The VOLT would be a good design; but IMO GM has no intention of
producing it. Sure, the Prius is handicapped by its bass-ackward
inclusion of the engine into the drive train: but it could be
converted to a serial hybrid, and it IS a real car.

The supposed VOLT is a phantasm, a ploy.

The thing is, the VOLT is nothing new: GM had a serial-hybrid
version of the EV1 which it exhibited at the Tokyo Auto Show in (I
think) 1998; and the infamous Oldsmobile "Electric car that makes
its own electric" in 1969. But if it's so easy and obvious, how come
GM can't make it??

As for batteries improving: there's a theoretical limit to each
battery chemistry; in fact, "safe" Lithium and NiMH are equivalent
in energy density, if not power density. It's not going to be an
increase from 100 to 300 miles range: also, as I state again and
again, you don't need a 300 mile range!!

A battery pack that's too big for daily use is just as bad as one
that's too small! When we had the 160-mile-range NiMH EV1, we only
charged it twice a week, the rest of the time it ran on the too-big
battery pack. We've pretty must established that a serial-hybrid
like the VOLT with a 100-to-130-mile-range in all-electric mode
would be the best design; most days, 100 miles is too much, but
sometimes you do need to go on longer trips: for that, the genset
provides juice.

As for GM, I'd be cautious.

GM is flirting with Chapt. 11 bankruptcy: experience tells us that,
like divorce, once you start contemplating bankruptcy filing, it has
a life of itself, and becomes a fulfilling prophecy.

If GM were to file for Chapt. 11, the existing shares would sink far
below $1, IMO; even in a managed bankruptcy, the wages, suppliers,
bondholders, creditor and other get paid long before the equity
(shareholders).

I don't want to frighten anyone: and it's FAR FROM CERTAIN that GM
will file for Chapt. 11. But if they do, you have to look at the
capitalization:

Now GM has a net worth, according to Yahoo, of NEGATIVE $60 BILLION,

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=GM

To give existing equity holders even $4 billion equity interest in
the new company (about $8/share) would be very, very difficult, IMO.

But who knows: perhaps Wagoner, contrary to his past FAILURES, won't
be caught, this time, like a deer in the headlights of the Hummer of
History...

But you note, LUTZ HAS ALREADY LEFT THE SINKING SHIP, divorcing
himself from yet another failure: just as he fled Exide Battery, his
previous gig prior to GM, where as CEO he presided over its
bankruptcy due to ... excessive debt.

So these things have a history, and a logic: I too think GM is too
big to fail, and that the fedgov should bail them out; but I think
it should demand a quid pro quo, in that the top management would
have to leave, and remain open for prosecution if it is determined
that they abandoned their fiduciary responsibility.

The Taxpayer, if obligated to save GM from bk, should be able to
seize control, and stop the continuing production of junker and
clunker gas-guzzlers.

Yes, seize GM: and put someone who knows something in charge of the
VOLT program, fire all the goons, drones and morons running it now
(egad, they make my skin crawl, just to listen to their ignorant
lies and putrid rantings!).

These are the same dumbos who presided over killing the EV1.