Chevy Volt: The greatest marketing gimmick ever?
Never put off until tomorrow what can be done todayA few years ago, a rumor began to hit the blogosphere about a new vehicle that GM was developing that would leapfrog the Toyota Prius. At that time, as a perpetual critic of GM, I stated that if true, I would become that technology's biggest advocate.
Not long after, GM took me at my word and invited me to the debut of the original Chevy Volt concept at NAIAS. Since then, GM has invited me to numerous press events focused around the Volt, and I've interviewed most major members of the Volt team - a great, passionate and totally committed team.
I've also been around a number of Bob Lutz interviews - group interviews - but I've only been able to ask him one question: Why not directly take on the Prius as the Volt is developed? Lutz, a Prius-hater, wondered why GM would waste its time on such a task and confirmed that the dual mode hybrid technology that GM was putting into SUVs was never intended for small cars (more).
I've never agreed with Lutz and GM on this point, and it's been my major criticism of the Volt - it's not doing enough soon enough. I also don't agree that the Volt is really a Prius-contender, perhaps a plug-in Prius contender, but not a Prius contender.
Now that it has become clear that GM never intended the Volt to be a real world game changer until the later part of the next decade, even as late as 2020, I feel a bit enraged. Not so much about the Volt - it's been pretty obvious that the Volt wouldn't be a significant product until at least 2015 for several months now.
What enrages me is that GM assumed that marketing alone was enough to fight the Prius until technology caught up to the Volt. Instead of diverting a few hundred million of its yearly multibillion dollar advertising budget away from gas-guzzling SUVs to develop a fuel efficient Prius-contender, GM decided more marketing was enough.
Before the Volt debut, Bob Lutz regularly called the Prius a joke and a marketing gimmick. Perhaps the Prius is nothing but a marketing gimmick along the way to electrification, but at least it is a real product widely available for sale - a product that has achieved sales of more than a million very efficient vehicles.
The Volt is still almost two years away from very, very limited sales, and the Volt won't achieve today's Prius sales for at least another decade. If that isn't the ultimate "marketing gimmick", I don't know what is.
Certainly, the Volt is still game-changing technology, but I think there is a real danger of the Volt being too many eggs in one basket. More important, while GM can talk about a gas tax, the reality is that a gas price spike could be just around the corner. If such a spike happens in the next couple of years, all the marketing hype behind the Volt won't help GM one bit nor will 10,000 Volts per year, however, a direct Prius-contender could.
posted by Dahcredyns at
8:50 AM
17 Comments:
And yet you sound surprised. You should've seen it coming.
Perhaps. I'm not that surprised. I just kept hoping that GM would re-evaluate its hybrid car position.
I kept hoping they would come out with a Prius fighter. Maybe they could have called it Spark and used some E Flex, or Voltics electric drive, components in it, while developing the Volt.
Start challenging the Prius directly, while helping develop the Voltics architecture as the battery and aerodynamic issues of the Volt were hammered out.
I think that would have converted many GM haters into believers. Instead, the Volt has just been fodder for GM-supporters to fight GM-haters, but it has not brought in new consumers, at least not yet.
Had GM taken more serious action, then haters might have believed that GM really had changed. Instead, GM is proceeding exactly as its critics would expect.
GM didn't lie to you. They just stretched the truth by decades and about 20,000 dollars. What a crock of shit.
This makes me sad. I want the Volt team to succeed. But marketing is not enough.
I want a plugin. A BEV or an "RE-EV". Volt was just the first. Can't afford a Tesla, so will I have to turn to MINI, Smart, or Mitsubishi (Nissan? Ford?) when my Corolla finally dies? Prius is pretty good, but it needs a plug!
I'm a GM-hater, willing to give them a chance because of Volt and Toyota disavowing the existence of the RAV4-EV. My confidence was/is in the Volt team. If its all an illusion then there will be nothing they can do to salvage their reputation with this potential customer. Sayonara!
The Volt is no longer a game changer. BYD's F3DM is. BYD beat everyone by at LEAST one year, probably more, proving to the world there is no longer any reason for delay. GM and Volt team should honestly be ashamed, I know I am.
I probably would not buy a Volt now just on personal principals.
The GM EV1 was a real game changer, so much so that GM had to crush it.
The Volt isn't an illusion. It will be a real vehicle. It just won't have a real impact on GM for quite some time.
And the Volt team is, without question, a very dedicated and passionate group of people.
Nothing has really changed regarding the Volt since its debut. It is basically on schedule.
My disappointment is in the way GM decided marketing, rather than a Prius fighter, was the best way to challenge the Prius and fuel economy until the Volt program was in high gear - something GM knew would take a good decade.
Jabroni- I was reading an article in the DetroitNews about BYD, and they have yet to let an impartial journalist drive one of their plug-ins. So BYD could be doing a lot of fancy marketing as well.
The Volt was a stunt to get more money to keep GM alive. They knew their empire was crumbling.
That doesn't mean the Volt team knew...but the top brass knew.
Honestly Dahc, if they had a real Prius competitor, they would have used it and brought it out. They have nothing.
And as I have always maintained, they don't deserve to be in business.
But GM could have developed a direct Prius-contender. They have the ability. They chose to optimize their hybrid drive towards large vehicles.
The Volt is a real car, but the Volt was significantly developed to get consumers to think differently about GM, to realize that GM had changed. That it's quality is better. That it's a technology leader.
Yet, they tried to change perception via marketing, not a product - just the promise of a product.
To think Volt marketing was enough to counter a million Prius sales doesn't make sense, and it's exactly what GM-haters would expect GM to do. 4 years of marketing before you sell even 1 vehicle?
gm will have marketed how the Volt has changed GM for 5 or 6 years before Gm even sells 10,000 volts - an insignificant amount of vehicles. by the time GM sells 100,000 volts, toyota will have sold several million hybrids.
had GM launched a Prius-contender concurrently with the Volt, i bet they would have converted a massive number of gm-haters - all of for the cost of a fraction of one year's marketing budget - a budget that is largely focused on promoting gas-guzzlers.
i still believe in the potential of the volt, but i find it inexcusable not to have done more today and the last several years.
on a final note - i've been hammering GM a lot lately, but that is only because the Volt is so well known. every other automakers, except Honda, is equally as pathetic.
Dahc,
You're not considering that making a one off vehicle and comparing it to a mass produced one is not a fair comparison.
When you sit in a Prius, regardless of what people think, it's a high quality super reliable vehicle. This is a concept GM knows nothing about.
For GM to make ONE Volt and then say their quality is better...look at us...we have a competitor is ludicrous on their part.
Toyota's problem is that they shot themselves in the foot by making stupidly inefficient vehicles like the Tundra, Sequoia, etc...the same garbage tha GM makes.
Honda's problem is that they had a wonderful hybrid platform with the Fit...but instead decided to design a monster called the Insight.
I'm not just pounding on GM...but let's face it, GM leads the way in hypocrisy and garbage vehicles...save Chrysler.
well, actually, that's exactly what i'm saying, which is why i think that GM should have taken on the prius directly as soon as possible.
don't talk the talk, walk the walk. make 100,000 nimh power prius contenders and PROVE you've changed. don't tell me how your technology is going to leapfrog the prius 10 years from now.
but, maybe you're right. maybe they couldn't make a reliable prius-contender, which is the impression they've created by putting their solution so far into the future.
but ur last point is the best. i think the entire auto industry needs to be destroyed to a large extent, and i include toyota in that.
when it comes to personal transportation, we need a fresh start. we need to get completely out of the box. but i'm starting to believe such change isn't possible if america is leading the way.
I agree with you there 100%. Alot of people are dismissing hydrogen as a future energy source or fuel.
I think that considering it is an outside of the box thinking.
Alot of naysayers are saying it's not possible..too difficult, etc etc...blaming pro-hydrogen people that they are in it for the money, etc...like the crude oil folks aren't?
Indigo Incarnates
I, for one, had only intermittant belief in GM's positive intentions. When they raised the estimated price from $30k to $52k and then started talking about leasing the batteries, I know the Volt was just a marketing ploy and not a serious product.
If Toyota or Honda had developed the Volt it would hhave been on sale by now.
GM will probably end up selling the patents to Big Oil like they did in the 1990s when they yanked the EV1 away from several thousand enthusiastic consumers.
GM deserves to go out of business Lutz deserves to live out his retirement as a Wal Mart greeter.
Indigo-
Independent mechanics have been pumping out plug-in Prius hybrids for years now, yet Toyota has not offered one for sale.
Also, when Toyota does begin selling its first plug-in Prii, they are only going to get about 12 miles of plug-in range if I recall correctly.
Thus, the battery requirements of the Volt are far more intensive then the battery requirements of a plug-in Prius.
I have no doubts that GM is serious about the Volt. My issues are with the way it was marketed. GM wasn't as forthright about how long it would really take to ramp up production to numbers that matter initially, when it appears they knew all along it was going to take a long time to produce the Volt in numbers that mattered.
Thinking that you could fill this void only with the marketing of a future product, as Toyota sold millions of hybrids, I believe, is a horrible way to show you've changed. To me, it shows you haven't changed at all.
Still, again, I fully believe the Volt will be a great car. However, will it be a great car that is cost-effective for both consumers and GM? I'm not too sure about that at this point. And, if it's not cost-effective for the masses, it's game changing technology won't really change the game much.
I think GM's estimate on MPG is way too conservative. They should market Volt with infinite MPG, assuming it is only driven for less than 40 miles every day, and no gas used. So, 40/0 is infinite, what a breakthrough!
last anon-
That's nonsense. According to battery researchers from Argonne Labs, the Volts real world EV range will probably be more like 28 - 32 miles, and could drop as low as 10 miles in some conditions.
And, all for only $40,000 - a price at which GM still loses money on every sale. Genius!
So this is to revolutionize GM? The Chevy Citation was to do just that in the 80s, only to be plagued with problems and tons of recalls.
Well, in the short term, the Volt is about marketing. In that respect, it has been a success.
Unfortunately, it will take a decade or so to find out if the Volt or Voltecs have any real juice behind them.
Overall, I think the Volt has been a pretty smart marketing move, but referring to the Volt as a possible gimmick was a little extreme on my part.
GM had to get into the game and they jumped in. And, even if the Volt never takes off, the Volt experience should pay off in other ways. At least it better.
And, while getting into the game, GM figured it might as well use Volt hype to try change the perception of GM as an automaker lacking innovation and quality.
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