A recent report published by Automotive News delves into the marketing missteps General Motors took when trying to advertise the Chevrolet Volt and how it must avoid making such errors as hybrids and EVs become a bigger part of its business going forward.
The report, entitled ‘Volt failure hints at marketing hurdle ahead’, rightly points out that many potential Volt customers were confused by the car’s range extended electric powertrain. GM’s ads for the hybrid tried to help consumers understand what the car was all about, but they ultimately fell flat.
First gen Chevrolet Volt charging
A good example of this is Chevy’s 2012 Super Bowl spot for the Volt (embedded above), which depicted aliens poking and prodding the hybrid and failing to understand its extremely “advanced” technology. If consumers were confused about the Volt before, they were probably left feeling downright intimidated by its inner workings after seeing the ad.
These ads and other ones like them were unnecessary. If GM found a way to properly convey the realities of Volt ownership, which is really no different than owning a regular compact car (save for fewer trips to the gas station), then the Volt may still be in production today.
Harley advised automakers to “focus on the positives and the seamless ownership experience,” of a plug-in when marketing them and not the innovative drivetrain.
“Don’t make the technology appear alien or complex,” he told AN.
GM seems to have learned this lesson. Steve Majoros, Chevrolet’s marketing boss for passenger cars and crossovers, told AN that the automaker should have focused on the “promise of what Volt delivered,” rather than its technical workings. That “promise” being lower running costs, fewer trips to the gas station and a more environmentally friendly mode of transportation.
Last year GM said it would launch more than 20 electrified vehicles by 2023, which will include traditional hybrids, plug-ins and pure EVs.
Source: Automotive News
Comments
The Volt wasn’t as easy to explain as other plug-ins because you could drive 100% on electric as long as you had sufficient charge (weather permitting). Other plug-ins to this day can’t say the same. They will all fire up their ICE if necessary. The Volt was an EV first.
Right.
But you just explained it easily. (Thank you.)
If only GM could do the same.
While checking into a hotel on a 5000 mile road trip with my Volt (with ZERO range anxiety), I had a gentleman rap on my window and ask me if the Volt got good gas mileage! He is a Cadillac owner who is unhappy with the fuel cost of his car. When I explained in about 5 minutes the Voltec advantages and showed him my results on the Energy Info screen, he was blown away. Thanks to intrepid GM Marketing, (SARC) he had no idea of the Volt’s advantages. He apparently had inquired about the Cadillac ELR some time ago but its advantages were not sufficiently explained to him and he was put off by it’s price.
After listening to my 5 minute pitch on my Volt, he claimed to be ready to buy one! Too bad GM sales/marketing could not have done as well.
the volt was a top tier hybrid. toyota prius was propaganda.
did GM want to sell volts in big numbers as they had to be loosing money on every one sold
What has GM learned?
Guessing on the amount of advertising they didn’t do for the Volt and now don’t do for the Bolt, I would say their decision was just to stop all advertising!!!
That will bring customers flocking into the dealerships for the best vehicles they have designed, engineered, and
manufactured in years!!
They will just stick with: TRUCK MONTH!!!!
Jim – Very Happy 2012 Volt & 2017 Bolt Owner
Advertising for the Volt? I have yet to any since looking at them in 2016. GM is trying to be like Tesla by not advertising and failing. Either way, I love my Volt.
This car should have made more sense than a pure electric, not just today, but for years to come.
Fossil fuels won’t run out overnight, and charging stations and time to charge may never be omnipresent.
If you forgot charge or the power went out, you still get to work in the Volt, when gas hits $6 you’re not affected much. It’s a win win.
GM has tunnel vision about vehicles that make profit today.
I guess we can’t expect consumers to read or the sales staff to study up on their products including the ones they didn’t want to sell (low commission)!
GM wasn’t even making a profit on the Volt, But there is enough of them out their to establish a tech impression and it seams to be good!
GM learning something, now that is rich. Har has haw.
I see it as a perfect balance having enough battery capacity for “everyday” use (subject to temperature and personal usage) that was super well managed without carrying around extra batteries “just in case”, not to mention the production concerns of a larger battery pack.
Obviously, I love my Volt, as well. I haven’t used any gas for propulsion since October but if I need to go somewhere, I can fill-up with gas and drive anywhere without concerns about finding a charging station.
I refuse a buy a ER-EV that can call up the ICE without a proper warm-up cycle, one that the Volt does perfectly. I love that I have hit WOT without concern that my engine will go from 0 RPM stone cold to x,000 RPM in an instant.
Just curious if the engine emissions played any part in your calculus? We all hated when the gas engine started up and spoiled the smooth and quiet drive.. but I also hated that I was polluting again. Does that part not bother you?
True, cold start emissions is a good point as they are much higher in open-loop mode. Making a cold engine work hard cold could certainly compound that.
I drove my 2013MY Volt for 125K in 6yrs. It was a great car. Wary of the eventual fleecing by local dealers I replaced it with a well stocked Tesla Model 3. GM hasn’t learned why they lose customers and instead focuses on the snow jobs and gas lighting Consumers. GM = Sears, short on vision.
One dealer’s sales manager told me point blank “We have them for sale but we don’t really sell them. I can get you one if you want it.” I did, and he did (2016). Great car. Sold it to my son, and bought another one (2018) and love it. Now they are on fire-sale, and it looks to the public like that they can’t even give them away. Helluva job GM; helluva job. BTW, the above sales mgr now works for Honda.
GM’s decision to discontinue production of the Volt is a simple function of failed leadership at the top. It is noteworthy that, in the same year as GM cancelled the Volt, GM was perfectly content rolling out the overpriced 2019 Corvette ZR1, which according to some buyers has proven to be undriveable in certain states due to its abysmal smog rating of “F minus” (according to one reviewer, GM intentionally disabled any option for energy efficient modes of operation; another online post complains that he has been literally unable to pass the smog test for the state in which he drives). In July 2019, GM was also conspicuously absent from the group of forward-thinking manufacturers who boldly and voluntarily agreed to abide by modest emissions standards. Perhaps GM will reverse course yet again, but based on the above there is something very wrong with GM’s leadership at the top.
Come on. The Volt was canceled for 1) Loss of tax credit 2) Cheap gas prices 3) Rise of the EV’s.
The Volt doesn’t make a lot of sense anymore. You’re paying for two drivetrains’ that you normally only use one. If you’re using both all the time you’re better off with a hybrid.
theflew: You come on, either you still do not understand Voltec technology, and/or you are repeating the same old false Prius arguments (Why?). The Volt does not have “two drive trains”, it has one electric drive train that has a backup ICE that can be very simply clutched in to one of the two motor/generators to totally eliminate “range anxiety” (that is still the major problem with BEV vehicles). It requires no problematic automatic transmission (read GM’s and Ford’s horror stories), no oversized, heavy, and costly battery to carry around 95% of the time to try to get an almost usable range (the 5% of the time you might need it), uses a low cost, simple ICE (no fancy and problematic emission and performance boosting add-ons) that can be run at it’s optimum operating point. So you get an unlimited range electric car 95% of the time with, in the rare instance when all electric energy sources are totally depleted, becomes, as a rare fall-back position, a Prius type hybrid, via the feature that can clutch in the ICE to the drive wheels while still getting Prius type performance boost from the battery reserve charge.
Still sounds like a win-win to me!
PS: You can repeat Mary’s cost argument all you want; I still don’t believe it, but even if it was immutably true, the Volt would still be worth it!
You can say “backup ICE’. But that backup ICE was a 4 cylinder engine that that took fuel, coolant, oil, etc… So you’re basically carrying around hundreds of pounds of something rarely used. Also as an owner of Volt for 3 years, the only thing it made me want was a pure EV. You got hooked on the EV drive just to be frustrated when the ICE came on. And many Volt owners did the same thing. Went from Volt to pure EV.
The Voltec technology was great the problem is EV’s progressed faster and gas cost stayed low. Moving the Voltec technology to larger vehicles requires larger ICE engines since the ICE has to be capable of moving the vehicle by itself if the battery is at a low state of charge. And larger vehicles require more batteries. So Voltec based vehicles would always cost more than ICE only vehicles and not have capabilities of EV only vehicles in terms of performance and packaging.
theflew: If you were in fact a Volt owner, then I must assume you are either a city-dweller or a multi car owner who did not want or need to use his electric car for road trips. In spite of the supposed EV technology advances, range anxiety and/or recharge time is still a major problem, despite the huge societal investments being made in recharging infrastructure.
Your arguments about “pure EV driving” don’t really ring true to me either. As an owner of a 2018 Volt that I have taken on several long road trips, I barely realize that the ICE is running (especially in Mountain Mode). One of the things that most impressed me with the Volt was how smoothly the car would transition from battery propulsion to primarily ICE propulsion. The only way I could tell when it transitioned was to look at the Energy screen, otherwise it felt and drove like the electric car it really is.
As far as the cost argument you keep making, it appears to me the Bolt and the Tesla are just as expensive, if not more so. BEV’s still require significant battery cost reductions to be cost competitive, and still, there is range anxiety.