Bob Lutz Shows Off the Chevy Volt on Letterman
You might remember a couple of weeks back, we published a post from Bob Lutz about David Letterman’s misunderstanding of the Chevy Volt. Dave had made some underinformed statements about the Volt on a previous show that had us “all charged up,” so Bob offered some of the information we thought was missing, offered Dave the chance to come to Detroit to drive the test Volts, and offered to go on Dave’s show to explain the car in person.
Dave was good enough to take Bob up on his offer, and so Bob was a guest on the Letterman show last night. We thought it went pretty well; Dave asked fair questions, and Bob gave the honest answers. Most of all, we’re glad that Bob had the chance to show America this car and talk about its promise. We’re all very passionate about the Volt here at GM, and when we see wrong information about the car being bandied about, we’ll take the opportunity to correct it. A big thanks to Dave for giving us the opportunity; here’s Bob’s appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman. - Christopher Barger, Director Social Media
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Early purchase program for the Volt? ~ Don’t make the same mistakes you made with Camaro
Last night you mentioned the Volt would be on sale in late 2010 and in showrooms in 2011.
Here’s my request when you do:
If you are planning to have an early purchase program for the Volt, please put someone in charge other than those who are running the early purchase program for the Camaro. They have done a horrible job, and you can’t stand to go through the same thing with Volt. All it does is alienate customers.
Bob Lutz:
My HERO! thank God your a great and passionate person for GM, please help us in so cal now with converting all these toyota lovers and convert them to American. if anyone can its you.
bluebaby
Forget about GM EVs. GM has been kept us dependent on foreign oil long enough! Did anyone see, “Who Killed The Electric Car”? While I have sympathy for the labor of GM, the management has sold America out! We should have had an EV years ago, really…GM and all the other American Auto Companies always design the body of EVs in a very unappealing way. Why not make the autos with a look just like the gas guzzlers that are glamorous? Maybe to disourage the consumer from purchasing an EV. Wake up consumers American Auto Companies do not deserve US customers any longer. The Big Three lost the drive long time ago when it sold out to the OIL interests. GO TESLA. It takes courage to go against such formadable forces.
I didn’t see the show, but it sounds like it went well all around. Kudos to Letterman for hosting Lutz and the Volt on the show, and being big enough to reconsider his previous stance. Kudos to Lutz for making a believer out of someone who wasn’t previously, and for (I imagine) representing GM in a professional and dignified way. Hopefully there were others who watched the show that will also take a second look at GM and what we’re doing these days.
Good show Bob!
This whole episode was rather well handled by Bob and GM, all the way from the blog response to the TV appearance. Personally, after the misinformed, pejorative nonsense Letterman was flinging on-air during the Musk interview, I would not have had the patience or courtesy to address it as rationally and constructively as you all did. Well done!
My biggest concern about driving a “car” is how a “car” will drive in Michigan winters. Will the Volt meet the needs of the vehicle owner living in Michigan; .i.e. heavy snow, ice, wind (I don’t want to be blown off the Mackinac bridge, nor have the bridge closed all the time since it’s too windy for cars, etc.) I LOVE my TrailBlazer!!!!!!!!! for all of these reasons, plus I can see everything even when I’m seated in the back seat. I feel very secure in my TrailBlazer, and we just put 5000+ miles on it after driving back & forth from AZ @ 24mpg, driving through all sorts of conditions.
Kudos to Dave for having Bob on. Bob Lutz once again serving GM so well. Straight forward, honest in his answers and showing America a very good thing coming from GM.
Bob did a great job! Then again, I expected nothing less. Now, it this performance could just be repeated on every talk show and news broadcast explaining the Voltec concept for the next year or so…
Who watches Letterman anyway?
While the Volt is a great engineering feat for GM, however if it’s priced at +30K it will be obsolete compared to the 19K and 20K starting prices for the Prius and Insight. Add in GM’s completely tarnished image and complete lack of trust and faith among the general buying public, you have significant market failure waiting to happen.
Dear Mr. Lutz:
You show no faith in General Motors. You sold your shares and jumped ship. Why? I was so disappointed that you did not give more time to discuss the Volt on Letterman. Dave was so gracious to you. I was even more disappointed that you refused to acknowledge that the EV1 could have saved a lot of autoworker jobs. GM producing the EV1 is not going to put your shareholders out of business. Blaming the investors, saying GM has to answer to the shareholders, makes GM look like the tail is wagging the dog. And sir, please, next time you interview, smile a little more and don’t look so grim when you want America to see the next great car coming from GM.
Fighting against the EV1, is GM fighting against itself. How does that make any sense? You also keep on saying that the EV1 is too expensive to make. Not true if you mass-produce it. All we hear is that American car companies, with the exception of Ford, are going to produce 1000 or maybe 2000 electric cars for the U.S. market. Bring back the EV1!!! GM did a great thing by producing this car! GM has kept American drivers on the road for so many years and has been committed to great products. Lead the nation! With the new battery technology we have today, more range can be produced and with the help of solar panels, more electricity can be generated for internal features. People are sobering up from the brainwashing of “internal combustion or nothing else.” You can only ignore the issue of the EV1 for so long, eventually someone is going to start asking some serious questions about it. Will you be ready to answer?
It’d be nice if you used the video with permission from CBS. Instead, you’ve got someone pointing a video camera at their TV. Seems a little hypocritical to say that CBS/Dave Letterman didn’t give you a fair shake when they had Tesla Motors on the show, and then you go and use a stolen version of the Lutz segment after CBS makes nice and has him on.
Shame on you.
The talkshow conversations are typically infuriatingly dumbed down. But this one went well.
Saw you the other night on Letterman’s show. When you mentioned the Cruze would be replacing the Cobalt, I was hoping Dave would quiz you on that lousy name and why you decided to spell Cruze with a “Z.”
I would have loved to hear your explanation. You seem very decisive and sure of yourself, but I doubt there is any easy way to explain why GM settled on that name. That has to be one of those “by committee” names that everyone involved secretly wishes were something else.
Great job, Bob! You did a very nice job of defending GM. Where can I find the whole interview? I would like to see the entire thing.
Thanks,
Eric
Cruze is the dumbest name I have heard in a long time for a car. I guarantee you that thousands of people are going to avoid the car based on that name alone.
Add to that the thousands of Cobalt owners who are pissed that you are changing the name of their car.
Absolutely 100% moronic.
As for Bob’s appearance on Letterman-job well done! It was practically a Chevy commercial.
Good job, Bob! I appreciated the way Letterman gave you ample time, even to the extent of bumping the musical guest. And much better than your appearance on the Colbert Report – though I know the host had a lot to do with that. Stephen is hard to get anything over on, especially your story. Cool he was on Letterman right before you. Oh, and the Volt looked good, even with the 10 pounds added by the TV cameras!
I think you should try for the Bonnie Hunt Show next. You’ll get to a good cross-section of America, and Bonnie is a real sweetheart (not to mention a good friend of Letterman. Oh, and her favorite car is a classic buick!)
Or maybe provide Ellen with a few vehicles to give away. She’s been giving away Fords and VWs lately, and the Fords have been getting some great exposure. She has a hugh following!
Hmmm. Do I watch too many talk shows?
Enjoy a well-deserved retirement (though I somehow sense you won’t be sitting still too much.)
Good job with the Letterman interview, it was actually informative, although I think you missed a chance to point out that GM could, if you wanted to, sell an electric Corvette powered by 8,763 laptop batteries at a cheaper price than the Tesla?
And then, you know, do it. Use one of those closed-down SUV plants.
40 miles on a charge? C’mon Bob, seems like such a large corporation that spends billons on R&D could do better. Small upstart Tesla Motors gets 300 miles on a charge. If you really want to not just save GM but make it thrive in the 21st century then do something bold. Maybe invest in something like compressed air. It is a proven green power source that has so much potential and it would be cheaper to re-tool your production plants. My first car was a Gen III F-body that I absolutely loved and I have only bought GM cars ever since. I’d hate to see GM go the way of American Motors, Studebaker and Willys, just to name a few.
Bob Lutz did a great job with Dave Letterman. I’d like to offer a few suggestions that may help in future communications to give the message a little more punch:
When asked about the Tesla’s 200 mile range vs 40 miles:
“We are trying to make a car that everyone can afford. The only way to have an impact on overall emissions or the amount of imported oil is to get the price down so that electrified vehicles can be sold in volumes. The Tesla’s battery pack is more than 3 times the size of the Volt’s and the Tesla pack alone costs about as much as a Volt. The size of the battery pack is part of the tradeoff between designing a $109,000 2-seat roadster and a sedan in the $30’s. Beyond the 40 mile electric range, we use a highly efficient gas engine to propel the car so it could travel from LA to NY just like any car on the road today. But the great thing is, 80% of American commuters travel less than 40 miles so most of the time you could effectively be driving an electric car. Then if you need to drive long distances you have the same convenience as a conventional car. The best of both worlds.”
Dave Tuttle,
If GM is “trying to make a car everyone can afford” where then is their $10,000 all-electric city car?
The paradigm of car ownership will soon shift to where most families will have specialized cars for special functions. A small, short-range, all-electric for city driving — commuting, trips to the market, library, drug store, etc. and a long-range, liquid fuel car for special uses such as a weekend trip to the lake, visiting relatives three states over, etc.
GM is trying to make the Volt fill both uses, which I think is a mistake, and means it will miss both markets. It will be too expensive for routine city use, and also not the best option for the long-range special use car for weekends. It’s trying to do both things, and not doing either that well.
Many small, entrepreneurial companies are working on small, neighborhood and city all-electrics, but why are the big international auto makers avoiding that market? Are the big companies such as GM and Toyota letting the small, inventive companies be the innovators with plans to buy them out later?
LUTZ
Are you kidding me. You feel legacy costs and lack of product devolpement are ressponsible for the downfall of GM. Well sir let me remind you that you are part of the legacy cost and are directly responsible for product devolpement. Im sure your yearly salary and golden parachute far outweights the pindance of a pension many of us receive. As far as product devolpement goes, nice job on introducing a camaro sports car when gas prices were $5 a gallon and building a new plant to build this vehicle what were u thinking. The VOLT, build a new electric vehicle from the ground up then try and figure out what your gonna use to power it just brilliant CAR GUY.
Bob, great interview. It takes a lot of patience with Letterman. Can you put as much an effort into saving Pontiac?
You are a car guy and I do not know how you can let GM kill off this brand. GM does not need two luxury divisions and two truck divisions. I don’t want to here how Buick sells in China. Americans are losing Pontiac because of sales in China. Pontiac has been mostly ignored by GM for quite awhile, never listening to the customer on what we want to buy. There have been terrible decisions made that has hurt the brand. Its easily fixable instead of trying to change an image of an old man Buick.
Keep the G8 (Grand Prix) and Solstice and get rid of all the rebadged Chevy cars. Lets build a Firebird Trans Am and replace the G6 with a new version called the Grand Am. Pontiac does not need to be building SUV’s, minivans, crossovers, or rebadged Aveos and Cobalts. That is not what drives people into the Pontiac showroom. Pontiacs are different. Pontiacs have an attitude and an appeal to us that made them different than any other division. You just don’t find us in the Chevy or Buick showrooms, and you never will!
Once they come clean about the EV1, then they might be able to earn a bit of trust of the American people. The EV1 got an EPA certified 100 miles per charge and a off the shelf batter pack that cost no more than $5,000. The only maintenance for the lease was tire rotation, breaks and wiper blades. It was the ‘lost’ dollars in maintenance they were afraid of. There is video of those that leased the EV1 that had checks to buy the car at the asking price…but GM refused, took the cars back and ‘crushed’ them. He should have practiced his lies before coming on national television..because as much as he stammered and stuttered, anyone even without children would know that he is lying. Karma plays no favorites..
All three American car companies should be making these types of appearances. I am traditionally not a huge fan of how Bob Lutz handles himeself during interviews but he came across very well this time, especially considering that he was dealing with Letterman.
I agree with Chris. You should show up on the interview circuit every time a new car comes out. A new car is far more interesting than some random new book.
If your cars aren’t interesting enough to be interviewed about, well…MAKE THEM MORE INTERESTING!
I would like to say thank you and God speed to all of the dedicated Union and Management leaders doing all they can to keep good paying jobs here in America by making GM a profitable company again.
I would ask every GM worker to pray every day for the return of a successful GM and for those laid off GM workers to find gainful employment.
Does GM or Mr. Lutz really think consumers will pay $32,000-$40,000 for this first generation Volt? I like how Mr. Lutz stumbles when asked price and availability for consumers. I will look to the Japanese until GM, Ford or Chrysler can prove they are better.
The EV1 would have sold and made a major difference in the world. Mr. Lutz refuses to admit that GM chose its path to failure by selling trucks instead of offering an environmental alternative as Toyota and Honda did.
My heart goes out to the employees effected by the short sighted management of GM.
think in bigger terms about getting the volt on the road. Don’t be limited to the quantity and market niche that can buy Lithium batteries: Produce 3 versions: a cadallac with lithium batteries, a buick with NiMh and a Chevy with Lightweight Lead/Acid. Use the same weight for all 3 battery packs and the Chevy will cost $10000 less at retail and still go 8-10 miles before the charge engine needs to kick in. this will allow you to still produce all the Lithium units you want, plus get much greater market penetration and the benefits of higher volume on all the components. Don’t cheap out on Steering /suspension components on any model, stick with quality.
I worked for Chrysler Corporation thru the Iacocca/Lutz years. I came to really like Bob’s style of management. He would give you enough rope to hang yourself! And at the same time tell you ” I told you so!” I wished Mr. Iacocca would have appointed him his sucessor, instead of Robert Eaton, who pocket a few hundred million selling Chrysler( and us out) to Daimler. But Eaton was from GM and that showed me what kind of magement they had there. They were big enough that it took some time for the management style to break the company.
The one thing that everyone seems to forget, The BIg 3 invited the jap car companies over. With out GM pulling Washington’s strings, there would be no Toyota plants here. Chrysler opended up the market with Mitsubishi in 1972! Some GM dealers in the early 80’s were paid to sell Toyota cars! Even Ford, thought limited in nature, had an alliance with Honda! The American big 3 showed the jap and euro companies how to manufacture and sell here! And i have not seen these companies return the favor with the Asian market. So there is no way in hell i will ever buy one of there cheap plastic cars, that looks like everything else. And on another note, Toyota refuses to build it’s factories in industrial areas, like buying a closed U.S. plant, instead they put it in the middle of a corn or wheat field, now how enviromental is that?
As for the EV1, Mr. Lutz hit the nail square on the head when he made the statement that they cost GM 1 Billion dollars for 30 cars. Not even 1995 GM, with it’s estimated 425 Billion net worth(1995) could support that, and that is why they took them back, The cars were leased to certain customers around the Country, they were never sold. Michael Moore should do more follow up’s on his next KnockuMentary.
I think GM, Chrysler, And Ford will regain a market share not seen since the 20’s. I’m betting my future on it.
And here are some Quotes from a pioneer of the American Auto Industry i learned these a long time ago, and they still apply today!
“I feel sorry for the person who can’t get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile. ”
“The real secret of success is enthusiasm.”
“The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.”
“Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it!” Walter P. Chrysler, Founder Chrysler Corporation 1925.
On a side note, Chrysler’s first introduction to the Auto industry was at Buick in 1910, During his time there Buick went from making 24 cars a day to 315 cars a day in two years. Before that he was a Railroad Mechanic, superintendent, General Manager.
I surely do miss the glory days of GM. Images of the 55 Belair warms my heart, and they are even better when someone hot rods the darn thing. America is a land of auto enthuasist’s. We are patriotic and love are cars. And even though the 454 Chevelle is a thing of the past, (except for automotive restorers and hot rod builders, god bless those people.)
Through out my automotive career, I am guilty of currently being a Honda technician. Honda is a good company to work for, but I like my American cars. It will cost you alot more money to make a civic go fast then it will a small block chevy. Even with the release of the Mugen Civic Si, It still could not hold its own against an American Muscle Car. And the musclecars weighed alot more then this thing did.
In my final thoughts, there are only two things I would like to share. One is my concern over the Vault, and I would like to know who is even qualified to work on this thing? In my opinion, I want to drive a car, not an appliance. Maybe the Maytag man can fix it?
Two; In this writing I had mentioned a little about some of GM’s finest cars. A little history never hurt anyone, but as obvious as history is, we in America must not care about our history anymore. Afterall we have not learned from it yet. Take care.
-Steven R.
40k is way to much! The average family will avoid a car priced so high. You need to figure a way to get the price down to the low 20’s. Think about it, the average family would prefer to have 2 mid sized vechiles than 1 volt. I am not saying that their will not be a marekt for it. Just not a very large one. You need to produce it so the average person can afford it!!! If not, it will vanish fast.
Todd
Note to: Bob Lutz;
Why does the 2010 Camaro look more like a Mustang than a Corvette?
Did all Car Manufacturers close their Wind Tunnels?
Good luck on your 2011 Models,
Gene
The new Malibu being a rare design winner for GM,it gets ruined with the big gold “bow tie” emblem on the back and front. Tone it down.Here is a thought,move it somewhere other than in the middle.How about some creative originality to go with the great design of the Malibu for the logo.
My concern is the battery pack, the heart and soul of the Volt.
How long are the batteries guaranteed?
Is there a free upgrade should a longer lasting battery be invented?
How much will replacement batteries cost?
If the car is in a discharged state will the batteries freeze?
Is there a danger that battery gas will enter the passenger’s compartment in the event that a
battery is damaged?
How is the battery pack protected if the vehicle is involved in a collision?
How much maintenance will be required on the battery pack?
What percentage of the vehicle’s weight are the batteries?
Could I damage the batteries if I charge them before they are completely drained?
Hello ! My name is Michael and I have many ways your auto’s can be in such
demand everybody will want it. First build them affordable. Make the Plug-in.
Use a wind electric produceing generator placed in front of the vehicle, face
the facts the wind hits the front when going like it or not ; Why not use it to
keep the battery charged. The lighting in the vehicle & out should be all in L.E.D.
Solar electric produceing cell placed on the hood and trunk. Your Company
needs to make convertible fiberglass hardtop with glass rear window.
It will be real nice to hear from you soon.
Thank You.
Sincerely,
Michael A. Puntillo
Norwich,Connecticut USA