General Motors is Constructing Four New Assembly Plants.....

[Think4Yourself]

WRT to Volt sales in China: GM to Build Electric Cars in China, Protect Chevy Volt Technology | Fox News

GM will be building electric vehicles in China to take advantage of the $19,000 per car subsidy the Chinese government is currently offering but the Volt doesn't qualify for those as GM is refusing to do a technolgy transfer to Chinese companies. That's a bit of protectionism by the Chinese government and is subject to a WTO case which will probably be ruled in GM's favor not that it will help the company much since those cases almost always take 5-10 years.

[Think4Yourself]

The Volt's biggest weakness is it uses a lead acid battery which is very low tech but if it used a lithium Ion battery like a Tesla or a Prius then not only would weight go down but range would go up dramatically. Tesla, which is partly owned by Toyota and which shares technology with Toyota currently is working with IBM to produce a lithium air batter which would be ~40% more powerful per pound and lighter in weight to boot. I suspect the second generation Volt will have a Lithium Ion battery and that by itself will be a huge improvement.

[djmilf]

Originally Posted by Think4Yourself

The Volt's biggest weakness is it uses a lead acid battery.

The Chevrolet Volt has always used a lithium ion battery. General Motors developed it specifically for use in the Volt.

[Winter_Sucks]

Originally Posted by YAZ

....in China. Are we glad that we bailed them out?

They're selling a lot of cars in China, so building them there makes sense.

Am I glad we bailed out GM?

Yes. It saved thousands of American jobs directly and millions indirectly. Good public investment.