Being an ex-manufacturing engineer, I have a need to quantify things in my life, to analyze them. I did this before I leased my first Chevy Volt, because no one could tell me what percentage of my driving would be electric, I built a spreadsheet to make a guesstimate. As I recall, my estimate was that I’d be 75% electric, after my first full year of driving. I think I ended up at 74 point something percent. I made another spreadsheet, to track the actual performance of each drive and faithfully entered data after each drive. Later, I realized my Blink charger was collecting detailed charging data, so I didn’t need to compile the data manually.
I started examining my vehicle sales at Classic Chevrolet. This morning, I was updating my sales data and noticed that my Volt sales this year have already equalled my entire Volt sales volume for the previous year!
There is one obvious reason for this: the pent-up demand, caused by the 2016 Volt not being available in Texas. Just like when a new iPhone is about to debut, many Volt buyers came in to learn about the Volt, but decided to wait for the improved 2nd generation. That being said, I am still pretty shocked that an entire year of sales has happened in 4-1/2 months. Another surprise is that my Volt sales have almost caught up with my sales of the most popular item in our inventory, the Chevy Silverado 1500 pickup. I mean, this is Texas, after all. Pickups are king here.
What percentage of your Volt buyers are people who care about clean air and climate change, people like us who read environmental and EV websites, and come to your dealership already primed to buy a Volt and what percentage are people who know nothing about plug-ins, who you educate and then close the sale?
My guess is that most of your Volt sales are to the former.
Imagine how many Volts you would be selling if GM advertised them and advertised them aggressively.
Are there signs on the showroom walls advertising the $7500 tax credit? My guess: no.
We actually have large signs on the Volts touting the $7,500 Income Tax Credit.