GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

The Chevrolet Cruze is the gas-powered sister car to the Chevy Volt, riding atop the same global compact delta platform.  It is also one of GM’s greatest hopes for its future, a feature-packed luxury-like small car in an affordable price range.  It is designed to sell at high volumes and compete head on with bread and butter cars like the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic.  And unlike GM’s past small cars is to be sold at a profit.

The car has been on sale for more than a year internationally with over 165,000 having been sold, and starting today launches in the United States.  The first US retail Cruze rolled off GMs Lordstown Ohio production line at 10:30 AM today and will be delivered to a dealership. The configurator is now online, and pricing will begin below $17,000.

Accompanying the launch of GMs most important car next to the Volt, will be an advertising blitz including television commercials.  Movie and TV star Tim Allen, perhaps known best for his most famous role on the Home Improvement TV series, is GMs choice for the voice and spokesperson for the car, and indeed the Chevrolet brand as a whole.

Joel Ewanick who comes from Hyundai and is GMs new marketing chief told Automotive News his views on advertising the Chevrolet brand.  He said GM wont hammer home the message that Chevrolet is an American icon.  ”The nice thing about Chevrolet is that people know it’s an American brand,” he said. “We don’t need to remind them of the obvious.”

Ewanick doesn’t prefer the term social media it seems.  ”Maybe we need to change the language, it’s not media, it’s social engagement,” he said. “Aren’t we causing a conversation? Media is when you buy television or print.”  Whatever you call it, he promised some new social initiatives.  ”We’re going to do interesting things ,” he said.  ”Even this fall with the Cruze launch. ”

He also doesn’t believe Chevrolet needs a special theme or tagline. “I think the bow tie speaks for itself.” said. “And you’ll see us use the bow tie prominently and proudly in everything we do. ”

Ewanick feels strongly about having halo cars for the brand, and sees them as a good thing.  ”We should be using the Corvette to make a statement about Chevrolet,” he said. “Tying the Corvette to Chevrolet is a beautiful thing.”

“The Chevrolet brand has several halos, he said.  ”The Camaro could be a halo. You could look at the Volt as a halo product.”

“I hope we turn the Cruze into a halo in that segment,” he added.

GM has released two 30 seconds commercials including Allen’s narration which have begun appearing on national television.

You can see them below:

Source (GM) and (Automotive News)

People often ask why GM doesn’t seem to be advertising the Volt.

It turns out now that launch is near, the process has begun.  Since GM announced the new initial launch markets of Texas and New York, print, television, and newspaper ads have begun appearing in those regions.

At the top of this article you can see a copy of the Volt print ad that ran among other places in the New York Times.  At the bottom of this article you can see a 30 second Chevrolet Volt television commercial.

I also had the follwing discussion on this with Tony DiSalle who is GMs director of Volt marketing.

How about people who get confused about the 40 mile range, do you think there is some education needed as some people see the LEAF as being somehow better and how will you go about correcting that?
There’s no question. How we are going about doing it? One way is to talk to you and people like yourself to get the word out. Clearly we have a lot more work to do digitally ourselves. You will absolutely see messaging from us from an advertising and marketing perspective to try to get the word out as well. You’re absolutely right, this is neat, it is a great marketing challenge as there isn’t a clear frame of reference for this. We’re kind of in many ways because the car is so innovative, we have to over-communicate in order to land the message with the consumer.

In terms of how the Volt does what it does, how we are able to achieve this notion of you don’t have to sacrifice your lifestyle. You charge your Volt overnight you take it out running errands, your plans change, don’t worry about it, you don’t have to come home and recharge. We have a backup system that’s going to get you where you need to go.

We’re working on creative concepts to help bring that to life right now, and also a lot of the PR outreach talking to people like yourself is really important.

The grassroots approach?
Yes. And I’ll also tell you we have a saying here that there is no better marketing told for the Volt than the Volt. Getting people in the car is going to be very very important.

You mean buyers and owners?
Buyers and having dealers demonstrate the vehicle and all of those kind of things. Auto shows, events, those kinds of grassroots things, as easy and as basic and as simple as it sounds, you can literally have somebody sit in the car, walk them around it, and in many cases drive it. I have found when you can do that the car can and does sell and educate itself.

I hear people ask why GM isn’t advertising the Volt in a traditional way. There’s no cool ads when Nissan is doing all this stuff for the LEAF. Are big flashy Volt ads something we will eventually see?
Oh yeah, you will at some point. Keep in mind we’re still five months away from launch. As we get closer you’ll obviously see more and more from an advertising perspective from us.

I can’t tell you specifically the medium and those kinds of things, those are things that were working through right now. There’s clearly an intent to advertise.

Will we see some celebrity endorsements, or things along those lines?
There’s nothing for me to announce to you today…we know this neurologist in New York…

I hope you enjoyed your July 4th celebrations, I know I did. Along with several GM-Volt readers we joined the Volt and members of it’s marketing team for a BBQ and scenic view of the NYC Macy’s fireworks show over the Hudson River. Thank you GM!

As the picture above attests to, the Volt made it there, all the way from Austin Texas, 1776 miles. Seeing the Volt on the rooftop of Pier 92 with the fireworks going off behind it was an awesome display indeed.

The Volt set off from Austin Texas on July 1st around 3PM Eastern time and arrived in New York City at Noon on July 4th, a little under 3 days. The car was driven almost exclusively by a Volt controls engineer named Will Handzel, who said the car performed flawlessly, as expected. He called the trip something like “a party on wheels” with numerous stops along the way for staged photo ops and meet and greets, and some test drives, like the one in Gaithersburg MD.

Will was amazed at how many people recognized the car, and described a few times along late night drives in places like Arkansas, when cars would follow along for miles and with occupants waving in support.

I rode along with Will for the last 45 minutes from NJ to NY, I’ll have more on that drive shortly.

While we where driving GM has posted the car’s handsfree mobile number on Facebook, and every minute or so fans from around the country, though mostly California, checked in to say hi. Just about everyone asked for the car’s fuel economy, but Will declined to say. He still claimed figures are being finalized with the EPA, so can’t be released, and wouldn’t commit to the 9 gallon gas tank number. It was clear from the dash display, however, that a full tank would produce about 340 miles of range. GM has publicly stated that fuel economy in charge-sustaining mode would offer the best fuel economy of any vehicle in its size class, which for 2010 compact cars is about 26 city / 35 highway for a Toyota Corolla, for example.

Also, the team did charge the car two of three nights spent at hotels. In one case they couldn’t find a plug in the parking garage, in the other two cases they ran an extension cord out of their motel room window to the parking lot.

GM staged this Freedom Drive to illustrate how the Volt, although an electric car, is not tethered to a specific electric range as pure battery EVs are. This offers drivers freedom to do what they want when they need to, while at the same time for core daily commuting, using no gas just as a pure electric would.

GMs Volt marketing director Tony DiSalle has said “the best advertising for the Volt is the Volt itself,” illustrating GM’s advertising tactic, that this Freedom Drive embodied; grassroots test drives and word-of-mouth. This approach GM feels is a better fit for the Volt, getting people to see touch and talk about the car, rather than creating fancy media advertisements.

In contrast, here for example, is Nissan’s first ad for the LEAF:

Certainly the Volt will have its own traditional ad campaign, as will the LEAF go on a cross country meet, greet, and drive tour. Only the LEAF would have a much harder time doing the freedom drive, and could never have done it in three days.

GM has already announced a partnerhsip with Google to enable the use of Google Maps on the screen-based nav systems in their vehicles, including the Chevy Volt.  Now the company has announced plans to cooperate with another digital powerhouse. GM and Micorsoft are cooperating to create a virtual Chevy Volt driving experience using Microsoft’s upcoming Kinect technology.  The Kinect system is a new extension for the X-Box gaming system in which users interact with objects on the screen without the use of a controller. The system recognizes the gamer and his gestures through sensors and that information is then used to render the on-screen experience.

When the system arrives in the fall, the Chevy Volt will appear in the Microsoft X-Box 360 ‘Kinect Joy Ride’ game.  It will also appear on Windows 7 spartphones, and MSN Autos even sooner.  X-Box Kinect users who first view a Volt video ad on their console will then be able to unlock the Volt gaming experience.  The ad campaign will start this summer and may also appear in kiosks at various events.

“The Volt applies advanced environmental technology to give Chevrolet drivers freedom from the gas pump, making it one of the most exciting developments the automotive industry has seen in years,” said Jim Campbell, U.S. vice president, Chevrolet Marketing. “Our marketing campaign needs to reflect this.

“Kinect allows us to bring the excitement of the showroom to the living rooms of our customers,” Campbell said. “It’s a way for us to replicate the experience of physically engaging with a product that is essential to the customer’s purchasing decision.”

Once inside the game players can custom design their Volt on a special microsite and then take it for a virtual joy ride in the game using their hands to simulate turning the steering wheel and moving the shifter.

So for those who wonder when GM will finally begin to seriously advertise the Volt it looks like the time is upon us, and for a while in most of the country, this game may be the only way to have a Volt anyway.  Let’s hope not for too long.

Check out the GM video below:

(GM)

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.