GM limiting 2016 Volt to CARB states

2016 Chevrolet Volt

The 2016 Chevy Volt has created a lot of buzz recently, thanks to its increased range, more conservative styling, and generator that will run on regular gasoline instead of premium. Despite this extra buzz, GM has decided that it will limit the release of the 2016 Volt to just 11 states. It’s no coincidence that these states happen to be those that adhere to the strict CARB regulations.

This report stems from a handful of pictures taken at a dealership training event that were obtained by HybridCars.com. In these shots, the timeline shows that California-bound production commenced in August, but that’s not anything that we didn’t know already. The big news is that only 10 other states, including CT, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, OR, RI, and VT, will get an allotment of 2016 Volts. Additionally, these dealers will not get their allotment until around October 2015.

2016 Chevrolet Volt (Credit: © GM)

So, what about the remaining 39 states in the Union? Well, they will all have to wait until early 2016 for their production to start. According to the images, production is scheduled to begin in February of next year, which means these will be early 2017 model year Volts.

This is a stark contrast to images obtained earlier in the year that showed GM would kick off nationwide production in November 2015.

Despite this contradiction in timelines, AutoblogGreen reached out to GM and Kevin Kelly, a spokesman for the automaker, told the publication that the new timeline is all according to plan. Chevy chose to shorten the 2016 model year and offer it only to its strongest EREV markets, which also happen to be CARB states.

Regardless, interested buyers in the remaining 39 states can start placing their orders in October 2015, according to the leaked images, and deliveries should start happening by the spring of 2016.