And then there’s also the benefit of all the heavy liquid gasoline that needs to be trucked around, in favor of just bringing fuel to the power plants, and then distributing the energy in the form of electricity, which is much more efficient.

The car will be able to run just fine using gas once the 40 miles battery charge is up. And if you believe the rumors it will get very good a very mpg rating. So you don’t need new parking with extension cords. Also most Americans ( not all and not me) don’t drive more than 20 miles each way to work. So for some it’s fantastic.

And to your second point, it will help the environment. Think about it, thousands of small inefficient engines (cars) vs. one large very efficient engine (power plant). And there are many many clean ways to get energy at the power plant level. Nuclear, solar, hydro, wind ect. ect.

This is a huge step and if GM pulls it off it will help them tremendously.

And ALL the electricity required to operate a Volt has to come from somewhere! An electric car does NOTHING for the environment until clean and renewable sources of generating electricity are prevalent. Until then, we just burn more coal or oil or whatever to supply the increased draw on the existing grid.