Bruzilla
Well-Known Member
I just saw this documentary film Who Killed The Electric Car? on Encore this morning and found it to be an interesting view of the automotive industry. The movie deals with the GM EV-1 electric vehicle and other electric vehicles that were produced as a result of California's mandate that 10% of vehicles sold by 2004 or so had to be emission-free designs. Once you weeded through all the greener/anti oil industry propaganda of the film it offered some great insight into how cars are made, marketed and sold, or not sold, that makes for some good information for all of us.
The contention of the film was these cars had huge sales potential but GM was too stubborn, too rearward thinking, too addicted to gasoline, too averse to change, and too influenced by Big Oil to effectively promote the vehicles and allow them to reach their full sales potential. One of the few critics of these views in the film made the comment "GM would sell a car that ran on pig **** if people would buy it" was, I think, about the only fully-truthful statement in the film.
Much of the film's focus was on a woman who was a sales person for the EV-1 in the Los Angeles area. Unlike normal sales people who react to customer needs, she was specially trained to proactively seek customers out, mainly high-visibility actors, progressive politicians, corporate executives, environmental activist leaders, etc., who would all be willing to endorse the car just by buying it, and in her view she was very successful. She had waiting lists of people waiting to get the EV-1 and she couldn't get enough cars to meet the demand from these people. What I thought should have been pointed out was all these people she was selling to were all people who were extremely unlikely to have one car. Yes, Tom Hanks or Mel Gibson (two of her customers) might be able to make great use of an EV-1 for the occasional trip to a studio or meeting in an LA office, but you can bet your *** they have several gas vehicles and access to car services to cover trips where the EV-1 wouldn't meet his needs. How many average Americans share those capabilities? Also, having a waiting list of even 1,000 buyers sounds great until you consider a maker needs to sell hundreds of thousands of cars to be profitable. If they need that sale rep to move 20,000 cars, that 1,000 car waiting list ain't so impressive.
One of the biggest points the film tried to make was that the limited range of the EV-1, about 80 miles a charge, met the needs of 80% or so of drivers so fears of potential owners not having the range they needed were unfounded. As anyone who has been in the automotive business knows, buying decisions are driven by "what is's" and "what ifs". The what is's are the declarative statements of what a car and a seller can do for the customer, and the what if's are the scenarios the customer comes up with that deviate from the what is's, and car people know the what if's are far more heavily weighted than the what is's. For example, a dealer can promote a lifetime-service guarantee for every car it sells that'll cover 99% of a customer's needs, but if the customer asks "What if I'm on a trip to my brother Bob's house in the next state and my car needs service? Does this plan pay for that or is this deal only good here?" If the answer is no, it doesn't matter if the program meets 99% of their needs because that 1% is so heavily weighted that it often kills the whole deal. So for mileage, yes, the average owner may only drive say 60 miles a day and the "what is" range of 80 miles a day meets that need, but then the "what if I take my co-workers to lunch, and that adds 14 miles to my drive?", or "what if I have to make a trip to pick up a sick child at school and take them home or to the doctor?", or "what if I want to come home from work and go out for dinner?" issues come up and suddenly people are faced with the prospect of limiting how they live their lives to finding a way to never go more than 80 miles a day, and it doesn't matter that they may rarely only drive more than 80 miles a few times... the what if trumps the what is.
On a related note, they pointed out how 80% of Americans live in urban and suburban areas with fairly short commutes every day, but failed to take into account that travel isn't limited to intra-urban area drivers but also inter-area drivers, and while an urban area might have recharge stations where drivers could make pit stops, what about when they are driving through rural areas between urban areas? Folks living in these areas won't buy electric vehicles because they are part of the 20% who can't use them, so who's going to make the investment in building and maintaining electric service points?
What I also thought was very telling was while they spent a lot of time discussing advances in battery technology that would increase ranges, they totally avoided any mention of the issues with battery disposal. Didn't even hint at it, which tells me that is a subject they want to avoid at all costs as it counters all their pro-environment arguments.
The last point I found interesting was the supporters were upset because GM's research showed that for every 1,000 interested buyers, once all the negatives associated with the car were pointed out to them, only 50 said they would still buy the car. The supporters were furious about this finding because in their minds cars are sold by emphasizing the positives of a car and not placing a focus on the negatives. I found this highly ironic given GM's current legal issues over selling cars with faulty ignition systems. "The Cobalt looks great, gets awesome mileage, offers cutting edge performance and styling at an industry-leading price... just don't worry about the ignition cutting off and making you get dead in a fatal accident." What they took to be GM caving to Big Oil or suffering from lack of vision, I took to be GM seeing a car with a lot of negatives and knowing if these cars were sold to the general public it wouldn't be long before they were bringing them back for refunds, filing lawsuits, etc., and they would never recover the losses they would suffer.
So the point of the film was people would line up to buy these electric vehicles if only they had been properly marketed, and GM had been better visionaries, and California hadn't caved to pressure from the auto makers and rescinded the requirement for non-emission cars, and if the Republicans and Big Oil hadn't been talking down the technology. But given the fact that hybrids, which do a much better job of meeting consumer needs than electric vehicles, have seen their sales flourish far beyond what electric vehicles have, I would say the only opinion offered in the film that has proven over time to be correct was the "GM would sell a car that ran on pig **** if people would buy it" one.
The contention of the film was these cars had huge sales potential but GM was too stubborn, too rearward thinking, too addicted to gasoline, too averse to change, and too influenced by Big Oil to effectively promote the vehicles and allow them to reach their full sales potential. One of the few critics of these views in the film made the comment "GM would sell a car that ran on pig **** if people would buy it" was, I think, about the only fully-truthful statement in the film.
Much of the film's focus was on a woman who was a sales person for the EV-1 in the Los Angeles area. Unlike normal sales people who react to customer needs, she was specially trained to proactively seek customers out, mainly high-visibility actors, progressive politicians, corporate executives, environmental activist leaders, etc., who would all be willing to endorse the car just by buying it, and in her view she was very successful. She had waiting lists of people waiting to get the EV-1 and she couldn't get enough cars to meet the demand from these people. What I thought should have been pointed out was all these people she was selling to were all people who were extremely unlikely to have one car. Yes, Tom Hanks or Mel Gibson (two of her customers) might be able to make great use of an EV-1 for the occasional trip to a studio or meeting in an LA office, but you can bet your *** they have several gas vehicles and access to car services to cover trips where the EV-1 wouldn't meet his needs. How many average Americans share those capabilities? Also, having a waiting list of even 1,000 buyers sounds great until you consider a maker needs to sell hundreds of thousands of cars to be profitable. If they need that sale rep to move 20,000 cars, that 1,000 car waiting list ain't so impressive.
One of the biggest points the film tried to make was that the limited range of the EV-1, about 80 miles a charge, met the needs of 80% or so of drivers so fears of potential owners not having the range they needed were unfounded. As anyone who has been in the automotive business knows, buying decisions are driven by "what is's" and "what ifs". The what is's are the declarative statements of what a car and a seller can do for the customer, and the what if's are the scenarios the customer comes up with that deviate from the what is's, and car people know the what if's are far more heavily weighted than the what is's. For example, a dealer can promote a lifetime-service guarantee for every car it sells that'll cover 99% of a customer's needs, but if the customer asks "What if I'm on a trip to my brother Bob's house in the next state and my car needs service? Does this plan pay for that or is this deal only good here?" If the answer is no, it doesn't matter if the program meets 99% of their needs because that 1% is so heavily weighted that it often kills the whole deal. So for mileage, yes, the average owner may only drive say 60 miles a day and the "what is" range of 80 miles a day meets that need, but then the "what if I take my co-workers to lunch, and that adds 14 miles to my drive?", or "what if I have to make a trip to pick up a sick child at school and take them home or to the doctor?", or "what if I want to come home from work and go out for dinner?" issues come up and suddenly people are faced with the prospect of limiting how they live their lives to finding a way to never go more than 80 miles a day, and it doesn't matter that they may rarely only drive more than 80 miles a few times... the what if trumps the what is.
On a related note, they pointed out how 80% of Americans live in urban and suburban areas with fairly short commutes every day, but failed to take into account that travel isn't limited to intra-urban area drivers but also inter-area drivers, and while an urban area might have recharge stations where drivers could make pit stops, what about when they are driving through rural areas between urban areas? Folks living in these areas won't buy electric vehicles because they are part of the 20% who can't use them, so who's going to make the investment in building and maintaining electric service points?
What I also thought was very telling was while they spent a lot of time discussing advances in battery technology that would increase ranges, they totally avoided any mention of the issues with battery disposal. Didn't even hint at it, which tells me that is a subject they want to avoid at all costs as it counters all their pro-environment arguments.
The last point I found interesting was the supporters were upset because GM's research showed that for every 1,000 interested buyers, once all the negatives associated with the car were pointed out to them, only 50 said they would still buy the car. The supporters were furious about this finding because in their minds cars are sold by emphasizing the positives of a car and not placing a focus on the negatives. I found this highly ironic given GM's current legal issues over selling cars with faulty ignition systems. "The Cobalt looks great, gets awesome mileage, offers cutting edge performance and styling at an industry-leading price... just don't worry about the ignition cutting off and making you get dead in a fatal accident." What they took to be GM caving to Big Oil or suffering from lack of vision, I took to be GM seeing a car with a lot of negatives and knowing if these cars were sold to the general public it wouldn't be long before they were bringing them back for refunds, filing lawsuits, etc., and they would never recover the losses they would suffer.
So the point of the film was people would line up to buy these electric vehicles if only they had been properly marketed, and GM had been better visionaries, and California hadn't caved to pressure from the auto makers and rescinded the requirement for non-emission cars, and if the Republicans and Big Oil hadn't been talking down the technology. But given the fact that hybrids, which do a much better job of meeting consumer needs than electric vehicles, have seen their sales flourish far beyond what electric vehicles have, I would say the only opinion offered in the film that has proven over time to be correct was the "GM would sell a car that ran on pig **** if people would buy it" one.
