Volt failure hints at marketing hurdle ahead

DETROIT — "Is it a little confusing to people? Perhaps."

That was part of the response from former Chevrolet Volt marketing manager Dora Norwicki about whether people understood the car's "extended-range" powertrain in April 2014 — nearly four years after the Volt went on sale.

Norwicki, speaking with CNET, discussed the hurdles of advertising the "new technology" and how it would take time for people to "understand that this vehicle could be for them."

That time never came. And thanks in part to that communication gap, General Motors' pioneering effort to make electric vehicles more practical is gone. Volt production ended in February at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant.

In the end, the Volt's groundbreaking technology — a combination of plug-in electric and gasoline propulsion systems, which many competitors are just now catching up to — couldn't overcome the bungled messaging to consumers, most of whom felt their traditional internal combustion engine was just fine.

"Overall, marketing and advertising for the Volt needed to focus on education as much as it did traditional selling," said Michael Harley, managing editor of Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. "A lack of a proper customer perception played a very large role in the demise of the Chevrolet Volt."

Even now, it's far from clear whether consumers who might benefit most from a plug-in hybrid's capabilities understand what it means to own a vehicle that needs to be plugged in and gassed up from time to time.

And that makes it imperative for other automakers that are deploying plug-in hybrids to study the Volt's successes and failures to ensure their products don't prematurely drive off into the sunset as well.

The key, experts say, is not to dwell on the technology, but to accent the basic benefits for consumers — a lesson GM learned too late.

"Automakers need to educate buyers that owning a PHEV is effortless," Harley said. "There are fewer trips to refuel, which means PHEV ownership frees up time, and operating costs are much lower, so owners will save money."

Compare that bread-and-butter message with one of Chevy's early ads, a 2012 Super Bowl spot, where the Volt was presented as a futuristic vessel that space-traveling extraterrestrials were interested in probing for its "really advanced" technology. The central joke was also a big tell: No matter how many times they had it explained to them, the aliens struggled to understand the concept.

Other early Volt commercials played it straight but featured inconsistent messaging that compared the car to everyday electric appliances and referred to it as an "extended-range electric Volt."

It seems like common sense, but Harley says automakers must remember to "focus on the positives and the seamless ownership experience. Don't make the technology appear alien or complex," even if it is highly sophisticated.

Steve Majoros, director of Chevrolet marketing, cars and crossovers, has acknowledged that GM focused too much on the technical aspects when introducing the Volt rather than the "promise of what Volt delivered," which was a cleaner, more environmentally friendly driving experience.

GM has sold nearly 155,000 Volts since the vehicle's arrival in December 2010 — peaking with the arrival of the second-generation car at nearly 25,000 units in 2016.

Those who understood the technology and purchased the vehicle were overwhelmingly satisfied. Many early adopters became ambassadors for the car and its technologies on Internet forums and social media channels.

GM routinely touted the vehicle as having among the highest customer satisfaction in the industry, and the Volt topped Consumer Reports' annual Owner Satisfaction study in 2011 and 2012.

"The Volt was successful among the people who bought it," said Dan Edmunds, an engineer and director of vehicle testing for Edmunds.

And yet even with several more brands offering plug-in hybrids, including the top luxury makes, sales remain at niche levels, and a knowledge gap remains about where PHEVs stand in the spectrum between gasoline vehicles and full electric ones.

"The problem with PHEVs is it's a mouthful, and people still aren't sure what a PHEV is," Edmunds said. "Nobody's been able to figure out how to talk about a plug-in hybrid, and I think that's because we started on the wrong foot."

Edmunds isn't talking about the Volt. He says the misunderstandings go back to the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, vehicles that were labeled hybrids even though consumers could operate them just like any other gasoline-powered car.

The term "hybrid" might have been better saved for a vehicle such as the Volt, which involved two powertrains as well as two refueling mechanisms.

At launch, GM resisted calling the Volt any type of hybrid, instead characterizing it as an EV with a "range extender," a term Edmunds says muddied messaging for the car even further, given that battery EVs were rare and poorly understood at the time.

GM cleaned up the messaging for the second-generation Volt in 2016, but by then, Edmunds said, it had a new source of confusion to deal with: the introduction of the all-electric Bolt EV that same year.

"The Volt-Bolt problem was bad for the Volt," he said, adding similar-sounding names for vehicles with different propulsion systems convoluted messaging.

And yet, that's the same conundrum many of Chevrolet's competitors are going to have to address in the years to come. Hyundai, Ford and others offer or plan to offer plug-in hybrid models of some nameplates alongside traditional combustion engines. Hyundai, Kia and Honda also have families of alternative powertrain vehicles under a single nameplate that span different electrification technologies.

With each level of complexity, the conventional internal combustion engine becomes that much simpler an alternative.

"Automakers need to remember that consumers are very familiar with traditional combustion engine technology. It has become familiar and routine," Harley said. "Many new-vehicle shoppers are unwilling to adopt a new technology, such as PHEV, if there are concerns that ownership will be disruptive, confusing or inconvenient."