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Google Trends says it’s so, according to gm-volt.com [via Autoblog]. The Leaf also has 54,000 Facebook fans to the Volt’s 24,000. Plus, the Leaf has 130,000 people on its official “interest list” while the Volt boasts a mere 42,000. The danger here: that Leaf beats the Volt to becoming the EV segment’s first successful brand, earning it “the new Prius” status that Bob Lutz so badly wanted to bring home to Detroit. [Hat Tip: gslippy]
12 Comments on “Leaf Jolting Volt In EV Popularity Contest...”
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Typical GM, the’ve been talking about the Volt for so long, people have lost interest in it. When it finally comes out there will be a collective yawn.
It’s a combination of weariness and wariness.
Yes, people are sick of hearing about the Volt… and I suspect many of them are also EXTREMELY doubtful of Gov’t Motors’ ability to match its own hyperbole.
I wouldn’t think twice about buying a new Leaf, were I in the market for one. But there’s no way in hell I’d buy — or even sit in — the first-year attempt at a GM-branded gas-electric hybrid. Let other fools be the beta-testers, thank you!
But is there a “Leaf Dance”? How can you launch an EV without a very cool dance video?
Will the Leaf get two hundred thirty ONE miles per gallon?
Any figures available for the original Honda Insight and Toyota Prius when they were first introduced to the US market? I believe the Insight beat the Prius by something like two years (1999 versus 2001) and the more conventional (for a hybrid) but later arriving Prius would handily trounce the quicker-to-market Insight, eventually becoming the standard bearer (by a wide margin) for the vehicle class.
While the same thing may not happen with the Leaf/Volt, history has shown it’s a possibility.
One thing for sure, you can’t say how many miles per gallon when measuring Electrics, so GM is wrong is saying this in the first place, one thing Nissan is doing for people who wish to purchase the Leaf, they are inspecting your Fuse Panel in your home to make sure you can charge the vehicle, also added to the price of the “Leaf” also none of use are ready for charging stations along our Highways, we have a long way to go in this regard.
The G8 was popular with the internets too and me all know how well that turned out.
The gap isn’t as extreme as the initial chart let on. You should re-run the analysis and use the cumulative total of “chevy volt” plus “chevrolet volt” in your analysis. The rank-orders don’t change, but you should consider this for the sake of presenting what that website author failed to have thought about.
You’ll have to export the data to a .csv file and re-combine them since the online Google Trends results are always scaled where one of the search terms becomes 1.0. The exported CSV files can be normalized against a 0.0 fixed result.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=nissan+leaf%2C+chevy+volt%2C+chevrolet+volt&ctab=0&geo=all&date=2010&sort=1
As an aside, I wonder if GM realizes that dude is using the GM logo on his site. He says he doesn’t work for GM in the “about” page… but who reads the about page? He’s got enough GM stuff on there that it makes it hard for a casual reader to conclude the non-affiliation while reading the site.
Gosh, a popularity contest between two pieces of vaporware. Does either run on phlogiston?
I’m not sure how you can call the Leaf ‘vaporware’. Nissan is actually taking pre-orders, and has established a real price for the car. The Volt’s pricing is still TBD.
If the definition of ‘vaporware’ is ‘unreleased’, then you could call the 2012 Corvette by the same name.
Yes, both are vapourware.
Sure, the 2012 Corvette — not to mention the 2072 Corvette — is vapour, too. But “Corvette” (2010 model) is real while “Leaf” and “Volt” are not. They are just marketing claims until there are some real cars in existence that can be driven and independently tested.
I bet the gulf disaster is drawing a lot of buyers who would like to boycott the oil industry altogether.
The Volt still uses gas and I’ve read it will get an estimated 31mpg when not running on electricity. A Toyota Corolla does much better and you can buy one for at 40% of the price.