Lets face it, GM has been promoting the Volt message for three years, as we have here as well.
As a result, a lot of people have at least heard about the car, perhaps even the majority of the US population. Mostly this message has been spread through non-conventional social media and news publications, not traditional commercial advertising.
Since the car will only be released in limited numbers for its first year of production, and demand will far outstrip supply, should GM even bother spending money to advertise it?
“We are still working through the marketing and advertising plan but clearly the public relations buzz and social media attention is most helpful and will help offset expenditures for traditional communication methods,” said Maria Rohrer, former director of global Volt marketing.
“Advocates and enthusiasts like yourself are already on board for sure and we’re thankful for your support,” she said. “That said, I think you would agree that there’s still some need to make sure we open up the idea of driving electrically (targeted properly) to as many as possible for a sustained plan going forth.”
Unfortunately, Ms. Rohrer was not long for her new position as director of global Volt marketing. GM sources have told GM-Volt.com that she has been reassigned, after only a few weeks on the job.
Whether this had do to with her masterminding the infamous Chevy Volt Dance is at this point a matter of conjecture.
Chevrolet has worked very hard this holiday weekend showing off the Volt in Southern California, including providing drives to influencers such as Jay Leno. Yesterday the first wave of journalists test drives occurred in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium. This group included Edmunds, Popular Mechanics, Huffington Post, Autoblog, and the LA Times.
Edmund’s John O’dell was the first to publish his account calling it “informative, but far too short.”
“The Volt felt solid as a rock,” he wrote. “Well-grounded and nimble with its low-slung, 400-pound lithium-ion battery pack really gluing it to the road.” He called its EV “quiet and smooth,” and reported the car to be competent when in charge sustaining mode. The crossover from EV to CS mode was seamless and with acceptable noise levels.
Once again the occasional engine rev was described as “off-putting,” like putting a regular car in neutral and revving the engine a bit. Chief engineer Andrew Farah told him GM will rectify this, something he advised me he was “very confident ” would occur. He also explained the racing occurred whenever the battery level dropped lower thane where the car wanted it to be (about 30% SOC).
O’Dell found steering to be “tight and responsive” but acceleration to be less than the MINI E that a reporter brought to the track (GM refused to allow a Volt verses MINI-E drag race).
There was not enough room to test 0 to 60 which GM reports is less than 9 seconds. O’Dell noted there was sports-mode which added 26 hp.
O’Dell thought the road test was rigged because it was held on a section of the parking lot that was flat with a lot of broken asphalt and therefore road noise might have masked some of the car’s noise. He also didn’t get a long time review because he had to share his hour with three others Edmunds drivers (I’m going it alone).
O’Dell also speculated the Volt’s total range would be 340 miles with an 8 to 10 gallon tank and therefore would achieve CS fuel economy between 30 and 38 MPG.
In the end his report was positive and he concluded “Verdict: A solid car with loads of promise from a technology that undoubtedly will help bring clean electric driving into the mainstream.”
Popular Mechanics Barry Winfeild also reported a similar positive experience and wrote,”our brief experience with this Volt prototype in LA was impressive.”
Today at 9:40 am PST is a live assembly from Harvard-Westlake Middle School for more than 800 students and staff about the basics of electricity, including why it’s important and how it can be used to transform the way we drive. Middle school teachers and students from across the country were invited to participate, and over 100 have signed up. You can watch the presentation live in the viewer below.
Also, I am taking off for LA early this morning and will be getting into my Volt for a test drive at 1PM CST. You can follow my progress on Twitter in the scrolling box at the bottom of this post or on the twitter app or website of your choice. Soon you can expect my full review and HD video.
GM is gearing up to announce the Chevy Volt’s first commercial markets at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Wednesday December 2nd.
Clearly, Southern California will be one of those places, which comes as no surprise considering the state’s long track record and interest in electric vehicles. It was after all the same place where the EV-1 was leased.
In the days leading up to and beyond that announcement GM has orchestrated a blitz of Chevy Volt appearances in the area. This author too, a life-long New Yorker, will be shipped out and in attendance for the festivities.
According to GM spokesperson Dave Darovitz, “the Volt will be popping up all over town, mingling with the stars and generally showing off to consumers and media alike.”
The Volt is on display at several car enthusiast locations such as it was at “Bob’s Big Boy” in Burbank last night, and ”Cars and Coffee” this morning.
Volt engineer Andrew Farah also took the car over to Jay Leno’s garage on Friday afternoon where the famed comedian and car enthusiast got to take it for a spin.
“What I like is that the Volt’s range isn’t limited like other electric vehicles,” Leno was quoted as saying.
It is also spent black Friday and is spending the weekend at the Century City Mall which is off Santa Monica blvd.
On Monday GM will stream a live webcasts of an assembly at a posh California middle school which will also be simulcast to interested participating classrooms across the nation, teaching students how electricity can be used to transform the way we drive.
Later that evening there will be a real time stream from an LA plug-in panel discussion.
Midday Tuesday there will be a consumer luncheon at which time the Volt paint color winner will be announced and given their well-deserved test drive.
Then on Wednesday morning during the opening hours of the LA Auto Show GM will announce the first Volt markets. Thursday will bring a press conference from the Mayor of LA (hint).
I will be present for most of these activities and will try to capture as much as I can in real-time. Myself and several journalists will be getting our Volt test drives. These will take place in the Dodger’s stadium parking lot which GM has rented and closed for the day to turn it into a private track.
If you haven’t already get yourself a Twitter account, and follow me at twitter.com/gmvolt. I’ll keep you up-to-date with real time tweets from my blackberry (as long as the battery lives and I’m not driving) and will post all I can right here on GM-Volt.com. Also use your new accounts to hit the Retweet button at the bottom of our posts, and help amplify the Volt signal.
We are bearing witness to the beginning of the last phase folks!
Looking to bolster sales in a post CFC (Cash for Clunkers) world, GM launched a new campaign entitled “May the Best Car Win,” led by a 60 day ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ promotion, designed to bring more buyers into their showrooms.
Beginning September 14th, the premise is straight forward: you buy a GM car; you later decide it just does not offer enough cup holders for your needs, or perhaps does not have the same quality of cup holder as the competition, then between day 30 and 60 of ownership, you can return the car for a full refund. Simple. Easy. Excellent.
Ok, there are a couple catches. For starters, it is only valid for surviving brands, so you can not return a 2010 Vibe to your now Pontiac-less, sales starved, Buick/GMC dealer as a early Christmas present. Same goes if you leased the car, or if you have driven it more than 3,999 miles from purchase.
Unlike some recent marketing snafus, (see any Buick commercial in the past couple years, or the 230 MPG fiasco), this one seems solid, and pretty original. A good combination.
The program gives some real peace of mind and just general good vibes to prospective buyers. It may actually offer some enticement to have shoppers come back and consider a GM product, time will tell. It is still early, but I would rate this akin to Hyundai’s “you lose your job, you can lose our car” campaign…which was very well received. Best of all, the cost to GM itself is fairly minimal, unlike putting $3,500 on the hood of a car to get it out the door.
So that is a winner, good job and good night, right?
Sadly no. GM also decided to ‘jump the shark’ at the same time by having Chairman Lee Iacocca deliver the program directly to the public with some straight talk. Alright, they didn’t do that, Mr. Iacocca was not available as a shill for hire. (How awesome would that commercial have been though?) In Lee’s place, they had newly-minted Chairman Edward Whitacre Jr. dub his voice over some old 80s Chrysler commercials. Ok, that is also untrue. GM shot a whole ‘new’ commercial from scratch, with GM’s Chairman doing the walk and talk.
About halfway through the spot, Mr. Whitacre deadpans a line that probably should have been left on the editing room floor, “We are putting our money where our mouth is.” Erm, sorta. Who isn’t mumbling at this point, “putting OUR money where your mouth is,” under their breath here?
Watch GM Chairman Ed Whitacre Here:
Watch then Chrysler Chairman Lee Iaccoca Here:
Side note: The new GM commercial has some shots of the Volt (huzzah for black), a ‘hood peak’ shot (that we are not unfamiliar with here at GM-Volt) of the new entry level Cadillac, and the as yet unnamed Buick Delta II CUV in clay form.
Not content to stop there, GM throws more gas on the ‘going too far’ bonfire, by introducing this site, The Best Car Wins, which basically asks you five simple questions on which brand you feel has the best fuel efficiency, best safety, best quality, best performance and best overall cars. At the end of the quick questionnaire it displays what the public opinion (to date) is, with a note to please, “stay tuned.” I’m thinking, I probably won’t be back.
You would figure being a GM site, some of the answers should come up with a GM brand…but no. As of going to press, the respective answers to those five questions were Toyota, Volvo, Honda, BMW, BMW. I guess nothing says “come to GM” more than by promoting the fact that everyone else believes that other company’s do things better than you do.
Overall thoughts? Good idea, bad follow through. Hopefully the site, and that commercial die a quick death, and the program lives on, filling a hole for GM in the near term.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find a dealer with a in-stock, black Corvette ZR1 with the 3ZR package and chrome aluminum wheels, but hold the floor mats please (they don’t give refunds on dealer accessories).
A mysterious viral advertising campaign has surfaced on television and the Internet this week, which has been further amplified over the blogosphere. In fact, flickr, facebook , YouTube, and blog sites have surface around it.
A simple green background shows the number 230, with a winking electric outlet instead of the zero. Below is the date 8-11.
AdAge determined that the source of the campaign is none other than GM, but the automaker and its ad agencies won’t say what it means.
Speculation has varied on its meaning from the MPG of the Buick plug-in to the MPG of the Volt or even something to do with charging at 220V.
GM is holding a press conference in Detroit on August 11th, and yes I will be there.
Reports quote sources as saying the number will be the Volt’s official MPG rating, but how they came to it remains a mystery; highway, city, average, none of the above? And if so how was it calculated? The EPA city cycle is 11.04 miles, the highway cycle is 10.26 miles. The car goes 40 mile without any gas, and 78% of drivers drive less than 40 miles per day (utility factor). Do your own math.
Here’s my guess:
I heard of a method to determine the MPG of an EREV; first the car is driven from a full battery until it reaches charge-sustaining mode, then one more cycle is driven. If we use the highway schedule, the first 40 miles are electric. One more cycle is 11 more miles. If the Volt gets 50 MPG in charge sustaining mode, it will use .22 gallons of gas for that 11 miles. Thus 51 miles/.22 gallons = 231.8 MPG.
We can have fun guessing for now, but be sure to logon to GM-Volt.com on Tuesday morning and we will have the answer as soon as it hits.
Plus, if you have any questions you want me to ask the Volt team and execs while I am there, leave them in the comments.
[UPDATE: The method referred to to measure the efficiency of an EREV is far more complex and still under development. Though my calculation came out similar the methodology GM actually used to determine the MPG was different. See this post.]
Yes I know Bob Lutz sold all his GM stock and GM is considering moving out of its Detroit headquarters, and faces highly probable bankruptcy in less than three weeks, but how about some music?
Singer/Songwriter Sarah Spiegel (shown above) wrote me to hear a Chevy Volt jingle she produced. Sarah was a national spokesperson for General Motors last summer and is currently recording a CD and writing jingles.
She says some GM execs have heard this.
You can hear it by playing the audio file at the bottom of the post.
Lyrics:
Once I had a guzzler,
I could not afford,
It cost me more every day.
Once I had a guzzler,
Now it’s gone,
Chevy Volt’s here to stay.
Don’t you remember?
It was “filler up”?
So much we couldn’t‘ pay?
Don’t you remember
Where all your money went?
E flex came and saved the day.
Chevy Volt! Chevy Volt, leaves me money for play.
Chevy Volt! Chevy Volt, Chevy Volt’s here to stay.
Performed by Sarah Spiegel
Lyrics by Sarah Spiegel
Music by Eddie Hedges
(c) GOOT MUSIC ASCAP
And if there are any other singer/songwriters out there why not give it a shot too? Maybe we can hold a contest for the best Chevy Volt jingle.
