General Motors on Tuesday said it would give European consumers the chance to test drive its Opel and Vauxhall brand vehicles, deploying a fleet of 35,000 cars in 40 countries.
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The “Million Mile Test Drive”, which a GM executive told Reuters would cost a “significant” sum, is similar to GM’s 24-hour test programme in the United States. Officials have said that the test drive programme there has helped improve the perception of GM vehicles.
“We believe consumers have to decide for themselves how far the Opel and Vauxhall brands have come,” GM Europe chairman Fritz Henderson told Reuters following a news conference at the Geneva motor show.
The programme, the latest marketing scheme in the highly competitive European market, will last at least three months and could be expanded to other GM brands such as Chevrolet and Saab, Henderson reportedly said.
“Absolutely, it’s a significant cost,” he said when asked by reporters about the expense of the programme. “What the actual cost is I’m not going to get into that this morning.”
Reuters said advertising for the programme began in Germany on Tuesday, with ads featuring provocative taglines “Admire Me!” and “Challenge Me!”. The test drive programme will roll into other countries in coming weeks, Henderson reportedly said.
Henderson told Reuters costs of the programme include maintaining the fleet of test drive vehicles, liability, insurance, maintenance and a discount when GM eventually sells the test vehicles.
The test drive would help convince consumers that the quality of Opels and Vauxhalls have improved in recent years, Henderson said.
“I think it’s quite clear that customers’ perceptions, both sides, lag. Whether you try to bring the brand up to where the product is, or where the quality is. Or in fact when you’re actually declining. That’s not the case in our case,” he told Reuters.
Henderson reportedly said GM hopes to sell many of the fleet of 35,000 test drive cars to consumers rather than put them up for auction after the programme – he does not expect the programme to depress the residual value of Opel and Vauxhall cars already on the market.
Reuters noted that, in February, Opel launched a pilot fleet of 10,000 test cars in a campaign titled “Germany does the Opel Test”.
