General Motor’s Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre has been pushing hard for an early roll-out of the Chevy Volt, GM’s extended-range electric car. GM was planning to release a small number of the vehicles before the official November release date, however the company is concerned that the vehicles aren’t ready, and releasing imperfect Volt’s could result in a public relations nightmare. The main concern is that vehicles released before the November date may need the usual tweaking that cars need in the last stage of development, causing owners to have to turn their cars in for updates. No official announcement has been made.
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Via Freep
So offer the car at a significant discount to people will to be the ‘test party’ and are willing to bring their Volt in for upgrades and tweaking at no cost.
This would be a WIN-WIN situation for Chevy since they would have the car out and the benefit of being a first buyer is a good price as long as you accept the negatives that the vehicle is still being tweaked.
It also will give Chevy the opportunity to see how the Volt is used in a variety of consumer activities and lifestyles.