GM remains 'excited' for electric cars

DETROIT (WOOD) - As the Chevy Volt continues to travel a bumpy road, GM engineers involved with the Volt and other electric vehicle programs are passionate and adamant that these are the cars of the future.

"We personally believe that electrification has its place in the automotive business or we would not be doing the kinds of things we're doing," said Chuck Russell, the chief engineer for the Volt and Chevy Spark.

The latest federal funding of $120 million is set aside for what's described as a Manhattan Project to develop a system that will improve storage and make the batteries cheaper, which will make cars like the Volt more affordable.

That money is on top of the $1.3 billion the federal government invested in battery production, a portion of which went to the LG Chem plant in Holland to produce batteries for the Volt.

A Target 8 investigation in October revealed workers at LG Chem spent their days watching moves, playing cards or volunteering in the community. The batteries Chevrolet does put into Volts come from an LG Chem plant in their home country of South Korea.

Some blame the lower-than-projected sales of Volts as one reason.

At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, 24 Hour News 8 asked Russell when Chevy will sell enough Volts for LG Chem to put workers on the production floor in Holland.

"That's really LG's decision," he said. "We don't make comments about suppliers. It's not really our place."

But he and other engineers on the project say to just give it time. Some auto analysts see electric vehicles as a short-term solution to meeting corporate fuel economy standards before the next big breakthrough in technology happens.

"Until we get to that point," said IHS Automotive analyst Mike Wall, "it's going to be this learning curve and there's going to be these growing pains where we do outstrip our capacity. We build too much capacity for demand initially and we'll grow into that."

But it's tough to pin down just how much time that will take.

Meanwhile, Volt engineers say much of what they've learned from the car -- using your tax dollars -- is being used on other innovations like the Chevy Spark .

"We're pretty excited about this," Russell said. "It's a great little car."