GM's Turn

Alex Taylor III sees cooler cars and a glimmer of hope at General Motors. An excerpt:

Along with improving GM's product lineup, Wagoner has strengthened the company's ability to cope with rising energy prices and environmental issues. Preoccupied with wringing the last dollar of profit out of its SUVs and pickups, GM got started late in hybrid passenger cars, especially compared with Toyota and Honda, which were both selling gasoline-electric hybrids by 2000. When he was running the North American unit, Wagoner redirected capital spending and engineering resources for the development of more fuel-efficient vehicles. Now GM can claim leadership in one promising field: plug-in hybrids. By late 2010, GM expects to introduce a four-passenger car called the Chevrolet Volt, powered by lithium-ion batteries. It is designed to run on those batteries for 40 miles, enough by far to satisfy the commuting needs of most Americans. Unlike hybrids currently on the market, the car will be capable of being recharged overnight when plugged into a household current and carries a small gasoline engine on board to recharge the batteries while underway, giving the Volt a theoretical range of 640 miles.