{"id":45992,"date":"2012-01-09T10:15:35","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T15:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=45992"},"modified":"2012-01-09T10:15:35","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T15:15:35","slug":"chevrolet-targeting-millennials-with-pair-of-auto-show-concepts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2012\/01\/chevrolet-targeting-millennials-with-pair-of-auto-show-concepts\/","title":{"rendered":"Chevrolet Targeting Millennials with Pair of Auto Show Concepts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Code 130R is one of two Chevrolet concepts testing the market among Millennials.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Baby Boomers, step aside.\u00a0 There\u2019s a new generation of car buyers entering the market and Chevrolet wants to win them over.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re the target audience for a pair of distinctive concept vehicles General Motors\u2019 largest brand is debuting at this year\u2019s North American International Auto Show.\u00a0 Small, high-tech and fuel-efficient, they\u2019re decidedly not the sort of products that Chevy has traditionally thrown at the Boomers, today\u2019s largest automotive buying group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a pretty significant shift in how people are viewing automobiles and transportation, in general,\u201d suggests John McFarland, Chevy\u2019s senior manager of global marketing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Turbocharge Your Auto Knowledge!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

McFarland says he and other members of his team have already met with over 9,000 Millennials in the process of developing the two concepts, dubbed Code 130R and Tru 140S, that are making their debut at the Detroit Auto Show.\u00a0 Whether they actually connect with potential buyers in the youngest buying group remains to be seen but they could be in production in less than two years, TheDetroitBureau.com has learned.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The "affordable exotic" Chevrolet Tru 140S concept.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As with virtually every maker in the market, Chevy has realized technology is a key selling point today, from active safety to onboard infotainment systems. And that\u2019s all the more true among the Millennials, who have shown a surprising indifference to automobiles in favor of iPhones, iPads and other high-tech alternatives for their spending power.<\/p>\n

So, no surprise, Chevy designers came up with the idea of smaller, more fuel-efficient concept vehicles that allow motorists to actually link up like a sort of Facebook on wheels.\u00a0 This connectivity has both a fun and a practical side, Chevrolet officials insist.\u00a0 It could permit a driver to track down friends or pass recommendations for a hot restaurant or club.\u00a0 It would also be useful to interlink connected vehicles to keep tabs on traffic or weather conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do things in herds,\u201d contends Clay Dean, GM\u2019s director of advanced design.\u00a0 \u201cThey don\u2019t do things individually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Research suggests that Millennials are about six times less likely to get a driver\u2019s license than Boomers were at the same age.\u00a0 More problematic for Chevy, in particular, they\u2019re not especially domestic car oriented \u2013 though the maker is betting that if it can crack their code it might overcome this bias.\u00a0 That could be critical as Chevy and its domestic rivals cannot afford to lose the Millennials the way they failed to win over much of the Baby Boom \u2013 driving the ascendancy of the Japanese.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t think any brand understands these consumers,\u201d at least not yet, added McFarland, but he noted that along with their devotion to things high-tech, the newest generation of young adults is \u201cvery passionate\u201d about the brands they like, whether an Apple or a Nike.<\/p>\n

They also believe that brands should directly connect with them, something Chevrolet did in preparing the Code 130R and Tru 140S concepts, setting up a series of non-traditional consumer clinics and other meetings with potential Millennial customers around the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cKids just aren\u2019t buying cars in Japan,\u201d notes Dean.\u00a0 \u201cWe wanted to find out if that\u2019s happening here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The preliminary evidence suggests that once Millennials get their license they do, indeed, buy cars, so Chevy is using the two concepts to see if it can deliver the right mix of design and product attributes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no silver bullet for Gen-Y,\u201d Dean cautions, \u201cno single youth car,\u201d so the two prototypes are targeting different potential niches.<\/p>\n

The Chevrolet Tru 140S, a 4-passenger, 3-door liftback, takes aim at the \u201cAffordable Exotic\u201d segment.\u00a0 While it looks fast and delivers a good level of functionality, it is \u201cmore poseur than do-er,\u201d with an emphasis more on fuel economy \u2013 targeting something over 40 mpg \u2013 than actual performance.\u00a0 If it were to come to market today it would be priced in the $19,000 to $24,000 range.<\/p>\n

The second concept, the Code 130R, would target a similar price range.\u00a0 Think of it as \u201cFunctional Muscle,\u201d and \u201clinks back to Chevrolet\u2019s rich performance heritage,\u201d suggested General Motors North America President Mark Reuss, ofnthe rear-wheel-drive prototype, a 2-door, 4-passenger model which slots into the compact segment.\u00a0 Notably, it does not share the same platform as the 3-door liftback Tru 140S.<\/p>\n

The two concepts will make the rounds of the auto show circuit this year \u2013 but will also be brought to as many as 15 more youth-oriented events, helping generate feedback, Dean says, \u201cthat we hope will lead us to better\u00a0 conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing Chevy researchers anticipate is that young buyers will want the potential to make a lot of custom modifications \u2013 though that may be less about tuning engines than it was when the Baby Boomers were buying their first sets of wheels.<\/p>\n

How soon might Chevrolet put one of these concepts \u2013 or something like them \u2013 into production?<\/p>\n

There already are full business cases in place for both the Chevrolet Code 130R and Chevy Tru 140S, according to advanced designer Dean, so, \u201cWe could move very fast if given the go,\u201d which he hints could mean a production version of one or both show cars could reach market in as little as two years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hoping to catch the fancy of the huge new Millennial generation, Chevrolet has turned to potential young buyers for guidance in coming up with two distinctive new concept vehicles, the Chevrolet Tru 140S and the Code 130R. As TheDetroitBureau.com has leaned, one, perhaps both could hit market within two years once given the go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45992"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=45992"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=45992"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=45992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}