I heard about it when it first came out and frankly the name itself was a turnoff. I had no idea that they were selling so many. Maybe with some better branding it could have done better in the market.
Volt, sounds like a cheap knockoff of Tesla. That was the emotional response I got from it. I imagined that if they could not come up with a more original or cooler name then their car was probably like that too.
I could almost see their reasoning for naming it volt: They figured that the Tesla company used that name because of Nikola Tesla, I guess they decided they too should use another name related to electricity, the volt (cue applause at their brilliance). It seemed very lazy to me.
I don't know about the "rest of the world" but I would be bet that, in December 2010, when the Volt started selling in the US, far more Americans knew that the word "Volt" related to electricity than had heard of Tesla and knew that that word related to electricity.
For me, the bigger issue was that the name - to me - implied that it was an electric car, not a hybrid, so it felt like unsubstantiated marketing spin.
The total absense of advertising for a vehicle that so many people loved has always reeked of lack of commitment from one side of the house.
That doesn’t even factor in how Chevy dealerships would actively try to talk you out of them.