Hybrid Car Review

GM, from the beginning, has beeen very transparent with the development of the Volt.  That's not to say they share all the faults, tweaks, mistakes, set backs, etc... involved.  But they do let you know where it stands right now.  And right now, it's a week ahead of schedule.

As an aside, for anyone who's worked on a massive project like this, that may seem a little scary.  Being a week ahead means you've either put three or four times the amount of work budgeted up to this point, or you've just skipped a bunch of steps, and the mantra has become, they'll fix that in the next stage.

But back to where the Volt stands right now. GM released a video of the chief engineer Andrew Farah driving the first pre-production Volt.

Which is pretty smart, when you think about it. Between GM-Volt.com and other sites (including this one), the Chevy Volt has become one of the most talked about cars in history (Is there any way to measure such a thing?). They've turned it into a social phenomenon. One that surges and recedes, certainly, but is still there.

GM would love it if they really could become "Green Motors" with all the fringe benefits such a title would bestow. But in order to do that, they needed a vehicle, like the Prius, to symbolize that. GM is hoping that initial social group, the one that is so invested in it over the past years, will be the first to buy one. And then spread the word. But to do that, they need to get that initial group, the one that was so high on it right from the start, from start to finish over several years of work.

And they're doing it pretty well. It's releases like this one that allow that social group to stay in touch, stay invested, and stay involved.