General Motors has cast doubt over the long-term future of the Chevrolet Volt by claiming it may not be commercially viable and other rivals may overtake it with superior and more advanced technology.

GM submitted a regulatory filing report to the US Treasury yesterday and CEO Fritz Henderson claimed its “disclosures are consistent with our commitment to remain transparent and to keep the public informed of our progress”.


The Volt is scheduled for a November 2010 launch, but the GM report claimed that the range-extender hybrid technology may not be fully developed in time to meet this target date. Pre-production Volt models began testing in June.

GM has marketed the Volt as the model to turn the company around, but the report claimed it “has not yet proven to be commercially viable”. GM is likely to sell each Volt at a large loss, although it would hope to recoup the development costs in future-generation models as Toyota has done with its Prius.