Is there a funded, focused, deliberate NEGATIVE campaign targeting the Volt?

[notaguru]

There are really two parts to this.

1. There is an astonishing absence of advertising and articles that explain the vehicle and its advantages. I'm no PR expert, but in my seven+ decades have seen many campaigns introducing new ideas and products that did a far better job than GM's has done with the Volt. I have met very few people who understand the true cost of operating the vehicle, or other advantages it offers over parallel hybrids and non-hybrids.

2. There is an equally astonishing and even deadly campaign of negative press that seems to be very effective. I like my car a lot and plan to keep it until the electrons get rusty, but it's tiresome hearing people repeat some of the utterly silly bad comments from the media.

If someone had paid a lot of money to recruit serious idea-shapers to go after the Volt, the result would be a lot like what's actually happening.

If it's deliberate, why?

[DCFusor]

Illiquid oil lease investments, and they've been caught at this kind of thing in other venues repeatedly.

[SoCal Gabe]

Over the weekend I saw a Volt commercial advertised more than I've normally seen it with mention of the HOV qualification at the end down here in Ca. While the commercial fails to hit on quite a number of positive aspects, it focuses on the electric/gas range issue. My wife actually mentioned how many times she was seeing the commercial repeated and hadn't noticed it before. I wonder if Chevy is trying to avoid the schoolyard banter/debate regarding the misinformation?

As far as a negative campaign and why? You have quite a few to choose from . . .

- Oil industry advocates
- Fear of change
- Discontent with current politics and this happened to be the closest piñata
- Certain people's desire of seeing something fail so they can be proven right?

anyone else want to add to the list?

[saghost]

If it's deliberate, why?

I don't like to spend too much time wearing a tin foil hat. However, a couple of thoughts that should be common knowledge...

1.) The Obama Administration has done a number of things to try to promote the Volt in particular as part of their green vision. Therefore, despite it having been conceived and mostly designed prior to bankruptcy under a republican president and a republican CEO, Obama's enemies have seized on to it as something they have to fight against.

2.) The oil industry is currently making record profits year after year while people complain but don't take any action. Some of the more committed people will make lifestyle changes to drive pure electric cars, but the Volt in particular (and any cars like it that might follow) is a threat to the oil industry's profits because everyone that drives a compact sedan could easily drive one instead, and reduce their gasoline (and oil, actually) consumption by at least a factor of three. It doesn't take that many "100+ mpg" cars in the fleet to damage the profits.

Conveniently, big oil and the republican party have substantial links these days...

Day to day, I'm not sure how much I believe in a conspiracy in the Volt's case. But without a doubt there are substantial interests involved who stand to lose a great deal if the Volt succeeds. And without a doubt there is a fair amount of deliberate misinformation out there from some news sources (that piece from Fox a few weeks back was a remarkably cleverly built piece of propaganda, too clever for me to believe it was all a misunderstanding.)

[MrEnergyCzar]

The party or media entities that receive more of the fossil monies have to be against saving soldiers and driving Volts... just follow the money...

MrEnergyCzar

[Matt979]

There is no question that the Volt is in the bullseye for all the groups of people that troll and attack anything connected with Obama or progressives. Its nothing personal for the Volt its just the new online way the politcal war is fought. And there are lots of people that get paid to do this so in one sense your right about it being a campaign, its just not all directly targeted at the Volt. I am also think that OIL interest would love to delay electric cars and will pay people to publish bad press on the car. For an another example on this look at the latest wikileak about the heritage foundation paying scientists to create confussion about about the topic of climate change caused by humans. There is always interest lurking in the shadows trying to turn the tide in the direction they.

[Sharkonwheels]

The misinformation out there is truly mind-boggling.
Take the 4th comment (owlafaye) on this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...all_&#comments
Keep in mind, he say "what engineers know that you don't know":
"What engineers know and you don't:

The VOLT in engine driven mode does not drive the wheels directly. The order of energy transfaer is as follows,
1- an engine to
2- A generator to
3- A motor to
4- The wheels.

There is an energy loss each step of the way.
A standard Internal Combustion engined car runs an engine that drives the wheels:

1- An engine to
2- The wheels.

One enrgy losing step instead of 3 "

Really? Engine bolted to the wheels, no flywheel, clutch, transmission, differential, axle shafts, nothing.
Just the crank straight to the wheels?

She stupidity of people is mind-boggling.
I will assume Engineers will disavow any knowledge of this character.
So, tell me, if it's so inefficient, why do cargo ships, cruise ships,freight trains, etc... use this same method ALL the time? Not even mentioning that most ICE are what? 30-40% efficient? They're not even getting half the energy available in gasoline!

<sigh>

[cmr]

There are really two parts to this.

1. There is an astonishing absence of advertising and articles that explain the vehicle and its advantages. I'm no PR expert, but in my seven+ decades have seen many campaigns introducing new ideas and products that did a far better job than GM's has done with the Volt. I have met very few people who understand the true cost of operating the vehicle, or other advantages it offers over parallel hybrids and non-hybrids.

2. There is an equally astonishing and even deadly campaign of negative press that seems to be very effective. I like my car a lot and plan to keep it until the electrons get rusty, but it's tiresome hearing people repeat some of the utterly silly bad comments from the media.

If someone had paid a lot of money to recruit serious idea-shapers to go after the Volt, the result would be a lot like what's actually happening.

If it's deliberate, why?

the oil industry stands to lose hundreds of billions of dollars because of electric cars. they have fought against this technology since the automobile was invented. electric cars were much more prevalent in the beginning and they successfully weeded them out. they have done the same thing since then and this is no different.

follow the money, everybody doing the dirty work for them are only willfully ignorant pawns.

[CarZin]

It certainly is targeted with the drudgereport. I tried to show a lot of the examples on my most recent blog post:

http://voltowner.blogspot.com/2012/0...ournalism.html

[Sasparilla]

Just to have a few of the examples at hand for the folks that haven't seen them (there's alot more out there), but this makes it a little easier to see this isn't just mistakes in news-making.

It's also very important to remember - all this air-time and effort is actually alot of money being spent on something that is not newsworthy to their audience (for the most part), "why would they spend all this money?" is the question to ask here...obviously its being directed from high up.

This is a montage of different videos (different times where the Volt was being attacked on Fox News by one of its hosts) of Fox News host Neil Cavuto trashing the Volt:

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/08/25...-watch-this-n/

Another Fox News lie and run with it about the Volt and GM employees:

http://green.autoblog.com/2012/02/17...olt-wait-what/

Here's another Fox News twist - GM gave them a Volt to test themselves (probably assuming they'd do it honestly...oh GM you just don't understand what's going on here and of course Fox was not honest):

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...incoln-tunnel/

Here's a link to one of our own posts regarding the WSJ (owned by News Corp just like Fox News) pulling out something disparaging of the Volt right at the start:

http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread....les-to-pick-up

Of course you've got the GOP politicians attacking it (Newt says you can't put a gun rack in it...and on and on).

While its the Volt mostly - the attacks are about electrically powered cars in general.

Here's Fox News Cavuto talking about electric cars in general:

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/12/08...electric-cars/

Here's Fox News going after one of the first Nissan Leaf Owners:

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/12/19...-engages-hate/

Here's an article about a misrepresentation of the federal loan to Fisker that originated at ABC but was taken up by...Fox News:

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/10/26...-inaccuracies/

Here's a Volt owner doing his best on Fox News:

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/11/07...-on-home-turf/

And there's alot more out there if you want to look for it. The oil industry and its paid friends (News Corp. media outlets and alot of GOP politicians) are doing the best they can to poison the potential plug-in customers they reach to the technology. With the Volt being the most practical flexible serious plug-in, it would be the primary target in that campaign as we have seen.