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GM still overplaying the "range anxiety" fear message
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GM's still overplays range anxiety in order to sell its Volt
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GM is still beating the "anxiety range" fear, uncertainty and doom, FUD message to the point of hurting its image again.
The gist is the more things change, the less they do. And that seems to be particularly accurate in the case of GM. GM has always relied on PR and marketing tactics but with less results over the past decades. After the bankruptcy, everyone hoped GM had learned its lesson. However, after hearing its CEO beating the tired and over used "anxiety range" fear tactic, it makes one question whether GM is ready for the EV revolution.
FUD! Fear, uncertainty and doom will work so far. That is what GM CEO Fritz Henderson is still indulging when he recently said that “range anxiety” will be a hindrance to the adoption of electric cars, according to the gm-volt blog. The problem is, GM is the only one that keeps on abusing that tired message over and over again. Why? If you had all of your assets riding on the eventual success of a single plug-in hybrid, PHEV called the Volt, that GM insists on calling an extended range electric vehicle, EREV, it is easy to want to instill a certain of range fear in consumer's minds in order to have them flock to your product. It seems this is what GM is still doing, the same it has been doing for decades except today, it just does not work well anymore.
GM CEO Fritz Henderson: “Everybody is trying to solve the problem of range because we have range anxiety... The consumer doesn’t want to be strained. We had the same problem with the EV1, not enough range.” But GM overplays the range anxiety fear to the point of discrediting themselves. We never heard too many people complaining about the lack of range the EV1 had. If the cost of EVs is important to consumers, GM should not treat them as unintelligent. When Henderson says that battery costs must come down, that is an industry wide given. As far as motor and control costs coming down, it makes one wonder where the company is shopping around, since those prices are reasonable these days. Google "range anxiety" and strangely enough, GM comes up next to it.
It is sad to see that some things do not change easily at GM. One thing GM has always been done well is using marketing. The company is still doing what it has done for the past decades, manipulating consumer fears and lust with marketing tactics. It would be good to see a GM that takes an intelligent stand by educating consumers, not spreading fear for a change. It is high time for GM to stop playing this disingenuous role of spreading FUD once and for all and step into the modern electric drive world by empowering consumers.
For more info: Gm-Volt, Electricnick.
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