Volt Birth Watch 118: Wagoner To Drive "Volt" To Hearings

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that GM Chairman Rick Wagoner will “drive a prototype Volt wearing the sheet metal of the upcoming Chevrolet Cruze to the Senate committee hearing on the company’s request for $18 billion in emergency loans.” And though they mention that GM will bring a production prototype Volt as well, they make no mention of where Wagoner will depart from on his drive to the capitol. Here’s a guess: somewhere less than 30 miles away. The WSJ now reports that “Mr. Wagoner plans to drive from Detroit in a hybrid Chevrolet Malibu. He will then drive about two miles — from his hotel, to GM’s Washington office, to Capitol Hill — in a test version of the Volt.” So yeah, a little less than 30 miles.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

More by Edward Niedermeyer

Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 24 comments
  • Adub Adub on Dec 03, 2008

    Why not a new non-hybrid Malibu that people actually are buying, that Consumer Reports actually rated quite highly? Toyota did not conquer GM with Prii, they did it with Corollas and Camrys. Morons. All of them.

  • Stein X Leikanger Stein X Leikanger on Dec 03, 2008

    They should all have been driving their best bet from their own manufacture. It should have been a race, the winner should have gotten it all -- Cannonball Run to D.C. Why not - couldn't get any more ludicrous than this. Those guys must really hate flying commercial.

  • Aegea Aegea on Dec 03, 2008

    It's all theater. Just enjoy the show.

  • Ronnie Schreiber Ronnie Schreiber on Dec 04, 2008

    They're damned if they do, damned if they don't, but the fact remains that while the Detroit CEOs are coming to Washington to ask for money, at this point in time their primary moral responsibility is to the stockholders and employees, not Congress or US citizens. That's whose interest they represent. They may be coming, hat in hand, begging (though I think that's the wrong attitude to take), but their legal and fiduciary obligation is to the people that right now own stock in their companies. If any of us were in their place I think we'd do they same as they are. Right now the focus is on them and, after all, they are in the business of selling cars, so why not take your best shot in terms of what model will resonate with Americans best and try to get some good publicity? Ed, I thought that GM should take one of the Cruze platform mules, have Metalcrafters do a rush job hanging on production Volt style body panels, and drive it to Washington, but that's not realistic. While I'm pretty sure that GM has Volt mules that can do serious highway miles and probably the shlep to DC, R&D being what it is, and test mules being test mules, they could have a breakdown, something normal during development but disastrous if done with the spotlight shining so brightly on it. The Malibu will get impressive mileage because it's going to be cruise controlled highway miles. GM gets a lot of face time for a hybrid version of their bread and butter Camry fighter. While it's not a PR home run, it's not a strike out either. What would I do if I was CEO? First, I wouldn't be going hat in hand and I wouldn't be afraid of telling off a grandstanding politician. Make you best case to the American people and have some balls about it.

Next