Well Lyle you were right! Denville, NJ was the first delivery.
But only because of a last minute call to the driver from GM to go there and not Dover, got this info from the driver himself (Great guy btw) the media was all setup at Denville and someone pulled strings there.

It's pretty clear this first delivery was pre-planned by GM. As far as the dealer in Denville pulling strings, as reported above by airton, that's really very unlikely. As I'll try to show, the timing was too tight, the Detroit media would have had no reason to appear at Denville without a reasonable guarantee that this would indeed by the 1st delivery, and I believe the implications are that we're probably being led by GM to believe other things that are simply not true.

I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. As someone on this forum deftly put it the other day, "it's just a car." But I think it's an interesting, detective-style thought exercise-- see if you agree:

1) As far as I know, not a single other buyer was able to take delivery of their car today, which assured there would be no competition for this particular Volt to be first;
2) despite what we've heard about a full day of PDI being necessary for these cars, etc., this car miraculously rolled in Tuesday night and was ready for its photo op at 9am today (about half a day after the truck pulled up, sounds like an all-nighter at the dealership at the very least);
3) When did the buyer, Mr. Jeff Kaffee, have to be notified in order to show up promptly first thing this morning? The article states, "Kaffee flew home Monday from a vacation in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., when he heard the car would be ready today." Given everything we just went through with Monday's roll out, can anyone explain a rational guess at exactly what the chain of events must have been? Because I can't. From what we know, the best case for any random dealer to know anything would be that sometime later on Monday they could see they had a particular Volt inbound, with no scheduled delivery day or time... so how did they know the car "would be ready today" as stated in the quote above?
4) It JUST SO HAPPENS that the buyer is a veteran and retired airline pilot (oo, people love that stuff) and he's TRADING IN A TOYOTA PRIUS! Then he gives the press the perfect soundbite where he says basically that the Prius used to be the latest, most up to date tech, but now that honor belongs to the Volt; do you really think GM just got lucky with that one?
5) Mr. Kaffee's new, first delivered Volt carries a VIN number of 191, which means there were approximately 188 other Volt buyers who got their orders in before he did, presumably weeks before--yet his car managed to take the first truck out of Hamtramck and get delivered to him at least one day before anyone else's; and also on the first day of trucks to the Northeast were cars as low as VIN #8, all of which still await delivery;
6) The Detroit Free Press were all set up bright and early this morning at Denville to get the story out tout de suite; what events could have transpired to make that happen, and in what timeline? Did they drive all night? Take a red-eye? How did they know the first delivery would even be in NJ, no less at this particular dealership?

Of course, in the end it was GM's party to throw, for whoever it felt it wanted to tag. But why the charade that it was a random buyer? I think the facts clearly suggest that this was all arranged at least several days in advance, and here's the most interesting thing to me about that: this arrangement would have been BEFORE that supposed Monday lunch meeting when the engineering team was said to green light the shipment of Volts. It would be really interesting to know if Mr. Kaffee was already in the air from FL, or perhaps landed in Newark, when that meeting supposedly took place.

And another mystery surfaced today: why are cars inbound to NJ suddenly going by rail, starting with today's shipments, when those from the prior 2 days were trucked in direct? This may be unrelated, but an outright conspiracy theory might be that GM needed to direct ship Mr. Kaffee's car to make the planned Wed. delivery, but in order to make it look like a random chance it had to also truck the first couple of day's worth of northeast cars direct to dealers. By also announcing that cars wouldn't ship in build order, that cleared the way for #191 to casually slip in with the rest of the cars on the early fleet of direct shipment car carriers. Using the rails is presumably cheaper and slower, and good enough now that the headline was made early this morning.

It's just my opinion, but I have to give delivery round #1 to Nissan and the Leaf. First and foremost because they picked the people who actually got the very first orders in to be the first to receive their cars. It was straightforward and above board. Like who enjoys waiting at a store counter, and having the guy who came in 10 minutes later get offered assistance before you do?

Now I know, I've been called out by one forum member for being too negative, and I'm willing to plead guilty to that, especially in the context of Volt enthusiasts. But in my own defense, I think I've mainly tried to call things as I see them where good ethics are concerned. I'm still as excited about getting my Volt as before, whenever that will be (it was shipped direct to my NJ dealer yesterday according to Cassens, but so far no sign of it, nor have I received any call from the Volt Advisor Team; still I'm optimistic for Fri or Sat delivery.) But (if I'm right) it's dishonest sh!t like this, which GM seems to think nobody will notice, that makes me just that slightest bit less enthusiastic about being a GM supporter. I'd really prefer they took the high road. It's like I'd have a hard time supporting the Eagles after they brought back Michael Vick. YMMV.

Peace, and good luck to all getting their Volts!

-Bob

Man, you've got a lot of time on your hands not only to type all that out but to come up with all of those scenarios. It is entertaining though. I am sure as Volts spread across the land other early adopters will have their stories told as well just like Mr. Kaffee.

Interesting story, Bob, and well written!

However I'm sure you'll agree with me that within a day (you) or six (me) both of us will be far less interested in obsessing online over Volt minutae like this, because we'll have our cars :)

I think the dealer should get some credit for pushing GM to get their customer as the first dealer sale. GM has a right to choose the first dealer sale just as Nissan did. Image comes first, not the order the cars were manufactured.

Lyle mentioned: "Today there will be 5 simultaneous deliveries including one to a retired airline pilot named Jeffrey Kaffee, in Denville, NJ who is the first overall."

I couldn't help think of the 5 golden tickets that Willy Wonka put in the chocolate bars, but it was Mr. Wonka who picked the winner.

And who knows, after seeing what Nissan did this past weekend, maybe that is what lit a fire under GM to duplicate the rollout, right down to the Prius upgrade!

The Volts are shipping, and that is positive news to me.

It's pretty clear this first delivery was pre-planned by GM. As far as the dealer in Denville pulling strings, as reported above by airton, that's really very unlikely. As I'll try to show, the timing was too tight, the Detroit media would have had no reason to appear at Denville without a reasonable guarantee that this would indeed by the 1st delivery, and I believe the implications are that we're probably being led by GM to believe other things that are simply not true.

I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. As someone on this forum deftly put it the other day, "it's just a car." But I think it's an interesting, detective-style thought exercise-- see if you agree:

1) As far as I know, not a single other buyer was able to take delivery of their car today, which assured there would be no competition for this particular Volt to be first;
2) despite what we've heard about a full day of PDI being necessary for these cars, etc., this car miraculously rolled in Tuesday night and was ready for its photo op at 9am today (about half a day after the truck pulled up, sounds like an all-nighter at the dealership at the very least);
3) When did the buyer, Mr. Jeff Kaffee, have to be notified in order to show up promptly first thing this morning? The article states, "Kaffee flew home Monday from a vacation in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., when he heard the car would be ready today." Given everything we just went through with Monday's roll out, can anyone explain a rational guess at exactly what the chain of events must have been? Because I can't. From what we know, the best case for any random dealer to know anything would be that sometime later on Monday they could see they had a particular Volt inbound, with no scheduled delivery day or time... so how did they know the car "would be ready today" as stated in the quote above?
4) It JUST SO HAPPENS that the buyer is a veteran and retired airline pilot (oo, people love that stuff) and he's TRADING IN A TOYOTA PRIUS! Then he gives the press the perfect soundbite where he says basically that the Prius used to be the latest, most up to date tech, but now that honor belongs to the Volt; do you really think GM just got lucky with that one?
5) Mr. Kaffee's new, first delivered Volt carries a VIN number of 191, which means there were approximately 188 other Volt buyers who got their orders in before he did, presumably weeks before--yet his car managed to take the first truck out of Hamtramck and get delivered to him at least one day before anyone else's; and also on the first day of trucks to the Northeast were cars as low as VIN #8, all of which still await delivery;
6) The Detroit Free Press were all set up bright and early this morning at Denville to get the story out tout de suite; what events could have transpired to make that happen, and in what timeline? Did they drive all night? Take a red-eye? How did they know the first delivery would even be in NJ, no less at this particular dealership?

Of course, in the end it was GM's party to throw, for whoever it felt it wanted to tag. But why the charade that it was a random buyer? I think the facts clearly suggest that this was all arranged at least several days in advance, and here's the most interesting thing to me about that: this arrangement would have been BEFORE that supposed Monday lunch meeting when the engineering team was said to green light the shipment of Volts. It would be really interesting to know if Mr. Kaffee was already in the air from FL, or perhaps landed in Newark, when that meeting supposedly took place.

And another mystery surfaced today: why are cars inbound to NJ suddenly going by rail, starting with today's shipments, when those from the prior 2 days were trucked in direct? This may be unrelated, but an outright conspiracy theory might be that GM needed to direct ship Mr. Kaffee's car to make the planned Wed. delivery, but in order to make it look like a random chance it had to also truck the first couple of day's worth of northeast cars direct to dealers. By also announcing that cars wouldn't ship in build order, that cleared the way for #191 to casually slip in with the rest of the cars on the early fleet of direct shipment car carriers. Using the rails is presumably cheaper and slower, and good enough now that the headline was made early this morning.

It's just my opinion, but I have to give delivery round #1 to Nissan and the Leaf. First and foremost because they picked the people who actually got the very first orders in to be the first to receive their cars. It was straightforward and above board. Like who enjoys waiting at a store counter, and having the guy who came in 10 minutes later get offered assistance before you do?

Now I know, I've been called out by one forum member for being too negative, and I'm willing to plead guilty to that, especially in the context of Volt enthusiasts. But in my own defense, I think I've mainly tried to call things as I see them where good ethics are concerned. I'm still as excited about getting my Volt as before, whenever that will be (it was shipped direct to my NJ dealer yesterday according to Cassens, but so far no sign of it, nor have I received any call from the Volt Advisor Team; still I'm optimistic for Fri or Sat delivery.) But (if I'm right) it's dishonest sh!t like this, which GM seems to think nobody will notice, that makes me just that slightest bit less enthusiastic about being a GM supporter. I'd really prefer they took the high road. It's like I'd have a hard time supporting the Eagles after they brought back Michael Vick. YMMV.

Peace, and good luck to all getting their Volts!

-Bob

volt11, you have made me see the light. I am too trusting and naive. Keep after them.

It is indeed, GM's party to hold. With the first delivery to Mr. Kaffee, GM gets all the sound bites they need to kick off the release. Just the idea of knowledgeable professionals unloading their Prius' for the Volts is exactly the image GM wants to convey. I congratulate Mr. Kaffee for his good fortune, but I have to admit that I'm more than a little jealous.

VIN63 at the dealer getting final prep and now waiting for me!!

Also the fact that Mr. Kaffee is a military man--the Volt is not just for dorks and liberal "weenies" like me. That and the Prius thing. Yup.

:p

It's been so cold down here this week in South Florida that Mr. Kaffee probably flew back to NJ to get into warmer weather, stopped at the dealer on the drive home, and his car just happened to be there with the media in pursuit !

Interesting story, Bob, and well written!

However I'm sure you'll agree with me that within a day (you) or six (me) both of us will be far less interested in obsessing online over Volt minutae like this, because we'll have our cars :)

Of course, Chris. I supposed the hour or so I spent writing the above was just a good way to pass time while THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME!

My car went to 4150 today. Cassens still only reports it was shipped Tuesday morning, but no update there. And still no call from any "Volt Advisor", which I hope doesn't matter in the slightest. (I can't say in the end, they were very helpful, at least not to date.) With the paperwork out, I figure it's up to Cassens and the dealer now.

I wonder how long it takes for a typical Cassens truck to complete its deliveries. Seems like longer than I would have thought.

Interesting that according to airton in the "Tracking Your Order" thread, Mr. Kaffee actually still hasn't received his car, waiting on paperwork! That was a media faux-event indeed! We may never know who the REAL Volt first customer really is. Looks like some on this forum are expecting to drive home their cars today. Congratulations and Good Luck!