GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Here we are in the year of the intial Volt rollout, and the dream of starting to wean this country off of oil is about to begin.

2010 is going to be a true turning point in the history of the automobile.  Not only will the Volt rollout but so too will roll out the Nissan LEAF, the plugin Toyota Prius, the Ford Focus EV and many others electric cars.

The intial market for the Volt as the only reasonably priced EREV will be strong, and frankly I suspect no matter how much GM charges, demand will far outstrip supply for some time.  It seems logical that if GM can line up the suppliers and build cars in high volume they should try to sell as many as they can at a profit.  Clearly GM expects to go into full production after one to two years, and bring down the prices by the next generation set to begin in 2013.  But why limit early sales?  Is it out of sheer conservatisvism?

Limited sales will make the car more of a halo prodct, improving GM’s image and bringing people into showrooms, but generating few sales.  If they can build them, and can sell them at a profit right at the start, why shouldn’t they?

I had a chance to ask this strategy question of Maria Rohrer.  She is GM’s new director of Volt Marketing.

Do you see the Volt as being a halo car to bring people into showrooms, or will you make the effort to sell as many Chevy Volts as the market dictates as soon as they go on sale, and for a profit?

Yes, we see Volt in a pivotal role for Chevrolet.

We believe Volt will bring folks into Chevrolet that have never considered us before. That’s an exciting proposition because Volt can be a ‘portal’ to help folks see how far the rest of our cars, trucks and crossovers have improved in quality, style and value.

Regarding the sales of Volt, yes, the market will dictate to a certain extent and as you know, we are going to launch regionally to start, California already announced. Importantly, we want to ensure a fantastic owner experience as we progress for a car as special as the Volt. More to come.

I once asked Fritz Henderson when he was the CEO of GM what his projection about electric car volumes was.  He replied at the time that in 10 years combustion cars would still account for the “lion’s share” of cars sold.

I can’t say I was thrilled with his answer though unfortunately he may be right. Henderson of course is now gone, replaced at least temporarily by his ouster, Ed Whitacre.

Since the sudden replacement I have been trying to contact Mr. Whitacre for his thoughts on electrification of the automobile.  I realize Mr. Whitacre is just a businessman, and the former CEO of AT&T has admitted he knows little to nothing about the car industry.

GM vice chairman Bob Lutz assured me Whitacre wouldn’t be making any program decisions, that would be left to Lutz and another vice-chairman Tom Stephens.  Lutz also said no one would change GM’s focus on electrification.

My quest to speak with Mr. Whitacre remains a work in progress, but I may soon get the chance.

However, his first public comment about the topic did appear in the Washington Post last week.

“I know we have to have an electric car,” he told reporters.

Now wait a minute.  That sort of sounds like what a kid might say about a plate of brussel sprouts.  Not exactly impassioned.

Perhaps Jim McDowell, CEO of BMW North America might think differently.  His company after all built the MINI E, runs its field test, and has committed to future electric car mass production.

“I would argue that the case for the electric car is not proven,” he told the Washington Post. “We’re not quite sure people are willing to go for it. We’re asking consumers to pay more and get less. Our view is: Proceed with caution.”

This gentleman doesn’t exactly seem enthused either.

To his credit, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has been the most ebullient about electric cars, predicting 10 percent of global sales by 2020 would be for electric cars, and committing to mass produce the Nissan LEAF EV by the end of next year.  But he remains in the minority among his peers it seems.

So while the march toward electrification of the automobile may now be unstoppable, why do people in key position seem to ambivalent about it?  Is this the best message to be sending?

We also know Ed Whitacre only plans to hold his post temporarily.  There is now an opportunity for GM to put an EV enthusiast at the helm.

Source (Washington Post)

Now that the Chevy Volt program is on the home stretch with an eye towards launch in less than a year, GM has created a new position, director of global Volt marketing.  Maria Rohrer has been assigned the job, and I had the chance to sit down with her for a brief Q&A.

What’s your position?
I am the director of global Volt on the marketing side.
I work on coordinating with all of the countries around the world developing the global Chevrolet brand. I will have global Volt launch marketing responsibilities including here in the US.

Is launch marketing a new chapter? It wasn’t talked about a year ago.
It was not. With my appointment, I came in so many days ago with global marketing responsibility already. And since Volt will be global in nature. It will be here, it will be in Europe, it will be in China, it will Be in Canda. It’s primarily global. From that standpoint it makes sense to look at it from a global standpoint. We do have very capable peole on the ground running the Chevrolet business. So we’re going to be coordinating with all of the countries where its going to be going.

How many countries will the Volt eventually be available in?
It’s a sizable list in Europe plus China, Canda, and the US.

How about South America?
Not right now

India?
Not right now.

Not Korea or Japan?
No.

Do you already have a clear internal roadmap for US rollout of the Volt?
We are putting the plan together as we speak. So stay tuned, we are going to make announcements as we get closer and closer to launch.

It will start regional and eventually get to national. Chevrolet is a national brand.

What are the pros and cons to a simultaneous rollout everywhere in the US at once as opposed to just California first? People on my site are all around the country and want it now.
There is a very strong sense of acceptance of this kind of vehicle in California. That’s number one.

You think the demand is greatest there?
The demand is absolutely the greatest there. It doesn’t mean we wont have demand elsewhere, we definitely will. Volt is the kind of vehicle that is gaining lots of different traction all over the place. I think people in California understand what it stands for, what its all about, are open to diffent propulsion systems, and this is a market that will receive it from day one very very well.

Absolutely it is our intent thought to make it as national as possible. Strategically the California market early on makes a lot of sense.

I am struggling with that, what’s the downside of letting everyone have it all at once?
There is no downside but, for example, I spent a lot of years at Saturn. My background is such that I am incredibly interested in pursuing the customer experience as we roll this out. So there is a whole separate element separate from the rollout which is making sure that everywhere we go that we can actually nail the custom experience as we go. That is incredibly important to this vehicle and to the company. Doing it haphazardly I think will jeopardize that.

So you’re saying a slow careful gradual rollout?
I’m not saying slow. I’m saying careful and calculated making sure that the customers that are buygin into us absolutely have the kind of treatment, the kind of service, the kind of experience that I would expect them to have for something that is as unique and unusual as our electric vehicle.

What kind of special treatment are the early buyers going to get?
We’re still working on that . Clealry with our renewed and refreshed dealer body, healthier with a greater sense of how we have to take care of our customers, at Chevrolet we’re absolutely going after the best experience. With an electric vehicle there are just going to be needs that are different than for the rest of the vehicles in the showroom.

You mean servicing?
Yes. Its a different propulsion system that they haven’t seen. It will require education training and a different level of attention. The role is to treat everybody wonderfully in the Chevrolet stores. The vehicle by itself technically will require some different knowledge bases and different certifications that we will have.

I want to be very sure that we are securing that relationship and that experience as we go.

How about the issues if installing 240V chargers being a unique part of the buyers experience. Do you forsee a potential problem there? For example BMW with the MINI-E program had a difficult time getting chargers approved by some local municipalities.
Im not worried about it but I’m cognizant of it because of some of the feedback we’re getting is just like what you say. We are looking at whether that is something that we would want to do. I think as I look at the nature of the consumers we are likely to get, there are a lot of consumers that already have 240 running. Most people have 240 lined up already, whether its in the garage is another story. I’m taking all of that into consideration. Is that something that we want to do or, if people coming to us are very capable in some cases they may just want to do it themselves?

You might give them that option?
We might. We are learning from all the feedback that we’re getting.

Can you give me a picture about how long its going to be from when the first market gets it until every market gets it in the US?
Hard to say at this point, but it all depends on how we secure the customer experience along the way.

Would you consider working with the GM-Volt.com Want List in some way?
I won’t say no at this point.

OK I know, you may be getting a little tired of discussing the infamous Chevy Volt Dance by now, but attention to it continues as it speaks to possible bigger marketing problems at GM.

We know GM has recognized it hasn’t done a great job in recent years at marketing which was one of the reasons ex-CEO Fritz Henderson put Bob Lutz in charge, only to be removed from his position by Henderson’s ouster Ed Whitacre.  Lutz was replaced by Susan Docherty who as new head of sales and marketing at GM wasn’t even aware of the Volt Dance phenomenon until a blogger emailed her.

Automotive journalist John Voelcker did some investigating and discovered that Lutz actually wanted to license the song “Electric Car” by “They Might be Giants” for the Volt (see video below).  Lutz was ignored and instead the current Volt song was created and released to the world.  The intention was to aim for the school-aged crowd as an educational tool.

If you think this was all a creative trick to bring attention to the Volt, it wasn’t.  I wasn’t a secret accomplice and didn’t know the video would go viral.

Docherty apparently isn’t very happy about the reaction either. She gave the following response in an email to a blogger:

Just viewed it (the video) a few seconds ago. My thoughts are that we (as a team) can do much better – the Volt is a game changer not only for Chevrolet, but for GM and for our industry. Our Chevrolet Volt advertising, marketing and go to market strategy will be as innovative as the car. We may have missed on this one, but we won’t going forward.

GM’s VP of Communications Chris Preuss seems to be taking it more lightly.

“CIA now using Volt dance video to crack terrorists,” he tweeted.

Source (GreenCarReports) and (GMSource)

On Monday I posted a video called the Chevy Volt Dance on YouTube and wrote about it here. It was a clip of four dancers dancing to the Chevy Volt theme song called “Chevy Volt and Me” that was performed every hour at the LA Auto Show.

I thought the thing was kind of silly really and made me laugh. What I didn’t know at the time, and which is one of the more fascinating things about the Internet, is that the video would “go viral.”

As of this morning the clip has been viewed over 100,000 times, and has received 717 YouTube comments. It was yesterday’s most popular video in the auto section and has been covered by Autoblog, Jalopnik, Engadget, and CrunchGear and even made it to the front page of Fox News. It has also been covered on countless smaller sites.

This must be a good thing right?

Maybe not. The coverage has been uniformly negative, and often venomous.

Fox put the words “your tax $$ at work” as the caption, for example. The users comments on YouTube have been extreme as well, and for a very popular video to have an average rating of one star shows it is being enjoyed for its badness.

Here are some typical comments from YouTube:

…Chevy: Why would you do this? I have only driven Chevy trucks for my entire driving life. Not anymore. I’m buying a Kia. P.S. Fire the marketing department.

…I have never written, typed or said this in my entire life. I didn’t realize I was saving it for just this occasion…OMG!

…If you think we are impressed, we are. Impressed with the ignorance to stage such a juvenile presentation and the arrogance to do it with our bailout money. Can’t blame this waste on the unions!

…I was 90% sure I’d never buy a chevy volt, now I’m 100% sure.

Now to be fair, GM claims they never intended this to be a widespread commercial about the Volt.

“The Volt song and dance was meant to entertain and educate families about Volt.” said Volt spokesperson Dave Darovitz. “It takes a complex idea in Volt and boils it down in an understandable and fun way targeted at kids and families who attend the show.”

“It was intended to draw people into the stand and create excitement,” he added.

Newly minted chief of GM marketing and sales Susan Docherty claimed “I have not yet seen the Chevrolet Volt song and dance but it sounds like I need to spend some time tonight on the web viewing this.”  By now I’m sure she did.  I wonder what she thought.

Part of the video’s failure is the fact that it was taken out of context.  In fact, the person who filmed it and sent it to me wrote back “we didn’t think the video would get some of the negative reaction it’s been getting.”  She added “It’s a pity people can’t see the whole thing in context, I mean, it was an auto show, not an evening at the Met.”

Anyway, it does seem like GM might be going about Volt marketing in a less than ideal way.  It is a shame to see such a high-tech, groundbreaking and important product trivialized and turned into a laughing stock, but then again maybe all publicity is good publicity.

I’ll close with the excellent Volt commercial GM aired at the 2008 Olympics.  Lets stick to this kind of stuff from now on GM, what do you say?

I bet you thought you had seen and heard it all when we posted the Chevy Volt song here last week.  Well it turns out you hadn’t.

Apparently GM had set that catchy little ditty called “Chevy Volt and Me” to an actual choreographed routine.

Not only does America’s most important upcoming car have its own song, but its own dance as well.

GM played the song along with this dance routine each hour of the LA Auto Show and will be bringing it around  to all the nation’s upcoming auto shows as well.

Special thanks to a fan who captured this video for all of us to see.  And thanks a lot for sticking this song back in our heads again!

This fan who also runs the site called Sunpluggers writes “My husband and I visit your site regularly. We took some video of the Chevy Volt dancers at the LA Car Show; they were very entertaining.”  That’s one way of putting it.

Ladies its OK to try this at home, but guys, not so much.