1. The Chevy Volt is a gas engine-electric battery hybrid so that if the trip becomes too long for the battery's state of charge, the gas engine kicks-in to recharge the batteries as one drives. The Spark is all batteries so what happens when your battery runs down on the road?
2. The Volt's battery pack is built by A123 Systems that is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. [There has been news that Johnson Controls, Inc. is negotiating to buy A123 Systems, but nothing is final.] Is (was) the Spark battery built by the same firm? What happens when the battery packs need replacing? Will spares (new or re-manufactured) be available and at what cost.
3, Why would anyone design a car that's powered by coal? Obama is closing down coal fired power plants (needed to charge your car batteries) and coal mines that provide their product to the power plant?
4. Is this whole Green Car hype a scam by people who want to impress their friens how socially “with it” they are?
There are cloned A123 cells right now, although there is no problem procuring the genuine article nor is that anticipated. Unclear if future A123 cells will come from South Korea production or from the Michigan factories. If someone wanted to use cloned cells, an integrator would have to package them in drop-in form for the Volt, or replace individual cells in the battery cases. At this point it is felt that the cloned cells are not of the same quality but this may change in the future.