[bennelson]

It's my understanding that the correct use of the term "hybrid", when used talking about transportation, is that the vehicle can run off a combination of more than one energy source.

By that definition, a Prius is NOT a hybrid, it's just a gas car that happens to get pretty good fuel economy by recovering some of the energy that would have otherwise gotten wasted (regen brakes) and some other clever tricks.

A PLUG-IN Prius WOULD be considered a hybrid.

However, in COMMON use, a hybrid has simply come to mean a car that can move partly under engine power, partly under electric motor power. This does, unfortunately, lead to some strange things, like the Chevy Malibu Hybrid, which gets ONE more mile per gallon than it's non-hybrid twin, by using a beefy starter motor and belt to help pull away from stop signs.

I think what really has everyone's feathers in a ruffle, is that the original design for the Volt meant that it COULD be driven on ONLY THE BATTERIES. Yes, it would be a short-range EV, but an electric car, none the less. After that, the generator would kick in, only to provide the electricity for the electric motor. Yes, it's now like a diesel/electric locomotive, but the engine still never connects mechanically to the wheels.

Those of use who are optimists, and trying to stay positive about the Volt could say that it's still an electric car, it just happens to have a generator on it. With the generator connected mechanically to the wheels, it's NOT a generator, it's just an ENGINE again, and in many ways NOT that different from a (plug-in) Prius.

There may be technical reasons why that works better (I am NOT weighing in on parallel vs series hybrids) but I think people feel that a machine where the engine physically powers the wheels VS indirectly powering them from generation of electricity are two distinctly different things.

In many people's eyes, the Volt jumps from being an EV with a range extender, to "just being another type of hybrid".

Since GM has been SOOOO promoting it as an EV, many people will feel that they are cheated/lied to/false advertising. And it doesn't help that MANY people remember the EV1, and what GM did to that.

If the Volt was simply advertised as a Plug-In Hybrid in the first place, I don't think any of this would be an issue.

(As to one of the advertising images from GM posted above. I think they do have to change that now, as it's not technically correct any more. I don't think that it was false advertising - it's just that the tech specs on the Volt changed, so any current advertising and how-it-works info needs to be updated to reflect that.)