Will the Volt Unplug GM?

After I promised an "Electric Car Buyer's Guide" in a previous post, I realized that Autobloggreen has already done that with an excellent web site. I was also knocked out of my technogeeklust fog by a comment from Kevin (whose thoughtful Urban Indy blog I read religiously).

"Electric cars are neat. However, one of my goals is to be able to live in this city without needing to own a car at all. I've just got this nagging feeling that if we can figure out electric cars at a large scale, we're still going to build our landscapes around the car, instead of humans. Car-based planning is unattractive, no matter how you are powering the car. Suburbs age very rapidly. Congestion will still be a problem, and as they say, you can't build your way out of it with wider (or more) roads."

Most of the electrics on the market now are Neighborhood Electric Vehicles that are not legal at highway speeds and not allowed at all in some jurisdictions. The Tesla is in production, but good luck getting one even if you have the $100K in hand.

Dynasty Neighborhood Electric Vehicle

The most interesting article I ran across researching a potential practical electric car buyers guide is Jonathan Rauch's riveting description of the monumental effort General Motors is mounting to deliver the Chevy Volt electric vehicle to showrooms in 2010. Don't miss Electro-Shock Therapy: GM Bets Everything on the Plug-in Car by Jonathan Rauch in the July-August issue of The Atlantic.