So Is the Chevy Volt Really All-Electric?

General Motors is hoping the "all-electric" Chevy Volt delivers a big charge to its domestic sales but critics are making the shocking charge that the car is really a hybrid, more along the lines of the Toyota Prius, which uses both gas and electric engines in combination.

Is this politics spilling into real life? It almost sounds like Sarah Palin talking about "real Americans" as opposed to elitist urbanites.

The current controversy began with Edmunds.com, Motor Trend, Popular Mechanics and other auto-focused scribes but it has now spread to the august New York Times, which harrumphed the other day that GM's insistence that the car is fully electric is "hard to understand."

What's the fuss all about? It has to do with the small gasoline engine that supposedly exists mostly to extend the Volt's range, so that motorists are not left stranded in the center lane when the battery runs out of juice.

But auto critics who've test-driven the car say that during heavy acceleration, the Volt's gasoline engine kicks in to provide an additional power boost.

GM doesn't deny that but, oddly, insists that it doesn't make any difference, sounding a bit like Bill Clinton insisting he didn't have you-know-what with you-know-who.

"The Chevrolet Volt is not a hybrid," GM said in press materials this week. "It is a one-of-a-kind, all-electrically driven vehicle designed and engineered to operate in all climates."

The company says it simply chose to keep quiet about the gas-boost feature because it is still in the process of applying for a patent on the process.

GM has been saying for the three years that it has been hyping the Volt that it would "always" run on electric power and would average 230 miles per gallon.

Is this just the usual Detroit dust-up that accompanies many new model introductions? Maybe, but some of the critics are being unusually harsh.

Edmunds.com's review of the car carried a headline that said flatly: "GM Lied: Chevy Volt is not a true EV."

In a classic bit of corporatespeak, GM spokesman Nick Richards insists that the Volt "always runs on electricity" and has no mechanical link from the gasoline engine to the wheels. That's true as far as it goes, except that the 1.4 liter gas engine starts up under certain conditions and helps to mechanically turn one of the two electric motors.

Automotive engineering types say that makes it a "parallel hybrid" - since it uses two power sources to keep the wheels turning.

The Prius uses a similar system. It has no direct mechanical linkage between the gas engine and the wheels. The gas engine drives a generator which in turn drives the electric motor.

Do consumers care about any of this? We'll find out in a few weeks when the first Volts hit the showrooms.