cts | Volt a Day | What's the Deal, Dealer? September 27, 2010

So here is the state of things at a Chevy dealership in the third week of September 2010. I walked in to see what sort of information they would have, what the sales pitch might be, how hard it would be to get one on order, the usual things people are wondering about.

Bad news.

The people in the showroom pointed me toward a guy in his cubicle. “He’s the Chevy guy.” Well, it’s a dealership with several badges, so I guess he’s the Chevy guy and someone else would be the Buick fellow. Okay.

“No, there are no brochures. I’ve put in a request for a couple boxes, but I’ve got nothing.” Fail. A high school student could create a brochure from the information and images on the website in less than a day and an on-demand printing place could have a box of brochures there by the end of the week.

“The car won’t be here until November anyway.” Hello, second fail. It’s called building anticipation. People are clamoring to get this car. Putting them off is a really bad idea. Collect a name, an email address, talk to them about the mission that the car might be filling.

“We’re not really talking to people about how to order them until we know what our allocation is. We’ve heard that big dealers are getting two cars, one for demos and one to deliver to a customer, and then nothing until February.” That’s a really bad idea. I’ve already got a deposit down on a Leaf reservation. There’s no way to do something comparable with a Volt. Do you feel a disparity? Do you see why GM needs to get a little nimble here?

The one sort of good news was when I asked whether there was going to be a premium on top of the suggested retail price. “Probably not. We’re going to get so few of these cars. And we don’t really think that there are going to be that many sold. There are already so many restrictions on us selling the car, getting customers approved for the charger, getting our technicians trained on the car... we’re just going to sell them as they come in.” Ah, so no way to put down any money. “No, I know on the webpage they say run down to your dealer, but, as you can see, we don’t really have anything or know anything. The truth is, this car is set up to bring people into the dealership, which is a good thing, and then we can show them some other products. I mean, we’ll be selling the car, otherwise it would be bait-and-switch, but most people will wind up with something else.” Great. I’m getting the feeling that there’s a lot of support in the dealer network for this car which should change everything. Go team.

And what about all the cool new OnStar stuff that has been discussed on the web? Is there a new brochure for that? “Oh, no, that’s the old brochure. And really, GM doesn’t publicize the capabilities of the system very well. They’ve had the ability to stop a car theft for twelve years, but you don’t see it any of the sales material because they don’t know if something might go wrong with it. So they put things out there very quietly to see what level of working there is.” Fail. To be nimble you need a greater level of transparency.

Apparently the Car Czar (since stepped down or fired or mission accomplished or something) has explained that electric cars are a waste of taxpayer incentives. (And this is a perfect example why government shouldn’t be involved in business. The last innovation from this government was back around 1776.) And he explained that there was all sorts of infighting in GM about the Volt and how it was really just a demonstration, not really something that could save the company.

Let’s hope he’s wrong. Let’s hope that enough people, especially those high up, understand why the Volt could save GM, and what is required to make sure that happens. Personally, I would start by tying pension payments to retired UAW workers to the sales of the Volt. Let’s get the interested parties on the hook here. As the cook says, “At breakfast, the chicken is invested, the pig is involved.”