GM to sell “Bullfrog Edition” of Chevy Volt, a $198 upgrade offering 2 years of green-certified electricity
Monday, February 6th, 2012
Toronto-based green energy retailer Bullfrog Power is teaming up with General Motors Canada to offer what Bullfrog CEO Tom Heintzman is calling a “Bullfrog Edition” Chevy Volt. This edition of the Volt would be available via all GM dealerships across Canada and would come at a $198 premium. In return, the customer gets a Bullfrog Edition plaque on the vehicle and two years of green (incl. nuke-free) electricity from Bullfrog, based on average customer electricity consumption. “It’s really trying to get people aware of the fact that just because you’re plugging into the wall doesn’t mean it’s emission-free,” Heintzman told me. “Electric vehicles ultimately need to be tied to renewable energy. This makes the link in a more tangible and powerful way.”
The deal is very similar to how many car manufacturers already offer satellite radio, or how some have offered a year’s worth or more of free gasoline. “It works out to 7.5 megawatt-hours of electricity over the course of the two years,” he said. I asked if this is an exclusive deal with GM, or whether Bullfrog is able to make a similar offer with other EV manufacturers. “It takes a while to put a program like this together, so we don’t anticipate anyone else coming aboard within the next year. At some point in time, we would hope that all EV manufacturers would begin offering it.”




Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.