General Motors said on Friday that it planned to halt production of the Chevrolet Volt for five weeks beginning later this month because dealers had more than they needed.
The suspension, which will result in temporary layoffs for 1,300 workers at the Detroit plant that builds the Volt, is another troubling sign for the plug-in hybrid, whose sales fell short of G.M.’s targets in 2011. G.M. officials had already backed away from projections that they could sell 45,000 Volts in the United States this year, instead saying that production would match demand.
...G.M. said it had about 3,600 Volts in inventory. Last year, officials repeatedly dismissed questions about low sales numbers by saying the company could not build enough of the cars to meet demand. It ended up selling 7,671 during the year, instead of the 10,000 it had anticipated.
