Chevy Volt first official commercial TV ad.

What . . . you didn't think they's show pic's of the 1970's gas shortages, did you? . . . where folks waited for hours in line to get gas . . . . odd or even days, turning on your license plate numbers. That was back when we only imported about 5% ... unlike the 50%+ that we now import.

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I thought it was more subtle/not_so_subtle pandering to patriotism. I expect the next in the series to show a happy white family driving down the road eating "freedom" fries.

 

So its an electric car that uses gas?

 

Well that is what the survey said. Range anxiety and 2 seats are hurdles. I doubt they will show a commercial against the tesla roadster being impractical. They did show it passing all the gas stations with the 25-50 mile electric range. I think it will be more effective than the bear hug commercial, but they didn't really show why buy phev instead of guzzler. Well maybe that is because gm wants the volt to bring you into the show room, then they sell you the guzzler...

I don't remember gas lines, because duh I wasn't in them. We did learn about them in economics. I don't think they had anything to do with how much oil the US imported, it was more about a failed government price control policy created by Nixon and kept on with Carter. Price controls cause shortages. Who knew? Oh yeah, most thinking people. This was repeated with the california blackouts. Politicians never learn, but at least we have not had price control lines for gas since the 70s.

 

It does burn gas after the batteries run out. Same as the Tow truck a Leaf owner has to call to get towed to a charging station or there house.

But whats more important depending on where people live.
1. the Prius uses gas to power itself.
2. The Volt and leaf will get most of there energy from coal, and natural gas. There is nothing wrong with the volt having a gas range extender on board, the real problem is most people will be charging there electric car from coal power plants. Some people like me get about half of their energy from Nuclear, and then the rest from coal natural gas but still.

 

It is a plugin hybrid. Every PHV start out in electric mode. At some point under certain condition, the gas engine comes on.

Why are they still calling it an EV? Even more misleading, they said "electric car that goes far, really far". 25-50 EV miles is not far. On the highway, the juice could run out in less than 25 minutes.

You are left with a substandard ULEV gas engine powered by premium fuel that gets less MPG than a non-hybrid compact car on the highway. That is wrong for a hybrid car and wrong for a so called "green car".

If it is so good for America, home of the highways and last minute detours, why didn't they mention highway MPG running on gasoline like most of their ads?

Volt - ULEV (with gas engine on - for those really far trip or last min detours)
Jetta TDI - SULEV
Prius - AT-PZEV

 

Lulz. 99% of Volt or Leaf buyers are like me, about as spontaneous as a brick and easily can plan out my day. Let's get real. I hope it takes more than a commercial to trick me into thinking I'm going to just hop into the car with my 20-something girlfriend on a whim and maybe go across country to some lovely little spot we read about on the internet.

Marketing. I agree, it's essentially a plug-in hybrid. In fact, not essentially, but literally that is exactly what it is. Especially with the gas motor kicking in in parallel with the electric in some conditions, it is simply a very battery-biased hybrid car.