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A simple gear drive will beat motor/generator set pretty easily in terms of efficiency. Like >95% vs <90%. Plus gears are orders of magnitude cheaper per watt. Normal transmissions are inefficient because they need lots of gears, plus a torque converter or slipping clutch to keep the engine in operating range.
I never got why GM insisted the Volt wasn't a hybrid. It was especially dumb once they said the motors and engine were one unit. Either their engineers were stupid or their ad men were.
If Toyota had modified its Prius drive with a couple of clutches and more electric power, it wouldn't insist that it's a 'range-extended electric' and absolutely not a hybrid. But people would be stoked about a plug-in Prius that doesn't need the engine at any speed, even if it was $40k and there were reports of only 30 mpg from some lead-foot testers. So I give GM the benefit of the doubt on this one.
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