In the meantime, private enterprise in the form of Nissan is chugging along with their Nissan Leaf. The leaf has a longer range on electric charge, cheaper than the volt, and will be manufactured in America, but in a state with Right-To-Work laws, so it does not get the same love as our GM that cannot survive without help from the Feds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf
For the record (from wikipedia):
GM Volt's Range: 25 to 50 miles
GM Volt's Price: $41,000
This is misleading in key ways as presented.
The big critical distinction is the Leaf is
purely an electric. Once you run out of batteries, you are stuck until someone shows up to tow your car. This is a key limitation in a variety of respects including that the variability with how long an electric charge will last means you have to plan for Leaf trips with a safety margin to make sure you never run out of a battery charge when away from your garage. (This including accounting for accidents leading to serious jams on the way to work.)
A key problem here is that after a drive to and from work, with perhaps a detour for an errand on the way home, someone could suddenly get an emergency errand they need to run on short notice without having had time to really charge the Leaf's battery. Assuming you pay a couple thousand additional dollars to avoid the 20 hour charging time with a basically standard outlet, you're still looking at 8 hours for a full recharge. This means if you're looking at a decent emergency drive shortly after you get home from work with a drained battery, the leaf may not be able to handle it.
Another major issue is if you get hit by a major power outage at night and use most of the range of your Leaf during your drive to work at the wrong time of year, you can suddenly find yourself unable to leave for work with your Leaf and able to get there and back without needing a tow. You really need to own enough cars that the Leaf practically serves as a spare one available when you feel like using it to really get the Leaf to work.
Of course the electric only limitation prevents your from making really long trips since you can't stop for gas along the way. This also means that if you're moving a decent distance between cities, you are presumably stuck paying for someone to transport the car via a flatbed truck since the same range limitations apply in that case. (Incidentally you're going to have to pay again for the recharger installation and rewiring in the new place unless you want to be stuck with a 20 hour recharging time again.)
Basically for all the limitations you may bring up, the Volt represents a potentially far more realistic option for most potential buyers. The ability to burn gas and function as a normal car when necessary is a crucial difference.
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