GM Is Set On Hybrid Vehicles

Vice Chairman of General Motors, Bob Lutz said his company is preparing to lose money for years on the Chevrolet Volt. He said “We won’t make a dime on this car for years, and the board is OK with that.”Lutz acknowledged it was a mistake that GM didn’t beat Toyota to the market with hybrid vehicles, stating GM wouldn’t make that error again. Even if that means losing money on initial Volt sales.

Lutz also said General Motors was hesitant to go into the market with hybrids a decade ago because the company would probably lose about $250 million a year selling such vehicles. Now he admits being late to the game has cost GM billions in sales because it lost its image of having superior technology. - sciencenews

The Volt is due out in 2010. There is, of course, the argument that you still have to burn fossil fuels to create the electricity and to produce the batteries but that is not always the case. Going electric allows you to take advantage of clean energy sources like solar, wind, hydro-electric, and others.

The main problem is that cars like the Prius are SO ugly. If the Volt can deliver mileage and power with looks like this, America will be back in the game. Imagine feeling proud of an American product again! Could the future be a bright clean place? I hope the production model gets to keep those 20 inch wheels.

The Chevrolet Volt is a plug-in hybrid concept car created by General Motors. However, the company has avoided the use of the term "hybrid," preferring to call it an electric vehicle with a "range extender" due to its design.^[2] The vehicle is designed to run purely on electricity from on-board batteries for up to 40 miles (64 km) —which is a large enough distance to cover the daily commutes of most Americans, which is around 25 miles (40 km). With use of a small internal combustion engine hooked to a generator to resupply the batteries, the vehicle's range is potentially increased to 640 miles (1,030 km) on the highway. General Motors Corp. had originally planned to build 60,000 of its Volt electric cars for their inaugural year^[3], however have now scaled back production to 10,000 units^[4], compared to the 15,000 of Toyota Motor Corp.'s hybrid Prius for their inaugural year. - wiki