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Filed under: EV/Plug-in , GM , Green Daily New GM CEO Fritz Henderson has some good words for his competitors. Surprised? It's all in an effort to make sure that plug-in vehicles get the help they need to become cost competitive. Henderson spoke with the Washington Post and said that costs are the big problem holding back electric cars. To bring costs down, he said: The more companies that actually develop technologies around electric, the more the supply structure will develop, the better off we'll be. . . . We can't carry the load ourselves. GM can't More here: GM CEO: electric cars require teamwork; hydrogen cars 10x more expensive than Volt ... details >>>

Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Hybrid , Chevrolet , GM One of our ever-alert readers has been out walking the neighborhood armed with a camera this weekend when he spotted one of the most anticipated cars of the next few years. Sitting in a neighbor's driveway was a Chevy Volt IVER prototype. We know GM has been out running the Volts on public roads including a 1,200-mile, three-day drive from Michigan to Virginia last week. However, it's unusual a year before production to see the engineers driving these types of pre-production units home for the weekend. That doesn't usually happen until much closer to Job 1. On the other hand, it's also unusual to see such cars running undisguised this far ahead of production. View post: Reader spots Chevy Volt prototype parked in a driveway ... details >>>

Filed under: Diesel , EV/Plug-in , Audi , Legislation and Policy When an automotive executive says something brash and outrageous, we sometimes call it " Going Lutz ." The green car world has it's own special phrase - " Going Musk " - and we always look forward to the next item that makes us go, "Huh? Really?" They're so much more exciting than the daily press releases. Today's edition might make people use "Going Johan." Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen, a big diesel vehicle fan, recently gave veteran auto journalist Lawrence Ulrich a few choice morsels about how terrible electric cars, including the Chevy Volt, are. To start, he said the Volt is "a car for idiots." It's too expensive, he said, adding that "No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla. So there are not enough idiots who will buy it." He predicted that the Volt will fall fail, which will cause the federal government to have ... details >>>

Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Manufacturing/Plants , Chevrolet Volt body panels being stamped - Click above to watch the videos after the jump The other day we pointed you at a video produced by General Motors that is part of a series on the building of the pre-production Chevy Volt prototypes. That video showed the IVER (integration vehicle engineering release) bodies being assembled, welded and painted in the body shop at the pre-production operations center in Warren, Michigan. However, before you can weld and paint, you have take sheets of steel and stamp them into the right shapes. It turns out that there were other videos that came ahead the body shop video that we missed. In the stamping video, you can see how the engineers go from the mathematical models of the parts to machining the prototype dies. Unlike the production dies, these prototypes are not as tough and are only useful for producing a limited number of parts. Because the steel springs back somewhat... details >>>

One of the many things General Motors boasted about when it unveiled the Volt concept at the Detroit Auto Show in 2007 was its 600-mile range. This was achieved partially by the battery pack, which could sustain a (theoretical) charge allowing... details >>>