GM’s recent announcement that they are going to stop Chevy Volt production for five weeks in order to manage inventory levels is the latest piece of bad news to beset one of the most highly anticipated cars to ever come from Detroit. With the disparity between the build up and sales results, the Volt is looking more and more like the modern day equivalent of the Edsel, Ford’s failed brand in the 1950s. Like the Edsel, the Volt had a ton of buzz and positive energy behind it when it first entered the marketplace and like the Edsel, that buzz and positive energy did virtually nothing to impact sales. The technology in the car is amazing and by all accounts it is a fine piece for anyone looking for a hybrid car, as the Edsel was recognized as a good car that delivered on the functional aspects of driving that people of the era were looking for. Unfortunately for the Edsel, the design of the car was so off-putting to so many people and it eventually became a punchline, negating any desire for people to own one. After all, how many times does one want to defend their ugly car by telling everyone how well it runs and drives?
While the Edsel was saddled with a face that had been struck with the ugly stick hundreds of times, the Volt’s PR problem has been generated by a series of self inflicted wounds. Most recently, it was the reports that Volts involved in crash testing had caught fire days or weeks after being crashed up. While GM reacted quickly and came up with a retro-fit to prevent the issue from happening again (a big ass piece of steel), the public image damage was done quickly. Already slow sales ground nearly to a halt with the Volt moving less than 1,000 units a month for a couple of periods at the end of 2011. Prior to the Volt’s arrival there were lists of people online by the thousands that were all lathered up and claimed to be rabidly interested in buying one of the cars. Those masses never moved from their mom’s basement to a Chevy dealer and in the first year of Volt sales, it has been reported that the US government was the largest purchaser of the cars. Not really the result GM was looking for.
Like the Edsel, the Volt was the beneficiary of massive pre-production publicity and hype. The Edsel’s most famous piece of PR was a magazine and newspaper ad that showed nothing of the car but the hood ornament. People truly believed that they were about to see one of the greatest, most beautiful cars to ever turn a tire on American soil. What they got was a moderately expensive redesigned Ford that looked like nothing anyone had ever seen before or since.
Nothing looks worse to a consumer than when a company goes great guns with the promotion and advertising and a product is failing to sell. When that happens, people begin to second guess their interest in the product because, like the Edsel owners of the 1950s, they’ll be forced to explain their purchase to anyone they run into. Did they buy the car because of all those snappy ads GM has been running? Are people going to think that they fell for a hype machine that few others did? Essentially it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and the product gets caught in a downward swirl with no real way to escape.
There are arguments that the $40,000 price of the car is too high and that the infrastructure of the country is not to the point to make electric cars easy to own and operate. Those are the types of arguments that reasoned explanations from good sales people and advertising agencies can overcome in interested buyers. Having a car defined as a “loser” is not, because at that point you are not trying to overcome a quantifiable objection, you are trying to change the public psyche and that is not something that large corporations have ever been good at doing.
Personally, I think that the five week Volt shutdown is less about production volumes and more about trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again with respect to the image this car has in the public. GM has far too much invested in this one car to simply can it. Granted, the Volt is certainly more of a halo vehicle for a lot of technology that will bleed down into other models, but to build a car that was expected to sell 60,000 units in the second year and have less than 3,000 sold roughly 25% of the way through is both embarrassing and to some level, shocking.
I am not sure what else GM can do with the the Volt to turn it into some form of a success. It is important to remember that the Corvette was on an early death bed in the mid-1950s before it was sorted out and grew to become one of the most iconic cars/brands in automotive history. Is there that type of magic awaiting the Volt? The odds are certainly against it. We’ve seen the “techno” approach from GM touting the car as a wonder of modern automotive engineering (and it really is). We’ve seen the “green” approach with the car being touted as achieving staggering MPG numbers and being a great savior to the environment. We’ve seen the “concerned” approach with Chevy’s ads featuring a serious-voiced Tim Allen talking about how important the car is for America and America’s future, and how it stands for so much more than it actually is. Where to go next? I’m glad my job is not resting on it.
When the five week production halt is up, no doubt we will get some numbers from GM on what the intend to produce per month. Comparing those numbers to what they were producing before will give a pretty clear indication of GM/Chevy’s feelings on just how deep a hole they are in with this car and the public perception of it.
We’re not ready to shovel dirt on it yet, but that doesn’t mean lots of others aren’t waiting with freshly sharpened spades.
Volt = Government central planning
If this dog is so great, why does anyone need a $7K tax credit to buy it?
What do expect out of Ggoverment Mmotors? Exactly this!
$7K ??? Heck now the Feds are trying to stick a $10K Cash rebate ( paid for by you and I ) on each and every VOLT sold …… that BTW depending on who you believe and how the numbers are being tallied … is LOSING GM either $10K or $120K per VOLT sold …. all again being covered by the American Tax Payer
Techno wonder or E/V ?
Fraid not . Everyone from the SAE to the California DOT has proven the VOLT to be nothing more than an over complicated , over priced , over hyped Prius like Hybrid .
Sad fact is the VOLT was a lie from day one ( more like five successive lies .. one right after another … anyone remember the VOLT was supposed to be a Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicle with interchangeable bodies ? ) GM continues to promote the lies ( oh its an E/V ) the Celebrity ‘ Bump ‘ has become the Bull in the China Shop disaster etc
Sharpen the Spades ? More like write the obits before the last shovel full has been thrown over top of the (re)VOLT(ing )
“Everyone from the SAE to the California DOT has proven the VOLT to be nothing more than an over complicated , over priced , over hyped Prius like Hybrid ”
give the devil his due. among hybrids, the volt is as unlike the prius as can be. it’s a series hybrid, not a parallel like the prius. huge difference, one that makes the volt infinitely simpler and, btw, one which will make it simple to switch it to a fuel cell. fuel cells will not help the prius much and it will remain an engineering nightmare no matter what happens.
as far as Government Motors goes, this country has always dealt with its big collapses via massive gov’t intervention in the econ’ process. there are NO exceptions to this. the last example was the space program, which got us out of the post-war doldrums and laid the foundation for the electronics revolution. the problem with the government right now is that the people in the driver’s seat are chicken-hearted suits — supposed progressives kowtowing to free-market true believers. the invisible hand and divine providence are both figments of religious fervor.
I thought they were selling, ive seen 5 running around where I live, coarse I live down the street from NASA where im sure the volt owners work
Is this a real bangsgift artical? I must have been redirected to MotorTrend. The car is a piece of crap. No matter what color you paint it.
All brought to you by Washington The Movie, give the dopes a good story and they’ll think everything’s swell
Its crappy looking,if it was better looking it would sell.
As a body repair tech for 17 years, this is the first car I will not work on. Way too complicated and too many liability issues. If GM wanted to sell hybrids, they should have come up with an agreement with Toyota to re badge the Pissass, I mean Prius. At about half the price of the Volt, every liberal has to have one. It would not have been the first time GM sold re badged Toyota’s.
I know everyone’s hating on it (rightly so, its ugly as…well, a Prius..) but somewhere there’s gotta be a way to do a cheap fast sexy hybrid…loook at the Tesla, based on a Lotus Elise but electric – and faster…so if its possible for a little company to do it why can’t GM or Ford or even Toyota do it? I mean, some of the electric dragsters and drag bikes coming out are scary fast , like 7 sec machines – what about a fibreglass car (plenty of bodies out there – hell, even a 32 Ford!) that has the motor per wheel type technology Ferrarri and Porsche are using, 160 HP per wheel? Wads of torque? Why not?
Right now what the little companies have delivered has been the fast and sexy part, but definitely not the cheap. That’s probably why the big companies haven’t been doing much – small companies tend to do better with high price / low volume conversion type concepts. They’re probably waiting to see if a market emerges that is easier for them to fit, and then they can just buy the technology from a smaller company.
The Nissan Leaf bombed too, and there haven’t been any arguments over government subsidies, stories about fires, or anything like that. I just think it’s that the public isn’t ready to pay a huge premium for an electric car with no range or a $40,000 small car with better mileage. That guy who made a documentary called “Who Killed the Electric Car?” asked the wrong question – what he should be asking was “Who Wanted the Electric Car in the First Place?”
I actually looked a buying a Volt.
Then I did a fr$#@king U-turn out of the dealership.
WHY?
The sticker price was $ FORTY-THREE F$#@!*&ING THOUSAND DOLLARS.
THATS why it hasn’t sold.
You cant swing a rigor-mortis cat here in dirty jersey (I refuse to capitalize the name of this state) without hitting a frickin’ Prius. WHY? You can get a one-year old Prius for $19k.
The range these car can achieve isn’t made for our north american highways and long distances, they’re city/short commute cars.
They did a test here with a prius, a smart and a diesel VW Golf, they ran around 500km/6h drive, guess which one used the less fuel? Yup the Diesel Golf.
Bring the Diesel (which can be cheaply made from a LOT of sources other the petroleum) and let the electric car fad die.
I worked at a Chevy dealer. The Volt is a gimicky overpriced TURD! $45K and you get 40 mile range on electricity. Big deal! Buy a 2 year old Corolla, Sentra, Civic and get 30+ mpg and keep $30-$35K in your pocket!
The government is trying to force technology on the market that the market is not ready for.
We’re all old enough to remember the black out that hit huge portions of this country with no electricity for days. The same government that is trying to force the public into buying overhyped hybrids is the same band of numbskulls that won’t approve any new nuclear power plants.
Liquid fueled vehicles have giant advantages over electrics, simply because an internal combustion engine doesn’t have to carry around the air it burns and turns into rotational energy, not to mention the infastructure that’s already in place for refueling. Batteries have a LONG LONG LONG way to go before they will be a practical alternative to IC’s and at the same time won’t create baren waste lands where the batteries are produced or recycled.
what can you say, its won so many car of the year awards it might as well be a honda.
The rest of the world hates us, its that simple.
I have some experience with these cars. I work at a chevrolet dealership and I believe these are great little cars with awesome technology. I agree that the big problem is the price. Actuallly I feel that alot of the new cars have MSRP’s that are way too high. I just dont see the value. People are paying close to $30K for the teenie-tiny malibu? I think thats crazy. Why are all the cars getting smaller? I remember in the 90’s when a Chevy Lumina was considered a “mid-size” car. Now, the Impala is about the same size and now it’s deemed a “full size” car. Where did all the big cars go? Why does Chevy feel the need to bring so many compact cars (Malibu,Cruze,Sonic, and Spark)to the market? Anyway, to get back to my point I will not pay Tahoe money for a miniature car. Whats the point of a fuel saving vehicle when all your fuel savings are going towards a huge monyly payment? It doesn’t make any financial sense.
“Why does Chevy feel the need to bring so many compact cars (Malibu,Cruze,Sonic, and Spark)to the market?”
CAFE. The govt deciding for us what cars we can buy for a what a self anointed elite believe is for the best for us.
Ah yeah, I can just see guys sticking in LS motors in them.
I do accept as true with all the concepts you’ve presented to your post. They’re really convincing and will certainly work. Still, the posts are very quick for novices. May just you please extend them a little from subsequent time? Thanks for the post.