the year”. Perhaps Holden are aiming this one up as the “gift for that person with everything”?

$60k is a steep price, putting it right up there near the Caprice ($65k) and more than a nice smooth Calais ($53k). So will it sell?

Electric vehicles are desirable among the many keen to show their environmental credentials, and the Volt offers the petrol engine which keeps the electricity flowing on long trips, so there will be some real market for this one across the country. Unfortunately the Toyota Hybrid range has street cred and with a range available from Hatchback up to medium sedan it’s hard to argue with the world’s most popular alternative fuelled car (Prius).

We suspect GM and Holden aren’t counting on huge volumes here in our market, so the price keeps it as a higher class vehicle and it won’t flood the market like the Prius.

Plus, the Volt is more than just a pretty face, this is one is seriously feature packed which goes a long way to justifying the price if the missus is asking.

• Forward Collision Alert
• Lane Departure Warning
• Eight Air bags
• Rear View Camera
• 7 inch colour LCD touch screen
• Satellite Navigation
• Bluetooth
• DVD
• Mp3 Plug and Play with USB and iPod connectivity.
• 30GB In-built hard-drive for CD Track ripping
• Six Speaker BOSE Audio system

Interestingly, Holden have also confirmed an eight year/160,000 km warranty on the Volt’s battery and electric components, and they’ll also offer capped price servicing at your Holden dealer for $185 on the first four standard log book services for the first three years and 60,000kms.

All in all, this is a great looking offer, we just can’t help but think it would be a whole lot more popular at $50k.

Orders are being taken now, so if you’re interested you should rush into your Holden dealer for a chat. Or perhaps you should walk – we don’t expect queues like Toyota are seeing with their 86 orders.