No, really. The Detroit News says that The General didn’t mean to release snaps of its plug-in electric gas hybrid Chevrolet Volt. GM blames “human error” for the plug-in’s premature publicity– I mean the most recent premature publicity. “Those were put up in error and taken down quickly thereafter,” Chevrolet spokesman Terry Rhadigan said. “It was not intentional.” What, putting them up or taking them down? I kid. Marty Padgett, TTAC’s good friend over at The Car Connection got the scoop. And he ain’t buying the GM “oops we did it again” line. “I think they’re getting very good at playing the game of public relations,” Marty Padgett told the DetN. “Everyone is interested (in the Volt), so why not let some teases float out there?” Because the Hail Mary is more than a year away from production? Here’s a more interesting question: even if it’s true, that the Volt snaps were unintentionally leaked, why is GM admitting it? Like we need something else to convince us of their institutional incompetence?
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Perhaps so they could fix those awful blacked out lower window frames? If I were Bob Lutz, I would have fixed those till 2010. Or 2011. Or whenever… It’s called a teaser…
The car doesn’t look real, like it’s some sort of computer image made with realistic effects? Some shots of the car look purely 2-D. That said, I totally agree with Ingvar. It looks distinctive, but kind of ugly and tacky.
What I find more interesting in a car is driving it rather than reading about it years and years before it finally is sold.
The car doesn’t look real, like it’s some sort of computer image made with realistic effects?
I hope the suit wasn’t real either
I like the incidental similarity of headlights design to Honda/Acura , and the way bumper /fender joint line go into headlight at coincidental angle as that of the latter. And Volt is set for another record- the biggest weather strips in the world on any manufactured car ever!
Volt picture without any studly GM execs, with a clear view of the humungous black plastic window sill
I asked Robert is there was a way to order the calendar.
Its like the stupid businessman’s annual calendar.
Really funny.
They could’ve gotten real kinky since it wasn’t supposed to be leaked(!)
I mean come on now! Can you imagine some really good poses here?
Maybe just wearing the tie and the car?
Wow. That’s an ugly vision.
But the car does look cool…for a design contest.
romanjetfighter: These are PR photos, so it’s a possibility they did a lot of post processing (photoshop, etc) before releasing these pictures.
The thick window dressings look like something that translated over badly from the concept, which was supposed to have translucent glass or something. It would be kind of neat if it was tinted plastic and something like the chevy logo or VOLT glowed through, but knowing them, it’s made out of plastic with cheap clearcoat that will start to peel in 2 years.
Yuck. That’s a $40,000 car?
Even Chris Bangle might have lightened this one up a bit…
Is it just me, or does it seem like **everything** GM does is so hamhanded?
@Dr. Lemming: Yuck. That’s a $40,000 car?
You know, I’m not totally unconvinced that GM’s intent is to price this thing unrealistically. That way, when it doesn’t sell they can say, “You see…we told you that people don’t really want vehicles that are ‘different!’ Take a look at our new line of SUV’s.” That is, assuming GM will live long enough with Federal aid to make it to this point.
When it comes to building a product that doesn’t fit their established model, making products with tragic flaws seems to be GM’s pattern. Witness other small car ventures (Vega and the original J-cars come to mind), hybrid technology (no need to go there), Euro-sport sedans (multiple rebadged Opels) and on and on.
Did they say the pics were a mistake or that the car was a mistake?
Wow that’s really unimpressive compared to the concept. With a $40,000 price tag as it sits next to s similar sized Cobalt sales shoud be interesting. “WTF this isn’t what they were showing in the commercials” should be a pretty typical reaction. The profile is pretty goofy looking with those door panels and that funky mirror.
Having met the guy, I really don’t think David Darovitz makes a PR mistake. I think its timing was brilliant, lines up well with the $50b bailout money.
Padgett’s got it right.
Far too many “accidents” in the PR world these days. Makes you wonder.
After seeing the pic with the execs absent, I think I actually prefer them in front of the car. (Not so I can check them out, but rather so the car can stay covered.)
And RF, according to this article which you posted recently, the Volt will launch in just over two years, in November 2010 (see the third paragraph in “The View from the Launch Pad”).
GM has a few choices with pricing here:
1. Charge forty grand for it and sell a few hundred a month, but more or less break even (although at production levels that low, their break even point might be even higher).
2. Charge twenty grand for it and sell ten thousand a month or more, but lose at least ten grand and as much as twenty grand per car sold.
3. Somewhere in between, with losses and sales to match.
Can GM really afford such a major loss leader right now?
Looks like a first gen Dodge Stratus:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:1st_Dodge_Stratus.jpg
No, that’s not a good thing.
Everything at GM is designed by committee: the cars, the PR, the spin…