Get ready to be electrified by the Volt in 2010 says GM

Yesterday, in a report in Reuters made by Jui Chakravorty, it said that the plug-in hybrid of General Motors Corp., the Chevrolet Volt will be launched before 2010 ends despite criticisms and doubts even by the executives of the company.

According to Bob Lutz, their workers responsible for the Chevrolet Volt production “are becoming increasingly nervous”. However, despite the skepticisms, these workers are motivated enough to make their company be the first to reach the finish line of the mass-market rechargeable electric vehicle production.

“There is a lot of skepticism within the company about the timeline,” Lutz said at the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit. “People are biting their nails, but those of us in a leadership position have said it has to be done.”

Ford Motor Co. and Toyota are also going thru the same development process but GM is the only automaker which gave their target timeline. Meanwhile, BMW (makes BMW heater core) is developing another hybrid milestone not the plug-in but a vehicle that runs on hydrogen and petroleum in its internal combustion engine.

“We have to reestablish GM’s leadership and the Volt is, frankly, an effort to leapfrog anything that is done by any other competitor,” Lutz said.

Unlike the typical hybrids which uses dual power source of electric motor and an internal combustion engine, plug-ins like the Chevrolet Volt also uses the same power sources but their batteries can be recharged in the typical electric socket.

Lutz added that his company made a gig mistake when it did not create a hybrid to combat Toyota’s Prius when it was introduced in 1997.

“We kind of lost the first couple of laps of the green car race,” Lutz said, saying they couldn’t go to GM’s board “for a multihundred-million program that was going to lose money.”

The Prius is the best-selling hybrid vehicle in the world and significantly in GM’s domestic market, the United States. When it comes to sales, the Prius is accountable for 80 percent of hybrid sales in the American auto industry.

“We have since realized that letting Toyota gain that mantle of green respectability and technology leadership has really cost us dearly in the marketplace,” Lutz said.