Chevrolet dealership advertises the all-electric Bolt EV as having an ‘engine’ and ‘needing fuel’

It has long been suspected that car dealerships are part of the problem when it comes to electric vehicle adoption. Most of their business comes from servicing gas-powered cars and therefore, low-maintenance electric vehicles are not attractive to sell for them. It was demonstrated in several studies that they are not very good at it.

It was demonstrated this week in a new advert from a Chevy dealership in Rockville, Maryland trying to sell the all-electric Bolt EV as if it needs gas.

In what was likely a confusion with the Chevy Volt, which is a plug-in hybrid and does have an engine acting as a range extender which requires gas, the announcer in the ad said:

“This Bolt EV is nicely equipped with a precision tuned electric drive engine  — it will wring every last mile it can out of a drop of fuel.”

Of course, there’s no engine in the Bolt EV – only an electric drive unit and while some still reference charging the battery as “fueling”, the reference to “a drop of fuel” here makes it sound like he is talking about gas.

At Ourisman Rockmont Chevrolet, someone approved that, put it on their website and Youtube channel yesterday. It has been shared around social media since then

Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoznHJQWP9A&feature=youtu.be

In Ourisman Rockmont Chevrolet’s defense, they only started to receive the Bolt EV just over a month ago – so it’s still quite a new vehicle for them.

As we recently reported, despite the expansion in a few states, like Maryland, GM’s Bolt EV sales surprisingly went down to 952 units in the US last month and dealerships in California started offering significant discounts on the new vehicles already.

If automakers are serious about selling electric vehicles, they will need to find a way to get their dealerships behind the idea. For example, Audi recently warned their own franchises that they need to take electric vehicles seriously because they will represent the majority of their sales within the next decade.