Finally I read an article and I believe that GM is starting to "Get it"

[RollWithIt]

http://gm-volt.com/2009/03/16/gm-aims-to-wow-customers-with-seemless-and-intuitive-chevy-volt-driving-experience/

People who follow the Volt development closely know that GM has about 35 mules clad in Chevy Cruze bodies. These have been undergoing extensive continuous daily testing for months. By the summer we will see the arrival of the first full Volt interior and exterior prototypes, and likely begin to see public test drives.

I had the chance to ask Jon Lauckner who is GM’s VP of global program management what has been happening with control development on the current Volt mules.

GM has already “laid out all of the concepts that we want to use and written a lot of the preliminary code,” said Lauckner. He notes the car’s behavior “has to be software driven” and that all the code has already been “put into our mule cars and we’re evaluating and testing it.”

GM has apparently figured out most of how the vehicle will behave. “I would say that conceptually we’re most of the way there if not all of the way there,” in terms of behavioral programming said Lauckner, “but there’s a lot of work to be done still to make sure that the whole thing operates seamlessly.”

Lauckner feels it is imperative GM makes this car absolutely perfect. He said “we need an experience where people say ‘Wow’ this is really something special. These guys have put a lot of thought into the technology, a lot of thought into the interface between me as a driver and how the car behaving that it tells me the kind of information I need know when I need to know it and that it operates very intuitively.”

Make no mistake about it. At least GM is trying to create something with 21st technology that can be mass produced. Full AI with hybrid.. It's really something to be admired as far as American mass production goes. Would be interesting if GM (which is now partly owned by American Tax Payers) can manage to pull this off. There is recent evidence to indicate that the stimulus money is in fact working for them.

[Tommy_J]

1. 35 mules does not seem like a lot,

considering the fate of GM may rest on thoroughly testing these technologies. It would interesting to hear how many mules Toyota used to test the first Prius design.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. So basically the Volt is in alpha.

When is this thing supposed to be released?

[KakistocracyHater]

3. I saw an electric car 1916 at the auto museum

& I got an idea: make electric cars light & based on the carriage, make the far left lane for suvs & trucks only (except when turning) & make a lane exclusively for the "new" cars.

Carriages were the original proto-type for the 1st cars, lightweight for the horses, cars into the 50s still had vestigial 'step ups' like a carriage, but by then it had been shifted inside the car, in contrast to the 'running boards' of the 20s.