Googles Integrated Local Search Changes Everything

You may not be seeing in in Firefox yet, but fire up your Google Chrome browser, and you'd better be sitting down for this one because the new integrated Google Local results are dizzyingly different and ready to rock the SERPs. My Canuck friends to the North aren't seeing this yet, and the rollout isn't complete in all browsers in the USA, but the implications of this totally new layout, if set in stone, are going to effect every local business on the map.

The first hints of this major change started appearing in July of this year when a few SEOs, including Mike Blumenthal, noticed some queer testing going on, but over the past couple of days, a big wave of altered results has resulted in some 50+ emails rushing back and forth amongst my Local SEO colleagues who are feeling fairly blown away by what we are seeing.

For review, for quite some time now, if you did a search for Chinese Restaurant San Franciscoyou would be shown results like the following, with the map and 7 Pack at the top, Adwords to the right and organic/universal results below:

Now, perform the same search in Google Chrome and you will see something very different, with a floating map at the top of the Adwords column, a vanished 7 Pack and local data stemming from Google Places integrated right into the organic results:

Let's dissect one of these new integrated results. I hereby nominate Henry's Hunan Restaurant for fame here on Search Engine Guide. The following graphic will show you the basic elements that are making up most of the new integrated local results I am seeing, though there are some variations. What you will see here is a combination of traditional data from the business' website, such as the title and meta description tags, plus much rich data from the business' Google Place Page:

Why This Is A Big Deal For Local-Focused Businesses
I've literally had no more than about 24 hours to really sit and play with this, so my opinions are just forming, but to me, the most revolutionary aspect of this is the perks apparently being given to those businesses which have successfully combined their on-site and off-site work for a strong local and organic presence.

Why is this a big deal? Let me count the ways:

- Google Local/Places used to be open to all comers, including those without a website. You could rank in the 7 Pack and Maps with no website. While website-less companies will still be able to add and verify their Place Page listing, their chances of gaining prime rankings without a website have just become much more remote.

- Over the past couple of years, many businesses with strong websites found their organic listings pushed down by 7 Packs they may or may not have been able to break into. If organic web page rank is now being taken into account in these integrated results, the chance is there to leap back up into the running for companies with strong websites.

- This may be one of Google's most effective attempts to fight Mapspam yet. Spammers and scammers who found it easy to take shortcuts in Maps/Places, creating lots of fake listings, fake reviews and other simple data may find that their goose is about to be cooked. This laziness will not do in a new Local world that demands a high ranking website to gain top visibility. Will this lead to spammers developing high ranking local business websites? Maybe so, but for now, at least in my view, the new results are slanted toward those who have been working hard on their websites all along.

Possible Negative Effects Of Integrated Local Search
To me, the greatest negative potential of this integrated approach is its ability to put Google's bad local business data in the limelight, mixing it up with the correct data provided by business owners via their self-regulated websites. The errors, bugs and spam in Google Maps are rife and any change Google makes to promote its own data means promoting false information. Until Google's local business index is markedly cleaner, they will continue to publish bad data and the more prominence Local is given in the SERPs, the more power that bad data has to misrepresent and mislead.

Secondly, in some verticals, some businesses that formerly enjoyed two organic listings for a given search term may now be seeing only one or none, as a result of the integrated listings pushing other data down or off the front page. I say in 'some' verticals, because in looking at some of my clients' results in less competitive verticals or in more rural (less populous) areas, I am seeing results in which my clients not only have a high integrated local rank, but also have 1-2 organic results from their website appearing below this. Depending on the competitiveness of your industry in your geographic location, you may wind up with a little less visibility or truly ruling that front page.

One potential negative I'm considering but haven't had time to really research is this: I have clients who are ranking excellently in both the old 7 Pack and organic results for their main service term and the city in which they are located. Maps/Places has been built around the premise that each business is allowed to rank only for the city in which it is physically located. That's Google's take on what a local business is, but in the real world, there are countless businesses that offer go-to-client services in a wide area. For example, I have a client who is a mobile notary public. Let's say she is located in San Francisco, but she also renders services in Berkeley, Oakland and Richmond.

Historically, the way we have worked with Google's definition is to create a Google Place Page for a client like this notary in her main city - let's say that's San Francisco. Then, harnessing the power of her website, we have created strong content pages for each of the other cities in which she serves. The result of this has been excellent organic rankings for all major points in her service area, backing up her high local rank for her city of location.

But what happens now? Will the new integrated local SERPs push my client's high ranking service area web pages off page 1? This will require further investigation of the new system.

Another possible downside to this is that the integrated data does make it rather easy for your potential website traffic to go off in all different directions. Some may click on your Place Page link, others on the various user review sites being listed or elsewhere. The bottom line with SMBs tends to be that they want business and money and don't particularly care how the phone ends up ringing or how the client ends up walking through the door. So long as all of these secondary data sources (secondary to your website) lead to you, this may not be much of a problem, but your basic organic traffic could potentially drop as visitors decide to investigate you in other ways.

Finally, those businesses without websites may find themselves left out of the game. My advice to you - this is the time to invest in an excellent, professional website, rich in the content that helps your potential customers to know all about you, your locations and the benefits of doing business with you. With the new integrated results, those days of depending on the phone book (or a simple Maps listing) are really, really over.

In Conclusion
In the dawning hours of this rollout, I am seeing big ranking shuffles going on between the old SERPs and the new. Businesses that didn't rate an A-G ranking in the former 7 pack are now being brought to sudden prominence, ostensibly on the strength of their organic/local combined efforts. As a web designer, I actually like this change because it appears to be set to reward the big investment of time and money that goes into developing useful, helpful websites - as opposed to solely rewarding the 20 minutes it takes to create a Place Page.

As a Local SEO, my chief feelings of concern arise from Google's historic and current failure to combat the spam and errata in their index. The most we ever hear from Google reps on this score is, "We're working on it," and that has never, nor should ever be good enough for the local business owners whose reputations and livelihoods hang in the balance.

This is a very exciting time in Local, and if you own a local business or do Local SEO for clients, head over to Chrome and start looking at your results. You're bound to see big changes.

Original Post from Search Engine Guide

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Googles SERPs for Local. The changes....

Pay more attention to Google Places. Ensure data is correct. MANAGE YOUR REVIEWS!!!!

 

Download now or watch on posterous

Automotive_SEO_Google_Places_SERPs_Changes_Video.mov (23229 KB)

• Map listings moved on top of the Adwords results. And I mean that literally: if you scroll down, the map comes with you and obscures the PPC!
• Results in the inline SERPs are coming from the map. These aren’t the guys that were ranking before – they’re just being pulled out of the maps and given the organic spots
• The results themselves are far, far richer than what we’re used to from Google. We’re seeing images, links to reviews, star ratings, a quoted review…

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Social Links and Their SEO Value

Social media has become such a big part of the web, it’s nearly impossible to rank well on competitive terms if you don’t have any social presence. Basically, social media is an important part of SEO because Google trusts links created by actual users/human beings, and social links are integral to creating an organic linkscape

The strongest social links come from social news sites, such as Digg and Reddit, and you build them by developing engaging content and pushing it viral. Of course, these links feature anchor text that is completely untargeted (e.g. the page’s or post’s title), and are sometimes nofollow or redirects instead of direct links. But when one of your pages amasses hundreds of them by going viral, Google takes that as a strong indication that the page in question is, indeed, popular and relevant.

So while these virally popular pages won’t be your product pages, they’ll amass PageRank which will boost the overall trust and authority of your domain, and help all of your pages rank better.

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Social Media ROI - Your Measurement Questions Answered

One of the most asked questions I get from dealers is "How do I measure my return in my social media endeavours?"

Fair enough question.

My answer really depends on how each store views social media. Should there even be a "return" or is it just an extension of business ethics?

There are certainly A LOT of qualitative benefits such as Brand Awareness, Loyalty, Interaction, Trust, Passion.... and I am usually told that these items are very difficult to measure.

Fragmentation doesn't help either. So many different avenues that it can be difficult to choose the best path.

To best start to realize HOW to arrive at a return we need to understand that Social Media affects more of your organizations attributes than just boosting sales. Understanding this, choose which indicators you want to move, ignoring meaningless metrics like number of followers. We need to look past that, yet most dealers base their success on this metric. Its more than just getting attention.

How about focusing on some of these:

• increase form submits (call to action) on web page
• reduction in support costs
• reduction in service calls
• increase in pagerank
• increase in web traffic
• increase geolocation traffic
• retweets from influential people
• increase in coupon traffic

Point is, choose a specific event/task/goal and track that.

Each dealer needs to define their own relevant success metrics from one of two areas and then set the campaign goals based on them:

• Quantitative - Sales, new leads, new subscribers, service appointments
• Qualitative - Satisfaction, loyalty, authority, interaction, feedback

Measuring QUALITATIVE Returns

For example, say you want to build Loyalty and Trust. Could be as simple as this:

Goal: Build Loyalty And Trust
Action: Be Nice To consumers who mention dealer / product on Twitter

 

Success Metrics	Goal	Owner
Amount of positive comments sent to consumers per week   Amount of conversations that started from the comment	XX amount of positive conversations about dealership / product per week	Marketing Manager

 Now you have a hard data way to measure the success of that initiative. 

Remember, social media requires LISTENING as well as talking. You should be listening to what people are saying about you regardless if you choose to take action. How you listen is another topic...

How about Satisfaction? Glad you asked:

Goal: Increase Satisfaction
Action: Engage with consumers / prospects asking what they would like from you

Success Metrics	Goal	Owner
Amount of good suggestions that your dealership hadn't thought of   Amount of above your dealership actually implements	XX amount of suggestions collected per month and XX amount actually implemented	Marketing Manager

Another one I frequently get asked about is increasing Authority on your business. You can do this in many ways such as this blog campaign:

Goal: Increase Authority
Action: Start a Blog on a topic you are an expert in. Focus on writing authoritative content first, promoting dealership second

Success Metrics	Goal	Owner
Amount of influential blogs linking to you   Pagerank relative to competitors   Amount of organic traffic per month   Amount of traffic converting to lead   Amount of traffic converting to sales	XX  Pagerank by certain date   XXth position in Pagerank relative to competitors by certain date   XX% of organic traffic per month   $XX per month attributable to referrals from blog	Marketing Manager

These are just a few examples of how you can begin to measure your return for very specific social media campaigns. You can have multiple Actions within Goals

Measuring QUANTITATIVE Returns

Using the same process as measuring qualitative returns, you can measure quantitative returns.

Lets say you want to increase offline parts sales. 

Goal: Increase Offline Oil Filter Sales
Action: Implement promotion on social media platform. Give participants printable coupon for tracking

Success Metrics	Goal	Owner
Monthly parts counter oil filter sales   monthly parts counter store traffic	$XX monthly parts counter oil filter sales   XX% increase in store parts counter traffic over promotion period	Parts Department   Marketing Manager

You get the picture. Drill down.

Defining the “R” in ROI is where we need to focus, as it relates to our business goals and performance indicators specifically. Even though much of social media is free, we do know the cost of engagement as it relates to employees, time, equipment, and opportunity cost (what they’re not focusing on or accomplishing while engaging in social media). Tying those costs to the results will reveal a formula for assessing the “I” as investment.

When we truly grasp the ability to define action and measure it, we can expand the impact of new media beyond the profit and loss. We can adapt business processes, inspire ingenuity, and more effectively compete for the future.

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Link Building

Link building involves the careful selection of websites with content relevant to your own. It is simply exchanging links with web companies in similar industries. Its purpose is to help both parties gain credibility, popularity and better Search Engine positioning according to the ranking criteria of various search engines. Link building is crucial to your site’s rankings in the leading Search Engines, and it’s one more aspect of the SEO process that we take care of for you.

Link building is important because each incoming link to your website acts like a referral, and Search Engines love referrals! It's necessary to ensure a link with the right type of websites, those with high repute and solid Google PR.

Although Search Engines have different criteria or algorithms in how they rank websites, popularity and relevancy are priority. Some of the larger Search Engines, such as Google, will award your site with a higher page ranking (PR) if you link to established and popular sites. Think of it as a vote of confidence in your site.

One-way Link Building

Link building services provide you with Non-reciprocal One-way links that ultimately improve your rankings in Search Engines. Non Reciprocal One-way links are always better than Reciprocal links as Google gives more import to Non-Reciprocal links. So if you want higher link popularity then you should begin by running a one-way link campaign.

Two-way Link Building (Reciprocal Linking)

If you Back-Link campaign effectively, it will act as a super booster to your incoming traffic and net visibility. You'll receive choice listing in the leading Search Engines based on the very keyword(s)/key phrase(s) you intended to hit high on!

Remember, sites providing a link to you must be designed per SEO, and directly or indirectly related to your business and services.

Back Links are established when several webmasters share / trade their site’s links with other webmasters interested in the same.

Search Engine listings offer you links to Search Engines and directories from all around the world. This can help you achieve top Search Engine ranking when making your own website submissions.

Orphans of Google

The following pages are the "orphans" of Google!:

• Dead links
• Inaccurate links
• Duplicates
• Pages protected by robots.txt or no index meta tag
• Database generated URLs
• Pages on an intranet

http://www.search-engines-megalist.com http://www.website-submission.com http://www.addpro.com http://www.submitexpress.com/

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Hiring a Alternative Marketing / Social Media Expert Checklist

When you’re looking to hire a social media professional there are several really important things to look for. The first and foremost is how many Twitter followers they have. The second is….okay, totally kidding. I just couldn’t keep a straight face on that one.

In all seriousness though there are a lot of “social media gurus” out there that are all talk and very little, if any, walk. Whether you’re looking to bring someone in-house or staff your agency there are some key traits you’ll want to look out for when choosing your newest social media centric employee that have nothing to do with how many Twitter followers they have.

Big picture vision

Does this person have the ability to look at your entire business organization strategically? Okay, so you’re not hiring your new CEO here but the ability for a social media professional to look at and understand the entire organization is key. The socialization of business impacts many different layers and each of these layers will have different constraints, norms and sometimes even regulations. The ability of the social media professional to help drive the business forward is tied directly to their understanding of business and ability to see the big picture.

Small scale attention to detail

So you’ve determined they are business savvy. They can see the big picture and all that jazz. But do they have attention to detail? In social media, as with most online marketing, you’re dealing with a lot of intricacies including things like tracking variables, complex formulas in gigantic spreadsheets, 140 character content and loads of other very nuanced work. One mis-key can have a huge impact. You need to be sure that this person is detail oriented to avoid costly and problematic mistakes.

Business Savvy

Not every organization is asking their social media pro’s to be responsible for their own P&L statements or forecasting quarterly demand. Nor should they. But a social media professional does have to make a business case for new initiatives, understand the financial and accounting impacts of their campaigns, help determine service level agreements with vendors and so on and so forth. A strong sense of business will help them be more successful and help you get more bang for your buck!

Creativity

Not every campaign can be “The Old Spice Guy”. There is a lot of noise out there to compete with. You will need to have someone that can keep up with what is going on and turn that into creative and original campaigns for your organization. Ask for examples of past projects here and pay more attention to their process and ability to stretch than whether or not it was a success. You want that *spark*.

Analytical

Creative and analytical? Sometimes a hard combination to find but your dedicated search will pay off. Determining the return on your investment in social media can be tricky depending on your industry and vertical. Even when it’s easy there is still a lot of reporting to be done and data to analyze. A key here is the ability to also derive meaning from the data and reports.

Flexibility

Business plans change. Organizations shift. The internet is no different. The ability to shift all of one’s focus from “Project X” to “Project Y” in the blink of an eye is critical. To tweet empathetically with a customer and then turn to an executive and push-back on an initiative takes flexibility and tact. Look for signs of flexibility in prospective SM employees. Not everyone is great at it and your level of tolerance will differ – but definitely something to pay attention to!

Project Management Skills

Having solid project management skills is beneficial in many different lines of work. This holds true in social. The SM professional often finds themselves as the lead contact with agencies or vendors and internally pushing projects through prioritizations and queue’s. Without substantial project management skills in place things can spin out of control quickly and dangerously.

Customer Service

Increasingly, customer service is a bigger and stronger part of social media work so it should come as no surprise that you would want to ensure talent in this area. This person will likely be a major influencer for your customers coming from the social space so be sure they have a solid understanding of what it means to provide top quality service.

Social media professionals at nearly any level must be multi-faceted and dynamic employees. It can be daunting to find one person with all of the characteristics you’re looking for but it is necessary. As with most anything, the hard work you put in now looking will pay off for you later. If you need to, consider prioritizing those traits based on those you feel comfortable teaching. Keep in mind that some personality types can learn certain skills better than others. Be sure the skill you are willing to teach matches up with one they are capable of learning!

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Mirage Boardshort 2 - Feature Video

Amazing surf vid shot with 52 canon rebel T2is. Awesome bullet time effect!

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How GM "Lied" About The Electric Car

How GM "Lied" About The Electric Car

The Chevy Volt has been hailed as General Motors' electric savior. Now, as GM officially rolls out the Volt this week for public consumption, we're told the much-touted fuel economy was misstated and GM "lied" about the car being all-electric.

In the past, and based on GM's claims, we've gone so far as to call the Volt GM's "Jesus Car." And why wouldn't we call it that? We were told the Volt would achieve 230 MPG fuel economy and would always use the electric drivetrain to motivate the wheels — only using the onboard gasoline engine as a "range extender" for charging the batteries. It now turns out that not only were those fuel economy claims misleading, but the gasoline engine is actually used to motivate the wheels — making the Volt potentially nothing more than a very advanced hybrid car and pushing some automotive journalists like Scott Oldham at Edmunds.com to claim "GM lied to the world" about it.

First of all, let's talk about fuel economy. In August of last year, we heard GM's then-CEO Fritz Henderson claimed with all the marketing might it could muster at a Detroit-area press event, that the Chevy Volt would get 230 MPG in city driving conditions. Now, as the Volt's being tested by the auto trade press, we're seeing some surprisingly low fuel economy figures amid the expected lavish praise buff books are heaping upon the Volt.

Let's see what they've found out. Popular Mechanics saw just 37.5 MPG in city driving. Car and Driver apparently didn't choose to use their wheel time for any city driving — but found with all-electric driving

"...getting on the nearest highway and commuting with the 80-mph flow of traffic-basically the worst-case scenario-yielded 26 miles; a fairly spirited back-road loop netted 31; and a carefully modulated cruise below 60 mph pushed the figure into the upper 30s."

Motor Trend, like the rest of the trade press other than Popular Mechanics, didn't appear to do any testing in city conditions, but did find that

"Without any plugging in, [a weeklong trip to Grandma's house] should return fuel economy in the high 30s to low 40s."

They also parrot GM's new line of 25-50 miles of all-electric — a far cry from the 230 MPG they originally marketed — that the "Volt provides 25-50 miles of real-world electric operation no matter how hard you flog it."

But while even providing only 10% of the fuel economy initially touted, these more real-world figures are merely an exaggeration. The bigger problem is that, as Mr. Oldham now claims, is that GM lied to them about the powertrain.

Since the Volt was first unveiled as a concept car, GM engineers, public relations staff and executives have all claimed adamantly that the internal combustion engine did not motivate the wheels. If that were the case then the Volt would be nothing more than a very advanced hybrid. Even as late into the development cycle as this June, we were told the only drivetrain that motivated the wheels was the electric one. The auto trade press swallowed the line, hook and the sinker. Sam Abulesmaid at Autoblog even ran a piece headlined "Repeat after us: The Chevrolet Volt's gas engine does not drive the wheels!." And why shouldn't he have lapped it up when in online chats, the Volt's chief engineer Andrew Farah was saying:

"you're correct that the electric motor is always powering the wheels, whereas in a typical hybrid vehicle the electric motor and the gasoline engine can power the wheels. The greatest advantage of an extended-range electric vehicle like the Volt is the increased all electric range and the significant total vehicle range combined."

This meant that the gasoline engine was nothing more than a "range extender" designed to charge the batteries which would allow the electric drivetrain to continue to move the car — and allow GM to claim that the Volt was something different, something new and something worthy of taxpayer dollars.

It turns out that's not correct. We're now told by Volt's engineering team that when the Volt's lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 mph the Volt's gasoline engine will directly drive the front wheels along with the electric motors.

That means that for all of the all-electric or extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) hype GM's imbuing in the Volt, it's really nothing more than a plug-in hybrid vehicle. A very advanced plug-in hybrid, but a hybrid nonetheless.

That's enough for Mr. Oldham to claim GM lied to the world and to then go ahead and endorse (via a retweet on Twitter) the all-electric Nissan Leaf (full disclosure — Mr. Oldham's brother works for Nissan) as the only choice for an electric car.

It's enough for us to wonder why GM pushed the 230 MPG number in the first place and why they didn't just come clean on the powertrain this summer when asked a straightforward question.

Send an email to Ray Wert, the author of this post, at ray@jalopnik.com.

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K5ING 02:32 PM

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GM isn't the only automotive liar. I'm still waiting for Ford to bring out their nuclear powered car. Guess they're still working on it. Reply

A strolling player 02:30 PM

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"when the Volt's lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 mph"

Okay, so it only uses the gas engine to power the wheels when the battery's dead AND at highway speeds. And you have the audacity to say that this is flawed?!

The fact of the design is that the car is designed as an extended-range plug-in electric vehicle. The range is extended by a gasoline engine. When the battery is depleted, rather than wasting the kinetic energy of the engine's moving parts that is a byproduct of electricity generation, the Volt will use that motion to power the car. It's a concept called efficient use of energy.

Which is kind of the point.

Wert, you've missed the point. Reply

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solracer 02:25 PM

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IMHO having the engine directly-power the wheels when the batteries are depleted is a good thing. With the original Volt there was only 100 hp driving the front wheels in hybrid mode vs 140 in all-electric, with this design you get all 140 all the time. Seems like a winner to me.

That said I'd rather they had simply brought back the EV-1 all-electric car as a hybrid just doesn't interest me as much.

Guess we'll have to wait for the Tesla Model S to get our "Jesus Car" as you put it. Reply

Jim-Bob 02:24 PM

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Whatever the reason, this does not bode well for GM's future. All the money that was wasted on this silly car could have been better spent on a good diesel small car with comparable economy numbers and a substantially lower cost. After all, if you want more people to drive fuel efficient cars, more people need to be able to afford them in the first place. Then again, this was never about practical solutions, but rather it was about building a car that politicians and environmentalists could feel smug and vindicated about. However, environmentalists and politicians are not engineers nor are they technically savvy, so they were easy to dupe due to their ignorance. Reply

a.mus.ed 02:20 PM

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I'm surprised that this is surprising to anyone. Reply

Pessimippopotamus promoted this comment

TrampaOnline 02:01 PM

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Hey, love on the rocks, ain't no surprise. As I see it, if the car holds gas, and uses it in some way to make power, directly or not: it's a hybrid! The fact that it does drive the wheels directly, only reinforces that.

/feeling like an old fart Reply

Quattro-luvr 02:01 PM

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Wonder what this will do to there IPO? Reply

maximum_sarge 02:00 PM

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Hmmf... Even in my hands, I'd think it would get more than 23 MPG. Reply

Quattro-luvr 02:00 PM

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Wow, what a brilliant snow job by GM.

Guess I will be sticking with Ford for my American car fix. Reply

MaWeiTao 01:59 PM

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Wow... What a let down. I was hoping for something truly special here. I suppose a straightforward hybrid isn't all bad.

I have this suspicion that GM was designing the car to do what they've been claiming. The intention had been to have the gasoline engine only charge the batteries and not actually motivate the car. But during development they started realizing that it was harder, less reliable or more expensive than they had hoped. So they had to find a compromise and that solution was to turn the car into a more conventional hybrid.

This car has been in development for a long time. I find it hard to believe all that effort was expended merely to develop yet another hybrid. Especially when they could just license the technology from someone else.

And all else aside, it's still a hybrid which is nothing to sneeze at. It's about time an American automaker has offered a proper one to compete with the Prius's and Insight's of the world.

I would also take Car & Driver's mileage claims with a grain of salt. They have a habit of extracting poor mileage out of most cars they drive. Well, for GM's sake, the Volt had better get mileage at least in the range of the Prius. Reply

Fodderthesane 01:51 PM

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You know I give Automobile more credit then writing this GM authored fluff piece.

[www.automobilemag.com] Reply

doug-g 01:49 PM

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I have not followed the Volt any more than the typical person on the street and the impression I always got was that the car would be 100% electrically powered and the gas engine was only there to supply electricity. Reply

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C4R4V4Nz_4_LIFE 01:46 PM

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So hypermiling at a reasonable average pace in a Porsche 911 can yield better economy than the Volt. ([green.autoblog.com] What a farce. Reply

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pauljones 01:43 PM

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I'm not going to argue that GM didn't overhype the Volt. They did. And so did media outlets like Motor Trend, Popular Mechanics, etc.

Is the media feeling all disappointed and hurt right now?

Well, they should. They deserved that one. Critical thinking and rational skepticism have long been considered founding blocks of good journalism.

But apparently, the flying cars debacle over the past 60 years has taught us nothing.

And for the record, do note: It was not GM that called the Volt "the jesus car" and pinned so much hope and expectation on it; it was the media.

Now let's address those concerns, starting with Popular Mechanics. Typically, I respect Popular Mechanics, and this one little bit of context that was not mentioned in the post justified my respect for them:

Fuel Economy

In addition to measuring EV range, we also recorded the fuel use when the car was in its "charge sustaining" mode. In other words, we computed the fuel economy after the battery was depleted, both on our city loop and the highway trip. In the city, we recorded 31.67 mpg and achieved 36.0 mpg on the highway. If we factor in the distance traveled on the battery's energy the fuel economy jumps to 37.5 mpg city and 38.15 mpg highway.

Note that they are completely upfront about the fact that the fuel economy numbers that they calculate took place after the battery ran out on the highway trip, which took 33 miles to happen. Let's assume that they only went 38.15 miles past the point that the battery died on their trip. In other words, let's say they used precisely one gallon of gas once they ran out of battery. Let's also assume, that for the sake of us lay people, that the standard formula for calculating MPG, distance traveled divided by gallons of fuel used, remains in effect.

That means that they were able to travel 71.15 miles on a single gallon of gas. That's pretty damn impressive if you ask me.

As far as fuel economy once the battery runs out, that sounds about right, when you consider that the Volt is a midsize-car, and a rather heavy one at that thanks to the battery weight. Still, it's better than the MPG offered by the four-cylinder Camry, Altima, Fusion, etc.

GM didn't tout the gasoline-only MPG of the Volt. They touted the combined fuel economy of the Volt. Did they do so utterly inaccurately? Yes. Yes they did. I'll chalk that up to them not having a clue how to effectively translate that combined economy into a useful metric, and Department of Energy that didn't correct them because they were equally clueless.

Also, Andrew Farrah didn't lie:

You're correct that the electric motor is always powering the wheels, whereas in a typical hybrid vehicle the electric motor and the gasoline engine can power the wheels. The greatest advantage of an extended-range electric vehicle like the Volt is the increased all electric range and the significant total vehicle range combined.

As is mentioned not only in the referenced articles and in this post, the electric motor is always powering the front wheels. He was completely straightforward about that fact. What he didn't mention was that the gas engine could kick in and power the front wheels in parallel with the electric motor.

He just happened to leave out a key detail, that's all. Lord knows it happens to engineers, program managers, and journalists alike.

As for the Autoblog article...well, yeah...this is Autoblog we're talking about. Overall, they are neither the sharpest tools in the shed nor the best journalists in the world. There's a reason why I come to Jalopnik and not Autoblog.

Finally, I still don't get the bitching going on about this car. Even after it's media-hyped jesus car-ness has been shot down by the realities of life, it's still an impressive car and an impressive piece of automotive technology that's more gasoline efficient than anything else out there.

If my money as a tax-payer had to go to bail their asses out, this is the sort of thing I want them to be building. I want them to have the balls and creativity to go out there and experiment with new technologies that will give them a head start on other companies who haven't tried them yet, and won't do so until someone else does because they're to timid. I want GM to innovate and try new things like this. If they don't, then what the hell was the point of it all?

We got all pissy with GM and the government about the bailout, and only half-jokingly insinuated that they damn well better act like they deserved it, or else, and they did. They tried something new. They innovated. They took the first steps in laying the foundations for new automotive technology, and even gave us a usable product out of it that's better than anything else on the market.

And here we are bitching them out for doing exactly what we told them to do.

Tell me again, what is the problem here, and where does the problem lie?

It's doesn't lie solely with GM, that's for sure. Reply

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Spencedaddy 01:43 PM

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sounds like i'm in the market for a CRX Reply

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Zenith251 01:41 PM

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"It turns out that's not correct. We're now told by Volt's engineering team that when the Volt's lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 mph the Volt's gasoline engine will directly drive the front wheels along with the electric motors."

I'm sorry, where are you hearing this? I don't see this in the car magazine publications. Reply

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BEYONTECH 01:39 PM

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Here is the question for the day!
What is the top 10 biggest ALTERNATIVE letdowns in automotive history?....my answers
not in any order
1. Chevy volt ELECTRIC
2. Chey EV1 ELECTRIC
3.Crysler partriot FUELCELL-FLYWHEEL
4. Ford Think Stirling (VIA DEAN KAMEN)
5. ANYTHING FROM ZAAP
6. THE PERSU HYBRID
7. HONDA PHIL (CNG)
8. BMW CLEAN ENERGY (FUEL CELL TECHNOLOGY)
9. THE MERLIN sPARROW
10 THE FLUX CAPACITOR Reply

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Bentoboxx, My Tank is full of it 01:35 PM

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"Electric Cars are *Redacted by NBC/Universal* Reply

Optixtruf 01:34 PM

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Not sure what to make of this AVG econ reading taken from the Volt's site? Reply

Ldubbz 01:32 PM

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Would be sweet to own one of these if you have solar power set up...pretty much free fuel, provided you dont drive outside of its range very often.

People need to understand that this car has a bigger value to those who fit in its commute category, which should be most people. If you have a 30-mile commute to work, and can plug this in while your there, thats a win-win. And you dont have to feel tied down like you would with the Leaf, because regular ol' gas is always an option for longer trips.

Pretty much an ideal for many of us city folk. Reply

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OMG! Ponies! 01:28 PM

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It's a conspiracy. By the same people who made Steve Guttenberg a star. Reply

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Novaload 01:23 PM

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So, off by an order of magnitude---unless the happy smiley plug face doesn't represent a zero?
There are also a lot of Volt defenders here who say things like, "The wheels are always driven by the electric motor. It just appears that under some cases the engine also sends some power to the wheels in addition to the electric motor. Why does this matter?"
Because it means that the first statement is a lie; and "appears" is hedging; does it or doesn't it? And what are the "some cases"?
Might be some General workers here. Reply

Xelmon 01:23 PM

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And it's a sedan.

*sighs* ... Throws down a pen and paper, starts designing his own car. Reply

mantaTM 01:22 PM

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"The gas engine charges the battery, acting as a range extender"

OMG, It's Geoff !! Reply

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johnnyabnormal 01:21 PM

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Geesh, I already get that kind of milage with my 2009 Honda Fit. When I hear about people writing/talking about how "green" a car is, I always wonder: What is so "green" about:

- Non-renewable electricity used to power said vehicle?

- Extremely polluting, toxic battery chemicals that aren't recycled when the battery dies?

- Petrochemicals used in manufacturing all the plastic and rubber?

I hate to tell the self described "green" person riding around in a Prius, but if you really want to practice what you preach? Ride a bike. Reply

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