GM Selling Cars on EBay
COLLINS: Well, it works for individual car owners. Now a struggling big three automaker is trying it out. Just moments ago, General Motors gave some details on its plans to sell up to 20,000 vehicles on eBay.</s>FRITZ HENDERSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, GENERAL MOTORS: Customers will be able to buy actual vehicles just like they do on eBay by choosing an option of a pre-determined buy it now price or by negotiating online. You can do all of your research and price negotiation online in the comfort of your own home.</s>COLLINS: Sounds pretty good. CNN's Stephanie Elam is joining us now from New York with all you need to know about this deal. Now you weren't here the other day when we're talking about this, Stephanie, but I said, you know, I don't even buy shoes online. So I wonder if there's going to be a lot of people who are going to do this.</s>STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I find it really hard to buy pants online, let alone a car. I guess it requires going there first and checking out a car and then going and doing it online.</s>COLLINS: Yes. Maybe, yes.</s>ELAM: I'm really hearing myself in my ear.</s>COLLINS: I hate that.</s>ELAM: Something's out.</s>COLLINS: You know that happened at the beginning of the show, we're still recovering, but we've got it now.</s>ELAM: You got it now?</s>COLLINS: Yes.</s>ELAM: OK. I think I do, too.</s>COLLINS: You go, you can take it out. I won't talk to you. You just do your thing.</s>ELAM: I can hear you now and not hear myself. Life is good.</s>COLLINS: OK.</s>ELAM: But I don't want to seem like I was being rude, Heidi, but yes, this is a four-week trial that GM is going to do here. Test some waters, see how this works out.</s>COLLINS: Yes.</s>ELAM: With 225 of their dealers in California. So if you're outside of the Golden State, not so much for you. This isn't going to work so well. But they just want to try out right now. They're going to sell Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Pontiac cars through these 225 dealers. And they said they'll have a selection of up to 20,000 vehicles and they'll be selling 2008, 2009, and 2010 models on the Web site. Now the program does begin today and the thing about this Web site is it's not just that you just go on there and say OK, this is what I buy and then you have to buy the -- you know, the manufactured price on it, the retail price on it. No, you can either do one of two things. You can go on and haggle, and say I want to work on this. This is what I want to make deals on. Or you can buy the advertised price, which is whatever the deal of the month happens to be, you know, you see the commercials, you can buy that one right away go in and say which options you want. I played around with the Web site myself, typed in the zip code of where I grew up in California, because I still had that one memorized, and just found out where I could find cars around it, and said for the car that I was looking for, I was looking at an envoy that you would just -- it shows you how far away, how many miles away that car would be and then you could start looking at all the details you want.</s>COLLINS: OK. Well, cool.</s>ELAM: And -- yes.</s>COLLINS: There's also some news to tell us, I think, isn't there, about the Chevy Volt? What's going on with that?</s>ELAM: Yes, we did hear some interesting news about the Volt. You may have seen these ads all throughout. There were these ads that had just like that smiling plug and it said 2, 3, and the plug was the zero? I've seen them. Well, now they're telling us that that was actually them for the Chevy Volt because they expect 230 miles per gallon in city driving and that, obviously, would be big news there. It'd be the first mass produced car with triple-digit fuel economy. That isn't in fact confirmed. And it's also expected to travel 40 miles on a single charge and this car is expected to go on sale late next year. So, obviously, they're looking to make some changes there, really get into that market and make a difference and have a viable option for a plug-in car. Of course, they're still working out some of the details like what happens if you're in the urban area and you need a charge.</s>COLLINS: Yes.</s>ELAM: Where do you go, if you don't have a garage to do that.</s>COLLINS: Right.</s>ELAM: So those are some of the things they're working on there. But obviously...</s>COLLINS: OK.</s>ELAM: With all of the difficulty, they're trying to make things a little bit better for</s>GM. COLLINS: Yes. And I wanted to say growing up in Minnesota where it was freezing, freezing cold, we plugged in our cars all the time.</s>ELAM: Did you really?</s>COLLINS: Yes.</s>ELAM: Yes. Sure.</s>COLLINS: All right. Stephanie, I'm not kidding.</s>ELAM: Yes, that sounds normal.</s>COLLINS: All right. Well, we'll check back with you a little bit later on. Appreciate it.</s>ELAM: All right. Thanks.</s>COLLINS: President Obama wants health care available to all Americans. So what about immigrants who are here illegally? Our insider breaking it down for you in just a moment.