The Chevy Volt is the brand failure of today, selling far few cars than that famous bomb Ford Edsel did in the 1950’s and 1960’s. In fact, compared to the Chevy Volt, the Ford Edsel was a blockbuster.
 |
 |
| 116,000
Ford Edsels sold in three years |
55,000
Chevy Volts sold in three years |
Ford sold 116,000 Edsels between 1958 and 1960. GM sold 7,671 Chevy Volts in 2011 and 23,461 in 2012. GM announced this week that they have dropped the price $5,000, but that hasn’t goosed sales. The company had a record-setting June, with 2,698 sold, however, sales started to slide again in July with 1,788 sold. Considering that between January and May, only 7,157 Chevy Volts were sold, that means the brand has sold only 11,643 to date. The company must sell over 2,300 Volts a month just to equal last year’s number.
Even if Chevy Volt sales were to suddenly hit near record levels for the next five months, the brand still beats the Edsel as a world-class brand bomb.