AND THE TAXPAYERS OWN THE FUTURE:

Review: Chevy Volt — electrifying: GM has succeeded in making an outside-the-box electric vehicle that's alluring almost any way you look at it, including under the hood. (Susan Carpenter, Los Angeles Times)

Designed as an all-electric commuter that can also go the distance, the Volt achieves its best fuel economy, lowest emissions and lowest cost of operation when running in pure electric mode. According to GM, running an electric car costs 2 cents a mile to operate versus 10 cents for gas.

The Volt turns on with the press of a button, and the only indicators that it's running are a computer-generated whooshing sound and the rush of green-and-blue graphics that assemble themselves into a liquid-crystal display beyond the steering wheel. The motor is silent.

On takeoff, my display indicated that I had 18 miles of electric battery power (since the man from GM who so kindly came with the car had used up the rest on his drive from San Francisco). I could travel an additional 244 miles with the premium gas in the tank. High-octane is required.

A green sphere floated in a column on the right-hand side of the LCD screen, floating up and turning yellow if I accelerated aggressively, and floating down and turning yellow if I did the same with braking. The goal is to keep the green globe balanced in the center, indicating the driver is handling the car most fuel-efficiently.

Pulling away from the curb, I saw the globe bounce upward before balancing itself, Zen-like. Aggressive deceleration is less of a concern because the Volt is outfitted with regenerative braking that captures the kinetic energy of the braking force and helps recharge the batteries. Putting the direct-drive transmission in "low" when coasting or traveling downhill increases braking resistance and recharges the batteries even more expeditiously.

After traveling 11 miles, my dash indicated I had seven miles of range left in pure electric mode. I was impressed by the Volt's ability to predict because exactly seven miles later, when the car had about 30% of its battery life left to spare, the car did, exactly as it was designed, switch over to gas mode. Instead of the batteries propelling its drive motor, it was the car's 1.4-liter engine propelling a 54-kilowatt generator motor propelling the drive motor.

The only discernible difference to me in switching over to gas-powered electricity as a driver was an extremely low-level purr from the generator.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is still wrestling with how to accurately quantify the emissions of electric vehicles, and it hasn't yet released official mpg figures for the Volt. Checking the car's second LCD screen in the center console after traveling 72.5 miles —40.8 in electric mode and 31.7 with gas — my mpg equivalent was an impressive 90.3, despite my test of the Volt's top speed. How clean those miles are in electric mode depends on the electricity source.

I attempted to top off my battery's charge by plugging into the 120-volt wall charger of a burger joint for half an hour over lunch — the effect of which was so minimal it didn't even register on the display when I turned the car back on. I also topped off the gas, adding 4.1 gallons to the car's 9.3-gallon tank. Overall, I traveled 400 miles, averaging 39 mpg for the trip, which consisted mostly of highway driving. Fuel-economy varies depending on how the Volt is driven, of course. To that end, the car has several options. There are three drive modes to choose between — normal, which feels pretty sluggish on the accelerator; sport, which is a lot more responsive (though more energy consuming); and mountain, for hilly terrain.

Because air conditioning and heat are also major energy users, the Volt's climate controls incorporate an eco mode that, although it didn't turn the vehicle into a rolling refrigerator, kept me adequately cool. The "Comfort" setting would have been more like regular AC, but it also would use more energy. Ditto for the heated leather seats available as a premium trim on the Volt I tested; heating individual seats is more efficient than heating an entire cabin. [...]

With its Volt, Chevy has made an EV for the masses that is alluring from all angles — inside, outside and under the hood. The Volt doesn't redeem GM from its past reclamation and crushing of the EV1, but it's a bold and impressive step into the future.