Which is the case with the Volt in normal mode.
Yes, it is. However, the execs and PR flaks for GM made a big hoopla about it being an “all electric!” drivetrain, that it was NOT a hybrid (as tho that were a bad thing) and made sure that we taxpayers (who paid to bail their incompetence out of bankruptcy) heard all about how the car was always powered by the electric motors.
Most people can’t read that patent app that I just sent you and make heads or tails of it. They wouldn’t know a planetary gear from a spur gear if you shoved both types of gears up their noses.
What people do know is that they HATE GM. With a flaming passion. There are the people have been burned by GM’s quality back in the 70’s and 80’s. Then there are the people that hate goldbricking UAW workers. Recently, there are the people like my mother in law, who was burned by how were SECURED GM bonds were wiped out by how the government gave the assets of GM to the UAW and shafted the bondholders.
GM has made a lot of enemies among the US public over the last three decades. A big portion of the US public now has no patience for ANY lie, no matter how small, no matter how technical, from GM. A pretty good size chunk of the US public thinks it was wrong to bail out GM and that they’d be better off dead.
GM is truly living on borrowed time - purchased with money “borrowed” from the US taxpayers.
And GM, once again, has put their foot in their mouth.