Chevrolet had planned to introduce its forthcoming electric car, the Volt, in just three markets initially. But demand has been so great that the company has added New York, New Jersey, Connecticut
and Texas as introductory markets for the car. The automaker’s Chairman Ed Whitacre broke the news in Austin, Texas on Thursday at a luncheon for the city’s chamber of commerce.
During his keynote speech he also announced that the company is going to battle consumers’ “range anxiety” – the fear that driving an electric car means risking getting stuck
somewhere with a dead battery under the hood. The company will send a Volt on a “Chevy Volt Freedom Drive” from Austin to Manhattan this week, a 1,076 mile trip to be made by a bevy of GM
engineers who will Twitter and blog about the trip, which is timed to end on July 4 in NYC.
“Austin is one of America’s greenest cities so it makes sense to offer Volt here
first,” said Whitacre, who added that the cross-country drive “Will prove that the Chevy Volt is as comfortable in Texas as it is in New York,” partly because “It can handle
the Austin summer and Manhattan winter.”
Whitacre took the opportunity to talk about the company’s progress since he took the helm. He also took the opportunity to call out Barry
Mayer, the current Chair of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce on his choice of vehicle. When Mayer confessed that he drove a Lexus, Whitacre called him to the podium and gave him the keys to a
new Corvette. “I’d love to give everyone in this room a GM vehicle today. We are supposed to be making a profit,” he said.
“I won’t stand here and tell you GM is
all the way back,” said Whitacre. “But for starters we are making money again. That’s an important milestone for GM.” He reiterated that in April the company paid back its loan
from the U.S. Canadian goverments and that the company plans to invest $2.3 billion in U.S. production facilities, and will ad 9,000 jobs in North America. “And we are adding shifts and keeping
plants open when normally they close for summer maintenance, a first for us,” he said. “All because we are selling cars and trucks so fast we can’t keep some in stock.”