Volt 2.0: Ruess "It will leap-frog... the competition"

That would be quoting out of context. The reference was to posts on forums & blogs. Those individuals are only a small part of the market as a whole. That online community isn't representative of ordinary consumers either.

Again, just because Volt wasn't able to attract mainstream consumers doesn't mean GM is done. They will be offering Bolt, Malibu hybrid, and CT6 plug-in hybrid. How that observation can be considered bad-mouthing is beyond me. You try something. If it doesn't work, move on to the next thing.

Here's another observation: Volt enthusiasts became staunch defenders, lashing out at anyone who criticized in any manor... even when a post was to compliment GM upon delivering a vehicle to be praised by the niche market. They just plain didn't want any type of "failure" label, even though it didn't attract the mainstream as hoped.

So now, we point that history out and move on. Remember that this is the third try. Don't forget Two-Mode. That was an efficiency improvement venture as well. It didn't work out either. What can be done this time to avoid falling into the same traps again?

 

1. Needing a car today, not a year from now (Prime, Bolt, 2nd Gen Leaf) or two years from now (Model 3).

2. Occasionally needing room for a fifth passenger (Prime).

3. Wanting to drive primarily BEV but have the flexibility for long trips. My Gen 1 Volt typically got 1000 mile tanks for me; with the increase in range, I expect tank range to be double or triple that, maybe more. The limitation on my range was a once or twice a week 50 mile round trip down a steep grade going out and up the same grade returning. The Gen 1 range led to 10-12 miles of steep, low mpg ICE use on the return trip, costing me half a gallon each time. That won't happen with a Gen 2. My fillups will likely only take place 2-3 times a year when a make a 1500 mile round trip. That's a non-issue with a Volt. With a Bolt or Leaf (or i3 BEV), it's a non-starter. Model 3 availability if I don't have a deposit down yet is uncertain, as is wait time at the specific supercharger stations I would need when Tesla 's installed base quintuples in a couple of years. The only advantage Prime has in any of those circumstances is marginally fewer gallons consumed during the long trips; for the rest of the year the frequent ICE use will burn many more gallons than the ones saved on a trip, My driving patterns are unique, but then so are everybody's.

Despite after the fact creation of convoluted strategies that seek to explain Toyota's moves and make them seem like well-considered genius, the Prime is too little, too late. It will be superior to 2013-era Ford Energis, which will likely be replaced by improved products (or on the verge) by the time Prime is released. That's about it. For a large number of people who would like to primarily drive BEV with less limited range but need flexibility for longer trips, Volt remains an almost singular answer. Prime certainly won't be, and the Gen-2 BEV's aren't available yet. You can spin it and say those people are "enthusiasts", whereas Prime customers are somehow the "masses". Why? Just because their commutes are shorter? Because they can charge at work? The Volt niche may not be large, but it's real. What's the Prime's niche if California doesn't bring back green stickers?

 

Study the market for 15 years. Watch purchase behavior of ordinary consumers. Notice how want and need influence choice.

That mainstream audience is far more difficult to reach than simply offering more EV range than the others.

 

Well, a Gen 1 Volt's 1000 mile tank sounds really good until you start adding up the daily KWh costs of electricity, certainly more expensive to run on electricity than a Gen 2 Prius, and Fusion Energi with 4 mpg penalty and 37 KWh/100 miles is no more efficient than a regular Fusion hybrid. Compare Side-by-Side

 

Neither is a Model 3, but 325,000 people have pre-ordered one as of two days ago. My electricity cost is 50% what I'd pay in Southern California, then again my cost of RUG is 66% of what I'd pay there. Both those numbers vary by region and change over time, sometimes dramatically. People don't drive hybrids, PHEVs, or BEVs strictly on a cost per mile basis; if they did, we'd all be driving used Corollas.



Merged.

Nice cryptic non-answer. I've been studying the market for almost 40 years. Please enlighten me.

That's a fair point, Toyota's been trying to reach the mainstream audience with Prius and its other hybrids for 16 years, and its combined hybrid sales last year wouldn't make the list of top 10 nameplates in the US market. Tesla would make that list with the first week of Model 3 pre-orders, though. Maybe Toyota can ask Elon for some advice on reaching the mainstream audience with alt-fuel vehicles; they used to be a shareholder, I believe.

 

429,355 was the number of Camry purchased here last year, for some perspective.

Tesla will deliver an outstanding product initially, but no one knows how to reach the next wave of consumers after that.

Keeping sales level from dropping after the low-hanging fruit has been picked is the real issue. Reaching that audience then will require a modified approach. Toyota is already targeting them. It's should become a win-win many years from now.

 

Tesla thinks it knows.

What you just said about maintaining sales after the initial adopters...
Didn't you say the same thing about the Model S?

I know others did, and Tesla seems to have done quite well with the Model S.

 

No. We all knew S would remain a high-ended offering. 3 is what we have been waiting for as a next step. What comes after that?

 

Toyota's response?

 

Prime, obviously. That's laying down the foundation, their next step in transitioning their customers away from traditional vehicles.

Since Tesla doesn't have any of that legacy to deal with, it can take a different path to the same goal.

 

Tesla has far bigger obstacles in their path.
But their goal is the same as it always has been, to speed the transition of personal transportation to renewable energy.

They have succeeded in bringing in a large percentage of customers that are unconcerned with sustainability.
Unfortunately, those absolute numbers are still small.
With the Model 3 and other next gen plugins those absolute numbers will increase dramatically.

I look forward to the Prime being available throughout the nation in large numbers. It could contribute, if Toyota lets it.

 

They are different. Saying otherwise would be a move toward falling into the same trap GM did... twice.

We don't want to see that mistake be repeated again and saying one is bigger than the other doesn't help anyone involved.

The difficulty in changing existing legacy that's been in place and is extremely well established poses huge challenges too.




Merged.

That's one of the traps countless individuals with good intentions have fallen into. They get hung up on the current market and don't even notice the rest. Most consumers aren't part of this stage of electrification. For them, 0 miles of EV is perfectly fine. They have no interest to plug in. It's that simple.

Not being draw to EV driving, regardless of how impressive the experience can be, makes them a very difficult group of consumers to reach. Making compromise for the sake of a pure EV isn't worth it. Offering a decent amount of EV followed by impressive HV is what Toyota believes that audience will find appealing.

Ironically, Volt has faced the "too little, too slowly" problem, a concern expressed by the group assigned to oversee the bankruptcy recovery. The outcome was an opportunity missed. Gas was $4 per gallon, yet sales of Volt were never able to reach beyond niche. There wasn't any competition back then either. It had the entire category of plug-in hybrid to capitalize on, but didn't.

Now in 2016, we enter a new chapter. The effort this time is to reach beyond that niche. This new group of consumers have different requirements. Since these are people who have yet to begin their search for a plug-in choice, offering an EV capacity with enough to cover some commutes entirely and others provide triple-digit MPG averages will draw interest. What's little or late about that?

 

I'm baffled as to why the Volt wasn't more of a success, when it had the plug-in market to itself, in such favorable market conditions...guess the rotten GM brand back then and unwillingness of consumers to adopt new technologies was too great of a hurdle to overcome.

 

i just don't think that many people want a 4 seat plug in car. you can only incentivize people so much with tax rebates and hov stickers. after that, you need to give them other reasons to swap the car they're driving.

all things being equal, the next step is a $20,000. 200+ mile bev with more body styles and more places to plug in.

 

Personally, I considered it before I bought my PIP, but it was too small and the PIP had better cargo carrying capacity for large items. And then there's that whole issue of GM's reliability, or lack thereof.

 

In addition to the reasons others have mentioned, GM had to deal with a much more hostile dealer network than most other companies.
Some refused to carry the Volt, many others simply wouldn't sell them even if they were on their lots.
EVs face this with many dealers, but the GM dealers more than most.

 

I'm not baffled. If the Volt has a Toyota pedigree, then it would be a far different story. GM spend years making shoddy cars and a fossilized dealer network teaching a large chunk of the American population to avoid GM. Even most supporters of Volts will agree GMs history is a big problem...one not overcome with just one car model. GM has to show a that every car model is engineered well to make the Volt a bigger success.

 

I have literally thousands of blog entries documenting that history as it was unfolding, noting many forgotten influential events as they took place, with no way of knowing what would come next. They offer perspective unlike what looking back long afterward can reveal. There is much detail a summary cannot address, but we can at least give it a try...

The problem with Volt that immediately comes to mind was the setting of expectations. GM fed the hype leading up to rollout, allowing it to spread excitement through vague statements then not providing clarification as assumptions grew. The most obvious resulting from that was the impact heater use in the winter caused, reducing EV range far below what was hoped. People had been led to believe 40 miles was what GM would deliver. Real-World driving revealed cabin-comfort in freezing temperatures dropped EV range to the 20's.

The second biggest factor was likely marketing. Support completely fell apart. There simply wasn't any uniform message. Enthusiasts took over, sending out a chaotic flurry of supposed goals... many conflicting with the intent of Volt. That's how the "Who is the market for Volt?" question came about. It was originally targeted at mainstream consumers. What got delivered was being promoted as something entirely different though, a vehicle for those who would appreciate paying a premium for superior performance.

From the automaker perspective, production cost was a serious issue. GM decided to gamble, hoping they'd achieve mainstream sales level (minimum rate of 60,000 annual here) by the end of the second sales-year. That turned into a disaster. Inventory piled up, despite the rollout of Cadillac ELR. Purchase interest continued to be a struggle. So, the third model-year came with a $5,000 price drop, with the continued hope that economics-of-scale would bring down production cost. Despite that, sales still didn't increase.

Falling gas prices, recovery of the economy, and growing demand for Leaf & Tesla made the bad situation for GM even worse. No one really knew what to expect for the second-generation design, yet focus had almost entirely shifted over to it. Hope was blinded by desperation. The first-generation model was left to struggle on its own. Nothing was able to ignite excitement for the technology in Volt. Viewed upon as a small, complex, expensive plug-in vehicle with hybrid MPG well below Prius, it just plain couldn't find an audience.

Problems continued to mount as Volt leases began to expire. The original deals were deeply discounted, making the choice very compelling to take advantage of. Unfortunately, 3 years later, the resale values for those older Volts had plummeted. Growing competition from Nissan, Ford, and Tesla along with the $5,000 price reduction left little reason for lease holders to stay loyal to GM. Those conquest sales which enthusiasts had flaunted were turning into large abandonment numbers. Even the original audience was being lost.

Evidence of GM changing course emerged in 2014, when we started to here about an EV that would be offered. By late summer, confirmation of Chevy Bolt being revealed at the Detroit autoshow in January ended any doubt. The fundamental strength of Volt had completely fallen apart. The solution for "range anxiety" had become a battery-pack large enough to provide 200 miles of electric-only travel, no engine necessary. At that point, the success became even more uncertain. Supporters were being drawn to Bolt.

Most people are familiar with what happened from that point. Details of the second-generation Volt were revealed. Promise of a design able to compete directly with other GM vehicles on dealer's showroom floors was lost. When rollout finally began, only a small number of states received delivery. The rest of the nation would have to wait another 6 months. By the time that happened, the production version of Bolt was revealed. 3 months later, Tesla revealed Model 3 and began taking reservations.

2 weeks later (that's today) we have no clue what GM has planned for Volt. It appears as though resources will be spent primarily on Bolt instead, to take advantage of the delay Tesla will have prior to Model 3 production.

 

You're forgot to mention a rather big item: U.S. taxpayer bailout of G.M. 9also Crysler and the banks!

If this did not occur, you would not be speaking about GM today. Also, GM has had enough time with the Volt on the market to see this product being bought by the masses. This is not, and will not be occurung. Large numbers of consumers are not making a connection with the Volt, even 2nd generation of this product. The Bolt - seriously, Teslas' Model 3 will have the Bolt for lunch. Why: GM does NOT have the techie feel that Tesla customers have. That, in it self makes all the difference in the world between a success and a failure.

DBCassidy