I Knew It! General Motors to Officially Unveil the Chevrolet Volt Tomorrow

By Marc J. Rauch, Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher

GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz

LONG BEACH, CA - September 16, 2008: (Reporting from the "Future Is Green" Conference and Expo) For the last few weeks I've been tracking GM's stock prices. I've been wanting to put a little money into the stocks of companies that I think are on the right track, futuristically speaking. GM by virtue of their work on the Volt met my personal qualifications.

Well, last week I received an invitation to GM's centenary celebration that takes place in Detroit. About the same time a couple of new photos of a finished Volt mysteriously appeared on a trade photo-resource website (the pics have been re-published on this page. So I called one of my contacts at GM and asked if they were planning to unveil the actual Volt during the Tuesday event, as it would be the perfect timing to do so. My contact was silent; so silent that I thought the call had been discontinued. After a few moments I said, "Hello, are you there?" Another few moments went by and he returned to a general conversation about the Tuesday event without commenting on my hunch. I let it go, but I called my partner, Bob Gordon, and told him what I suspected. He agreed that an official launch of the Volt would indeed be big news, especially coming at the start of the traditional auto show season (Paris, Miami, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and Geneva are all coming up).

This past Thursday and Friday I noticed that GM stock prices rose about three dollars, approximately 30% over the $10 price that the shares had been trading at. I felt that this was another indication that something big was going to take place tomorrow.

Sure enough, as of about 12AM Monday morning, ET, the Wall Street Journal started reporting that GM "...plans to officially unveil its most important model in decades -- and possibly the key to its survival."

The WSJ story continued by stating, "The Chevrolet Volt is a battery-powered compact car scheduled to hit the market by the end of 2010. It is designed to give GM the kind of highly fuel-efficient vehicle it needs to compete in an era of near $4-a-gallon gasoline. But the car also has another, more-strategic purpose: to change minds. GM is hoping the Volt will be such a technological leap forward that the many consumers who have turned their backs on Detroit will give the company and its cars a fresh look." Of course, we at The Auto Channel agree with this and hope that the GM announcement includes information about the early delivery of the Volt. GM needs a successful Volt, America needs a successful Volt, the world needs a successful Volt, and we all need it now.