Goodbye, Chevy Volt: In the age of Tesla, GM retires its first electric car

The Chevy Volt was GM’s entry ticket to the future and post-bankruptcy financial stability, but outside of a fervent fan base, the hybrid electric car never quite caught on with consumers. Now, General Motors is sending the line to that great scrap heap in the sky, the Wall Street Journal reports.

When the car was introduced back in 2010, GM pinned its financial hopes on the plug-in hybrid, but the Volt was expensive to produce, which stuck the consumers with a high purchase price that even Obama-era electric car tax credits couldn’t lower enough. That, paired with skepticism about American cars, made the Volt a hard sell. As more companies enter the electric vehicle marketplace with similar technology–and, you know, with the rise of Tesla–GM apparently gave up hope for the brand. Last month, the automaker announced that it would end production of the Volt by March and put the Detroit factory where it is built on hold while it sorted out its next move.

GM still has electric dreams: As the AP reports, it is fighting to keep the consumer tax credit that can make electric cars, like its $36,000 plug-in Chevy Bolt, more affordable at a time when competition from other electric vehicle makers is heating up.

The headline of this post has been updated to more accurately reflect that the Volt is a hybrid vehicle, and not its first electric car.