On the eve of the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, the Chevrolet Volt took home another car of the year award, this time sharing it with its sister car, the Opel/Vauxhall Ampera. The fraternal pair finished well ahead of the Volkswagen Up! and Ford Focus in votes.
If you’re keeping score, you’ve already known that the Volt won North American Car of the Year in 2011, while also picking up COTY merit from Motor Trend, Automobile, and nabbing Green Car of the Year from Green Car Journal. In addition, Britain’s What Car? awarded the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera its Green Car of the Year award, as well as the 2011 World Green Car of the Year. And it was one of Car and Driver’s 10Best for 2011.
Despite the fact that the Volt and Ampera assembly plant has been put on a five-week hiatus, GM claims that 7,000 orders have been filled for the Ampera, with a target of 10,000 units for the year. Not a lot if you think about it, but with this award, things might change.
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Volt can win BEST CAR EVER EVER EVER IN THE UNIVERSE and it will not translate to sales at the dealership. Why? Because GM really has been flummoxed with how to market the car and defend it from right-wing blowhards who have an axe to grind with GM and the current administration in Washington D.C.. Fox News has daily hammered Volt with false facts yet GM has really struggled to defend it. To date, GM made a Fox-specific ad for Volt entitled ” Just the Facts “, and even gave one of Volt’s critics a Volt for 2 days to drive home. The ad didn’t completely defend Volt because it was short on facts – the act of giving the critic a Volt backfired horribly because GM didn’t give him a 240v charger, and no Volt expert on hand to explain Volt’s capabilitys to dummies, so they ended up with a three-fold Volt PR disaster with the guy putting up a banner that said “Re-Volting!” and said his Volt ran out of juice in the middle of the Lincoln Tunnel!
GM’s biggest hurdle has been selling Volt on it’s virtues. Why? Because if/when they tell the public how it works, it makes Eco Malibu, Eco Cruze and all it’s ICE vehicles look low-tech and unappealing – we can’t have that, can we? GM has tried to add humor and creativity to Volt ads without really concentrating on why one should buy the car. Today we’re at ad campaign number 3 and 4, after aliens, and fast food drive-thrus failed to explain fully the merits of owning the car. That’s a lot of money to spend for selling 8,500 units of any model!
Today GM introduced two new ad campaigns, one mimicking The Office sitcom, and the other Volt owner testimonials. The sitcom ad for Volt misses the target ( AGAIN! ) but the testimonial from a woman named Priya is nearly spot on. GM has a $40,000 car that is a Chevy, not a Cadillac or Buick, yet it’s luxury silent ride, modern high tech interior and price place it above most non SUV Chevy-buyer’s budgets.
ELR will place a Voltec powertrain in a luxo coupe Caddy. A perfect fit for Volt would have been a “BUICK ELECTRA”. If Volt is to be Chevy’s answer to the Prius – the price must come down without it losing it’s all-electric EV range. Hopeful news has broken that GM has invested in new, better battery tech which could increase range and decrease battery size. GM already has a 3 cyl. balance shaft powerplant that would fit perfectly for Voltec’s gas generator. Give Volt a lower price as a Chevy and perhaps a 55 mpg Charge-sustaining mode range, and you’ll see buyers flock to dealerships for it.