How the Chevy Volt is like Apple's Macintosh

A Dedicated Customer Base

The original Macintosh was a revolutionary, yet imperfect machine. Though it didn’t reach as wide an audience as Apple intended, the computer earned unrelenting and adoring fans. In almost the same fashion, the Volt is loved and fawned over by the vast majority of its owners. Last December, Consumer Reports announced that the car scored the highest of any vehicle in their 2011 customer satisfaction survey, with 93% of owners saying that they would purchase it again. They weren’t even scared away by exaggerated reports of battery fires, very much like the Mac faithful of old who weren’t put-off by the fact that their little all-in-one could sometimes be a scorching “beige toaster.”

Forerunners of Innovation

The original Macintosh was a business failure, but there’s no denying that it changed things. With the launch of the Mac, the Graphical User Interface was delivered to the mass market for the very first time. No more would consumers be forced to gaze at the black screen of a machine. Instead, the personal computer and all its technological iterations to follow would become doorways to an expansive and vibrant world.

In many ways, the Chevy Volt is on the same trajectory of the original Macintosh. As a business venture, the signs aren’t looking too favorable at the moment, but as a catalyst for market change and innovation, the signs are much brighter.

As enthusiastically stated by University of Virginia engineer, Jim Durand, “People are working furiously on energy storage technologies. They’re making rapid advances. Costs are coming down. Performance is going up.”