Can We Trust General Motors?

You’ll travel far to find someone with more provocative and important observations on the subject of transportation than Chelsea Sexton. Luckily for me, Chelsea was one of the first people I met when I became interested in electric vehicles; looking back fondly on that day, I realize that I couldn’t have found a better point of introduction into an industry that is rapidly transforming the way we move ourselves and our things around planet Earth. The star of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” and co-founder of advocacy group Plug-In America, Sexton is a juggernaut of passion and energy, constantly travelling and speaking, living out her commitment to her beliefs.

Where this gets really interesting is Chelsea’s relationship with General Motors. In the late 1990s, GM famously scratched the EV-1 project, then recalled and crushed the electric cars it had on the road.  This caused something of a rift (to put it mildly) between the company and Sexton, who, as a dedicated and hard-working GM employee, had devoted so much of her personal energy into creating and promoting the car. As did thousands of others, she felt betrayed – lied to by a company that had so clearly and shamefully put its profits ahead of its integrity and its customers.

But can that rift ever be repaired? Perhaps more to the point, can GM be trusted now that it’s launching the Chevy Volt – the first mass-produced plug-in hybrid?

Sexton’s answer may surprise you; it certainly did me. And no one can tell this fascinating story better than Chelsea herself – arguably the best writer in the industry. With that, I invite readers to check out her incredible blog post on the subject of GM and the Chevy Volt.