Future Of Electric Car In Peril Due To Detroit Crisis

As U.S. automakers face an economic crisis, critics believe it might stifle the advancement of “˜green’ electric cars.

U.S. auto sales have plummeted to their lowest numbers in 25 years, which has spurred GM, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC to ask for $25 billion in federal handouts.

Critics say a sluggish economy will lead to slower production of fuel-efficient small cars, gas-saving technology and even gas-free electric vehicles.

GM maintains its intention to protect its investment in the Chevy Volt ahead of the vehicle’s planned 2010 launch even as it scrambles to slash $15 billion in costs elsewhere. The Volt is a rechargeable car that has been designed to run 40 miles on pure battery power without using gas.

Because plug-ins like the Volt can be recharged from a cleaner-burning electric grid, proponents see them as the best way in the near term to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from traffic on America’s roads.

"I think right now we’re in what I call a serious Act Two moment with oil prices down and money tight," said Chris Paine, whose 2006 documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" chronicled GM’s controversial decision to scrap an earlier electric car marketed in California as the Saturn EV1. Paine is also working on a sequel based on the Volt.

GM has made huge efforts to continue with the Volt because of the encouraging response it earned form many of the automaker’s toughest critics.

"I think it’s somewhat ironic but also encouraging that GM was the first back into the fray," said Chelsea Sexton, who helped market the EV1 in California and has become an advocate for plug-in cars. "There’s a humility there that people respond to. Detroit has been knocked down but it’s not out."

GM scrapped plans to make an announcement on the Volt’s battery supplier at the Los Angeles auto show this week, people briefed on the automaker’s plans have said.

Jaboc Grose, an analyst with Lux Research said GM can afford to delay certain announcements related to the Volt because of its fanfare.

“GM has pretty much bet the farm on the Chevy Volt and plug-in hybrids and certainly any major economic disruption to the company — any kind of bankruptcy filing or anything like that — for even the most high priority launch as this is would clearly be, would push it back a couple of years," he said.

Ron Cogan, editor of Green Car Journal, said Detroit automakers realize they have no alternative to pressing ahead with investment that promises to drive gains in fuel economy.

"The industry understands where the market is headed and that the greatest interest is in the vehicles with the best fuel efficiency," said Cogan, who presented the Green Car of the year award to GM’s hybrid Chevy Tahoe last year.

Lyle Dennis, a New York neurologist who has emerged as the Volt’s unofficial first fan and runs the GM-Volt.com Web site (http://gm-volt.com/), has organized a letter-writing campaign to urge lawmakers to help save GM — and by extension the Volt.

"It just seems to me this could easily be the end of the Volt. There are certainly no guarantees," said Dennis. "I’m no fan of bailouts in general. But I don’t see another way."

Paine said he remains uncertain of how his film will end, or even what it will be titled. He has tentatively called his follow-up "Revenge of the Electric Car" but realizes there may be a darker ending by 2010, when the film and the Volt are due.

"That’s when we will find out if it’s really the revenge or the curse of the electric car," he said.