Volt Is U.S. Car Industry's Moon Shot

Volt Is U.S. Car Industry's Moon Shot

Editor's note: the following interviews were done separately and edited into one article.

Rarely has a car generated as much excitement among consumers, or pressure for a car company, as the Chevrolet Volt.

Much of the credit for that can go to Robert Lutz, GM's famously outspoken vice chairman, who has been a champion of the Volt. He has touted the flex-fuel and plug-in-electric hybrid as the centerpiece of GM's campaign to become the industry's environmental and technological leader, a title Toyota has held since bringing the Prius to the United States in 2001. Indeed, in the following interview with Wired News, he called the Volt GM's moon shot.

So it's not surprising there's so much hype -- and skepticism -- surrounding the car. GM executives have all but promised to begin producing it in 2010. With Toyota's recent announcement that it will bring a plug-in hybrid -- albeit one with less range than the Volt -- to market at the same time, the race is on.

Wired News grilled Lutz and two other top executives behind the Volt at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit about what's really happening under the hood -- and on the surface -- of the highly anticipated car