The Business Risk for the Bolt for GM

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There's a whole bunch of innovation going on. Some of it perhaps promising and it's just exciting to see all the creativity. Toyota has announced that they are going to have a plug-in electric car in experimental fleets, meaning hundreds of cars,. So it's much less ambitious than what GM is talking about. But they're now saying they'll do that before the end of 2010.

Jonathan Rauch, of the Brookings Institution and the Atlantic Monthly, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the evolution of the Chevy Volt, GM's planned electric car. Due to the transparency of GM's effort, Rauch was able to spend a great deal of time on site at GM writing a piece for the Atlantic Monthly on GM's plans and hopes. Rauch discusses the huge risks, GM's past failures, and GM's hopes that the Volt might change the company's culture. The conversation closes with a discussion of competitors and the implications for energy policy.