A place just for EVs & Hybrids!

As I’ve mentioned before, (see previous post), I have been a salesperson at Classic Chevrolet in Grapevine, Texas, for almost three years now. I sell everything Chevy makes, but the reason I changed careers was the Chevy Volt.

When I first came to a sales meeting (as a Volt customer) to speak about why I felt the Volt was important to both our nation and General Motors, I’m sure the salespeople thought, “Who is this doofus???” Then, when I was hired four days later, by a dealership that is the largest volume Chevrolet dealership, in the U.S. (with no previous car sales experience) I’m sure they were all as equally dumbfounded. I’ll bet some were expecting me to fall on my face.

I was “that Volt guy” at first. Salespeople would send Volt prospects to me, rather than sell the Volt themselves. There are many reasons for this that I’ve covered before. Slowly but surely, I learned the ropes and sold everything we make, but I remained “the Volt guy.”

That turned out to be a good thing recently. The General Sales Manager called me into his office, closing the door behind me, after I entered. All I could think was, “What have I done???” Like the old joke, he said he had good news and bad news for me. I asked for the bad news first. He said, “We are getting so many Volt customers, that when they bring their cars in for service, we have a tough time charging them, because the chargers are all taken by employees and other service Volts.” He told me the dealership was going to install 110V outlets in the employee parking area and I’d have to start charging at the lower rate, out there.

“No biggie,” I thought. I’m here eight hours a day (minimum) and that’s plenty of time to refill my Volt’s battery pack, even at 110V, as my commute is only 15 miles each way.

So, the good news?

Classic Chevrolet of Grapevine, Texas is going to be the first dealership, in our region of the country, to create an EV/Hybrid sales/education center! We will take a building, currently used for general car sales, and rebrand it. It is the building shown above. The green awnings will be replaced with new ones, showing the building’s new purpose. We will saw a trench through the concrete parking lot, out to where the vehicles are parked, to run wiring for level 2 (240V) chargers. Each charger will service four vehicles (one at a time), making it easy to keep our fleet ready to demo and sell. I have even suggested we get a big screen TV, to show EV education videos, so the salespeople spend less time saying the same things over and over and more time working with customers. My wife is a professional video editor, so we could even create our own programs to fill any gaps in available videos.The best news of all came, when he told me that I’d be deeply involved in the planning, staff selection and day-to-day operation of that group.