Note: This op-ed disturbed GM a lot. Ed wrote it for the New York Times when he and I were at TTAC. While we were still talking, GM’s Selim Bingol complained to me that the story is unfair, and that a car can’t possibly be a lemon before it’s launched. I replied that I’m not the New York Times, and to complain there. Soon, there was no more talk.
GENERAL MOTORS introduced America to the Chevrolet Volt at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show as a low-slung concept car that would someday be the future of motorized transportation. It would go 40 miles on battery power alone, promised G.M., after which it would create its own electricity with a gas engine. Three and a half years — and one government-assisted bankruptcy later — G.M. is bringing a Volt to market that makes good on those two promises. The problem is, well, everything else.
