Rant #5 The Chevy Volt
Chevrolet just made a big mistake. Then again, it’s the same mistake the American auto manufactures have been making for years. They did what I call the video game rut.
When you go shopping for a video game console and games to go with it, most of what you will find are games centered around shooting, explosions, and general violence and destruction. It’s a good market, but the reality is that it is a 10% market. Most everything video game related is targeted toward adolecent and young adult males. Simply forgetting about the 90% of world that would buy video games.
Nintendo came along and made a game console that didn’t market to the young male, but targeted everyone else. Others in the industry laughed, but they are not laughing anymore. The Wii is now the number one selling console in the world. They are still hard to come by even after more than a year of being on the market. They made something that everyone else would like.
Just like the rest of the auto manufactures in the world, Chevy decided to make a production electric car. Ok, that’s pretty cool. Then they came out with their prototype vision of what it would look like. Surprisingly, it looked good! Unline the egg shape of the Prius, it looked like something sporty. I was actually excited about this. This wasn’t just a car targeted at a very specific market, rather it was made to look good. It wasn’t a design that said “I’m driving green!” it was a design that said “This is a good looking car.”
There was lots of buz generated around this car. Lots of people saying “Finally!” or “GM got something right!”
Then something happened. I’m not sure how. Committee maybe? Lack of vision? Fear of stepping out in front? I wish I knew. When the production model showed up, it was a major dissappointment. By the time everything was said and done, Chevrolet designed another Prius. Another boring egg shaped car. When asked, the CEO simply said, “Well, the kind of people who are going to buy an electric car aren’t concerned about how it looks. They are buying it to make a statement.” In effect, the market for this car just got reduced to the 10% (or less) market instead of everyone else.