Marketing
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Monday morning, General Motors CEO Mary Barra is expected to unveil a new battery-electric concept car at the Detroit Auto Show. It's the first look at a future production vehicle with a projected 200 miles of electric range, at a price said to be around $30,000. Assuming the leaked stories are correct, the concept is called the Chevrolet Bolt. And that's just an incredibly bad name for Chevy to use. DON'T MISS: BREAKING: Chevrolet 'Bolt' Concept 200-Mile Electric Car To Target Tesla We can understand why GM's marketers would want to allude to the Volt in naming a new, all-electric model. The...
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Will The 2016 Chevy Volt Be A 'Mass-Market' Electric Car? Should It Be?
While battery-electric cars are pretty simple in concept, it's often much harder for auto marketers to explain the benefits of range-extended electrics and plug-in hybrids. Last summer, Chevrolet's chief marketing officer, Tim Mahoney, said the marketing for the new 2016 Chevy Volt would be...
John Voelcker -
Top Electric-Car Advertisers: Nissan And, Surprise, Kia--Chevy Not So Much
Nissan and Kia are big spenders on electric-car advertising, but not Chevy.
Stephen Edelstein -
Lexus CT 200h Hybrid Ad Slams Electric BMW i3: Gloves Come Off: FURTHER UPDATE
A new Lexus hybrid ad depicts electric cars as woefully inconvenient.
Stephen Edelstein -
2015 Kia Soul EV: Animals, Electrons, Maroon 5 (Video)
Well, it's about time: An electric-car maker is using straight-out sex appeal to market a new electric car. Even if it is, errrmmmm, rodent sex appeal. A new video posted last Wednesday uses Kia's now-familiar supersized hamsters to market the new 2015 Kia Soul EV. DON'T MISS: 2015 Kia Soul EV...
John Voelcker -
Marketing For 2016 Chevy Volt To Be Rethought, Use Owners As Evangelists
It's no secret among owners of the Chevy Volt range-extended electric car that the innovative car's advertising and marketing has been muddled at best. Now, with a new 2016 Volt to be unveiled next January, Chevrolet's recently-arrived global chief marketing officer promises that a thorough...
John Voelcker -
The battle between Tesla Motors, which sells its electric cars directly to buyers over the Internet, and the nation's auto dealers--who want to make that practice illegal--is now in its fifth year. And for the very first time, the dealers' national trade organization has embarked on a charm offensive to make its case directly to the public. With a website and various marketing activities, the National Auto Dealers Association (NADA) highlights the many benefits it suggests auto dealers offer to car buyers, their local communities, and the industry at large. The campaign, entitled Get The...
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Lexus Ad Not Only Sneers At Plug-Ins, But Gets Charging Wrong
Few things make electric-car advocates as cranky as criticism of their vehicles. But when the criticism is factually wrong, and comes from a carmaker that has resolutely said it doesn't think plug-in electric cars are "ready for prime time," the howling gets harsher. Perhaps Toyota's Lexus luxury...
John Voelcker -
'Tree Huggers Don't Buy Luxury Cars,' Says Cadillac Exec On Electric Cars
So what IS a "tree hugger," anyway? According to a Cadillac executive quoted in The Detroit News a week ago, it's someone who never buys luxury cars. That phrase leaped out at us from an otherwise pro forma article in which General Motors executives said the company's sales hadn't been affected by...
John Voelcker -
Three Years Later, Most Consumers Don't Understand The Chevy Volt
Chevrolet's range-extended electric vehicle, the Volt, has been on sale for more than three years now. Its sales of 58,000 units so far are still small compared to more conventional vehicles, but many people will have seen one on the road by now--and seen TV ads or information on the internet. Even...
Antony Ingram -
2015 Kia Soul EV: 'Recharge Your Soul' Video Kicks Off Marketing
The first 2015 Kia Soul EV electric cars won't reach U.S. dealers until sometime between July and September, and then only in selected regions (for which read "California"). But the company has already started some lowkey marketing, with yesterday's release of a YouTube video titled, "Recharge Your...
John Voelcker -
Nissan Surveys Tesla Owners For Intelligence On Electric Cars
Nissan is very quietly gathering additional electric-car "intelligence" about satisfaction, details, and features from Tesla Model S owners.
George Parrott -
These three disparate brands are the most-loved among U.S. car buyers, a new study says.
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Actress Anne Hathaway Is NOT The First 2014 BMW i3 Owner In The U.S.
Sometimes the media don't quite know what they're talking about. And so it was with a story that had actress Anne Hathaway importing one of the first 2014 BMW i3 electric cars from Germany for her husband because she didn't want to wait for it to go on sale in the U.S. next spring. The story, which...
John Voelcker -
What Happens To A Nissan Leaf Electric Car At A Gas Station?
The Nissan Leaf is launching in South Africa, and perplexing gas station attendants.
Stephen Edelstein -
'Spy Shots': MINI Boatman Makes Waves In New York Harbor
We get a lot of spy shots of new or prototype cars sent in to High Gear Media, but not that many come from waterproof cameras. These photos show a potentially new and so far unknown MINI model parked at the marina that adjoins the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan. Or perhaps moored...
John Voelcker -
Toyota Prius Plug-In To Be Driven By 'Eco-Savvy Influencers' In MPG Challenge
In May, we told you about the first round of Toyota's Prius Plug-In MPG Challenge. If you missed it and don't feel like clicking through to read the magnificently written article, here are the high points: Toyota loaned 2013 Prius Plug-Ins to a handful of nonprofits for 30 days. The nonprofits used...
Richard Read -
Toyota Auris Ad Complains About Auto Emissions, Doesn't Mention Electric Cars
By now, you've probably seen it: the new ad for the Toyota Auris Hybrid. But on the off chance you haven't, here's the Cliffs Notes version: Sometime in the future, a man and woman awake in their stylish apartment. It's got enough bells and whistles and Roombas to give Michio Kaku a heart attack...
Richard Read -
We liked the 2013 Fiat 500e electric car, a lot. It may be the best of the low-volume compliance cars, in fact--though the 2014 Chevy Spark EV and 2013 Honda Fit EV are pretty great too. We're less sure how we feel about the ad campaign Fiat is using to pitch the car, under the tagline, "Environmentally Sexy." Take the ad above, titled "Ryan's Story." It clearly plays off the gorgeous-European-women-in-high-heels meme that blazed the Fiat 500 Abarth hot hatch into public awareness, courtesy of now-superstar model Catrinel Menghia. This new ad for Fiat's 500e electric car even repeats the...
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Who Will Drive BMW i3 Electric Cars? Waify Metrosexuals, According To Ad
Although its arrival is still months away, we already know a lot about the all-electric BMW i3. We have a good idea of its range (with and without the optional range-extender), we've hypothesized about its sticker price, and a few lucky journalists have even gotten to drive around in it. But...
Richard Read -
Citroën Tidies Up The Vatican's Black Smoke Problem In Clean Diesel Ad
To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast, but social media moves faster." Think of the Harlem Shake phenomenon: one minute it was an obscure YouTube meme, the next, it was being performed by a bunch of Today show employees. If marketers want to jump on a trend, they have to move at...
Richard Read -
Better Place Hires Marketing Guru Peter Economides To Buff Its Brand
Given soothsayers' record on end-of-the-world predictions, this probably won't be humanity's last year on Planet Earth. But for the folks at electric car start-up Better Place, 2012 has brought more than its share of doom and gloom. The biggest downer came in October, with the firing of Better...
Richard Read -
MINI Burns Lots Of Gas In PR-Based Expedition To Nowhere
The MINI brand re-established itself globally by building fuel-efficient cars that, coincidentally, were also surprisingly fun to drive. In fact, when it comes to cars powered by their front wheels, we can’t think of any that handle better than MINI’s products. The brand has innovated...
Kurt Ernst -
Nissan To Reboot Leaf Effort, Asks Electric-Car Fans For Help
This is a tough period for Nissan and its Leaf electric car. Sales have been stagnant, averaging 500 cars per month this year. More recent concerns by owners in Phoenix over unexpected battery-capacity loss raise the specter of a plug-in car with limited lifespan. Some observers feel that Nissan...
John Voelcker