Last, there’s absolutely nothing experimental about my electric vehicle, so that part of your rant is way off the mark. It’s a US manufactured OEM production line vehicle, street legal, registered, with DOT approved and off the shelf tried, tru and well supported parts, very, very easy and cheap to replace, all true for quite a few other electric vehicle makes and models (ok, not all of them are US made, as mine is).

Go ahead and continue to bash gold ‘ole American innovation and manufacturing if you want, but it got me my inexpensive, high performance electric drive vehicle now and it’s great.

You folks go right ahead and limit yourself to just the Volt if you want. Me, I want several options, of which the Volt is one, but certainly not the only.

No one here must do anything that they don’t want to. I simply pointed out that purchases of electric drive vehicles today help the Volt, when it comes out in two years, and are absolutely not in competition with it (an actual product cannot be in competition with one that cannot be bought in stores). Or are you another person interested in forestalling electric vehicles in general through wahtever means possible (don’t make the perfect be the enemy of the good enough for lots of folks in lots of situations, rigtht this second)?

Quantity demanded is a prerequisite for market clearing quantity supplied. Shift demand out and it’ll meet supply at a higher quantity. That’s just economics 001 and a way that cosumers can show to show that there will be consumer demand for the GM Volt. You think lenders will be free with their money without a general past track record of electric drive vehicle sales as a proxy for Volt demand? Thus, folks who get electric drive now help the Volt when it gets in retail consumers hands a whole two years from now. Seems pretty clear.

Gotta start somewhere, sometime, somehow. Sure, Volt later, as soon as it’s in production and available, in over two years.

If folks want to help the Volt, show that there’s demand for power pack electric drive and buy a vehicle with one (or rechargeable electric implement, such as a lawnmower or power tool) today.

Sure, happy to. In its first year in operation, over 8,000 miles, my electric vehicle cost $0 in maintenance and repairs. Keep in mind that I plan to upgrade to a higher performing, cheaper power pack in less than 5 years, whether or not it needs it, and toss on a higher power motor and taller gear at the same time. Easy as pie plug and play upgrades is just one of the many areas where electric dominates gasser.

Compare that to $1,500 in just owner manual mandatory maintenence for my comparable gasser, purchased at the same time, over the same time period, the first year, and same distance, 8,000 miles.

So, electric, $0, gasser, $1,500. Electric stomps gasser in yet another area. Thanks for asking.

Will the Gen-1 Volt communicate to the utility companies?
We’re looking at a lot of studies with OnStar right now, but there are other ways to do it.

Having OnStar in the car might be a dealbreaker for me. Seriously.

You see, I’m an IT guy. Having any kind of communications network in the car means that I have to keep my IT security hat on at all times. OnStar and a WiFi monitoring system both qualify. Having either of these systems on the car means that I’d have to consider the following while I drive my car:

Do I trust everyone who works at the General Motors callcenter to know my whereabouts at all times?
If the OnStar system can be used to listen in on conversations of mobsters when the FBI has a search warrant, do I trust said callcenter employees not to abuse that privilege while I’m having a heart-to-heart with my girl?
Will my car shut down as if it were stolen, if the GM callcenter were hacked?
Will my car randomly unlock itself, if a callcenter employee gets bored?

I’ve known people who’ve had the OnStar service who are thrilled with it. And I think it’s likely that GM has acceptable answers to these questions.

However, that’s not the point… I want to be able to stop doing irritating-paranoid part of my job when I get into my car, so that I can relax — and as long as the OnStar communications hardware is in the dashboard, it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to think of it as just a car. I want my car to just be a car.