In the same week that GM returned to the stock market with the largest U.S. Initial Public Offering ever, returning half of the federal stake, the Chevy Volt continues to gain recognition as a breakthrough vehicle. Three top industry players have unanimously crowned the Volt as Vehicle of the Year. Decades after Andy Frank began designing plug-in hybrids, and eight years after we started CalCars to promote their commercialization, we're seeing Motor Trend, Automobile Mag and Green Car Journal all describing the Volt and the PHEV approach the same way: "Game-Changer." Plus we bring the news that the electric drive industry's trade association has stepped up with GoElectricDrive.com, a national information center for buyers of all plug-ins. And a pointer to a thoughtful broad analysis of GM's marketing approach by CleanTech analyst Joel Makower.

General Motors is proud of its impending success -- and the company showed it. On the morning of the company's IPO, the readers of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times came upon full-page ads on pages 11 and 13. One in red was headlined, "The future is here and America is back in the game" -- Motor Trend. At the bottom of the page, "Introducing the 2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year, the all-new Chevrolet Volt. It's more car than electric. And it's just the beginning." The other, in green, said, Is it just us, or is there electricity in the air? "Automobile of the Year" -- Automobile Magazine. And at the bottom, "Turns out people get pretty excited when you change the world. The all-new Chevrolet Volt. It's more car than electric." The stories cited below are all online; print issues will be out next month. We present the primary sources and the URLs for the stories; you can find more details easily by searching news online

MOTOR TREND 2011 CAR OF THE YEAR The auto industry's most prestigious award introduces the Volt as "A Car of the Future You can Drive Today." The Volt topped all others on the combination of the award's six criteria: engineering/design/efficiency/safety/value/performance. Motor Trend's multi-day 299-mile test cofirmed 126MPG plus electricity, or 73MPGE. See Editor Angus MacKenzie's three-minute video and the long report at http://www.motortrend.com/­oftheyear/­car/­1101_2011_motor_trend_car_of_the_year_chevrolet_volt/­index.html (Click Print to see the entire article on one page, and click on Gallery to see 23 photos.)

Here's the wrap-up: "It is a fully functional, no-compromise compact automobile that offers auto consumers real benefits in terms of lower running costs. The more we think about the Volt, the more convinced we are this vehicle represents a real breakthrough. The genius of the Volt's powertrain is that it is actually capable of operating as a pure EV, a series hybrid, or as a parallel hybrid to deliver the best possible efficiency, depending on your duty cycle. For want of a better technical descriptor, this is world's first intelligent hybrid. And the investment in the technology that drives this car is also an investment in the long-term future of automaking in America. Moonshot. Game-changer. A car of the future that you can drive today, and every day. So what should we call Chevrolet's astonishing Volt? How about, simply, Motor Trend's 2011 Car of the Year.

GREEN CAR OF THE YEAR 2011: The Chevy Volt received the award from the Green Car Journal's jury including top leaders of four national environmental groups, Jay Leno, and Caroll Shelby. Publisher/editor Ron Cogan told the Detroit Free Press, "This is the game-changer...It says as no car ever has before that you can have an electric vehicle without limitations.It doesn't get more important than that." http://www.freep.com/­article/­20101118/­BUSINESS0101/­101118055/ .

The Green Car Journal was established in 1992. Hybrids won in 2006-08; winners in 2009-10 were diesels. Previously, as a pre-production vehicle, the Volt won the 2009 Green Car Vision Award. Press release at http://www.prnewswire.com/­news-releases/­chevrolet-volt-named-2011-green-car-of-the-year-108977584.html and story at http://www.greencar.com/­articles/­chevrolet-volt-electric-car-2011-green-car-year.php

AUTOMOBILE OF THE YEAR 2011: The article in Automobile Magazine doesn't spare the Volt some criticism, and it spends some thoughtful time talking about the vehicle's implications for the auto industry. See the 3-minute video with comments by all the magazine's editors, and the full report (6 online pages plus 4 sidebar pages) http://www.automobilemag.com/­features/­awards/­1101_2011_automobile_of_the_year_chevrolet_volt/­index.html . Here's the conclusion:

While the hostility toward "Government Motors" won't dissipate anytime soon, the Volt's arrival should at least silence those who insisted that the car couldn't or wouldn't be built. Those who argue it shouldn't exist have yet to drive it. Despite the Volt's imperfections, it takes only a single mile behind the wheel to realize that you are reveling in the experience. Forty, eighty, and 200 miles later, you'll still be marveling at the seamless technology. It is not fast nor is it fun in the typical sense, yet it still has all the brainwashing abilities of a Porsche Cayman. The Volt is unique, but more convincingly, it instills an overwhelming sense that you're driving something significant. Complex ideas can't be revolutionary until they're accessible enough for mass consumption. There are three separate thermal loops to heat and cool the powertrain components. GM applied for more than 200 patents during the Volt's development. And the advanced battery pack is believed to cost somewhere around $10,000. Yet the Volt packages the game-changing technology in a manner that's nothing short of revolutionary.

Over the past century, the evolution of the automobile has been about more content for less money, faster lap times, more luxury, or better fuel efficiency. The Volt's accomplishments aren't even in the same realm. It won't just change what we drive, but also how we drive. Owners will plug in at night, heat or cool their cabin before they leave the garage, and adopt new driving styles to maximize their electric range. Then, when the battery is depleted, they'll mindlessly motor on, free of the limitations that accompany pure-electric vehicles. This is the most sophisticated, most important vehicle on the road today. The Volt model could very well be the standard of the future: a smartly sized battery backed by a frugal range extender, whether that's a diesel, a turbine, or a gas engine. In fact, several automakers already have plans to develop similar plug-ins with usable electric driving range and supplemental fossil-fuel power. For being an automotive pioneer, the Chevrolet Volt is the 2011 Automobile of the Year.

GOELECTRICDRIVE.COM LAUNCHES: The Electric Drive Transportation Association, together with Southern California Edison and others, has launched "Your Information Hub for PLug-In Electric Vehicles" at http://www.GoElectricDrive.com . Prospective buyers can calculate costs and emissions, locate state and local incentives and other resources, and view vehicles. See the press announcement at http://www.prweb.com/­releases/­2010/­11/­prweb4804324.htm . We had hoped the trade association would include significant interactive components, but that could come over time, perhaps in partnership with some of the advocacy organizations and media listed at http://www.calcars.org/­partners.html -- as we suggested in http://www.calcars.org/­calcars-news/­1116.html

JOEL MAKOWER ON GM STRATEGY: We've always been impressed at how CleanTech analyst Joel Makower thinks deeply about the connections between business, technology, marketing, and the environment. GM has just announced it will invest $40M in carbon offsets for the Chevrolets it builds. While we're delighted with the Volt, we've at times questioned some of the company's strategies. Here Joel (who has in the past consulted with GM) discusses that news, and gives his take. We don't always agree with Joel, but here we think he's on the right track. We excerpt from his conclusion, and we hope others will comment at Joel's blog: http://makower.typepad.com/­joel_makower/­2010/­11/­can-general-motors-save-the-planet-.html

Can General Motors truly change the conversation on carbon and climate? It's an audacious, almost unfathomable notion, particularly when you think about where GM has come from: suing state carbon regulators, lobbying against federal action, stonewalling activists, selling Hummers, and all the rest. I, for one, will be anxious to see how that works. Certainly, there will be critics on both sides -- environmentalists who blindly charge greenwash, because that's what they do; and conservatives who will rail against this somehow as a misuse of taxpayer bailout money -- because that's what they do.

Personally, I wished the company's messaging had taken this head-on. I would have preferred that GM had said, "America, you invested in us. Now that we're back, we're returning the favor. We're going to invest in schools and communities around our 3,100 showrooms. We're going to put people back to work -- not just making greener cars, but making greener buildings and greener energy. We're going to invest in a more sustainable future, in clean air, in energy independence. We're going to turn the tables on that old adage: 'What's good for GM is good for America.'"