Sometimes if enough people demand what they want, companies will listen. The Chevy Volt is a perfect example of that concept in motion because GM had no idea the response would be so positive when it debuted the concept at the Detroit Auto Show in 2007. But, emboldened by that demand, GM is embracing risk and some open source concepts at the same time.

It’s an interesting twist on GM’s usual business model, which typically dictates that the company brainstorm a concept, socialize it at a show and if it’s received well develop the product in private until it’s ready for production.

With the Chevy Volt, GM decided to go open source in many ways, sharing it’s development process with the media very openly ever since the beginning. That also happens to be creating tidal waves of positive publicity as the company is meeting an economic and ethic demand present with a large segment of consumers.

However, GM says that the real reason it’s being so public is because of the inherent risk associated with the vehicle, according to GM-Volt.

Bob Lutz said:

. . . normally the car would stay secretive from now on (after unveiling), but that GM decided early on the Volt development would be very open.  He explained the reason for doing this was because GM couldn’t discount the possibility of failure, and they wanted to maintain credibility should that occur.

Right now the company is building three mules per week in a Chevy Cruze body, and that’s allowing them to test out battery packs and efficiencies. The mules are built by an engineering team and they’re focused on having a manufacturer building the cars by 2010.

The amazing part about this is GM’s willingness to build out a concept with so many unknowns, especially the size of the battery pack. And that uncertainty is showing through with its switch from concept car design to the production design recently revealed.

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Entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 6:09 pm under Auto, Green Technology, Technology.

Read more entries by Matt Jansen.
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