General Motors needs the public to buy more of its plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volts. 

The company has been losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, NBC news reports. 

In order to recoup the hefty investment that has gone into designing and building the cars, sales volume needs to increase significantly — so far numbers are falling well below projections.

Sluggish sales with the Volt could also be indicative of a broader problem in the electric vehicle market: 

And in a sign that there may be a wider market problem, Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi have been struggling to sell their electric and hybrid vehicles, though Toyota’s Prius models have been in increasing demand.

GM’s quandary is how to increase sales volume so that it can spread its estimated $1.2-billion investment in the Volt over more vehicles while reducing manufacturing and component costs – which will be difficult to bring down until sales increase.

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