C. Van Tune is a former Editor-in-Chief of Motor Trend.

I received an email today that I thought you’d be interested in. It came from the PR department of the upcoming Los Angeles Auto Show, proudly noting how many “green cars” would be on display. No other vehicles were noted, just a long list of save-the-planet people movers: Seventy-one in all.

Ugh.

Times are rapidly changing for the worse in the car business if you’re a lover of gasoline-ignited horsepower. The days are numbered for today’s traditional performance cars, regardless of nameplate. The sobering slap across our faces is that all car companies (including even Ferrari and Porsche) are working on hybrid, fuel cell, and/or full-electric versions in order to meet the upcoming more stringent government mpg and emissions requirements. And regardless of the feel-good spin put on such cars by their giddy purveyors, the cold, hard truth is that driving as we know it will forever change.

Like Ewing has experienced, I’ve driven several full-electric “performance” cars. But while they can accelerate quickly, they simply have no soul. No muscular sounds of the engine revving, no rumbling exhaust note, no burnouts, no power-shifting of gears. Just a limp-wristed whirring of the electric motor(s) as the car is propelled. Sure, it may go 0-60 mph in five seconds, but the experience isn’t anything like you’re accustomed. I’m guessing it’s like the difference between sex with a blow-up doll versus the real thing. Only it’s worse than that. It’s more like the government has outlawed sex with real women and said you can only do it with a gov’t-approved blow-up doll from now on. They’ve decided it’s better for the planet that way. And, no, your opinion doesn’t matter.

Factoring in all of the above, I believe that 2012 (or possibly 2013) will become the lasting high-water mark for the worldwide roster of great performance cars. Sort of like 1970 was the pinnacle of the original muscle car era. But I’m also concerned that the game-changing impact of what’s happening today won’t be recognized by the public until it’s too late.

My advice: If you want to own a brand-new gasoline-powered performance vehicle, buy it now. I believe that the values of many of today’s most powerful cars will climb after they’re gone from production. Those machines will truly be the last of their lineages, as subsequent new models will become morphed into alternate-fuel-powered, amorphous, androgynous drones. To modify the old gun-owners’ maxim: The government will take my Ferrari 458 Italia when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Yes, even if gasoline has been outlawed and I can’t drive it. Hell, if that’s the case, then bury me in it.

Just a couple of years ago, the highlight of any auto show would’ve been performance cars, luxury vehicles and big, powerful trucks and their SUV cousins. For 2012, it’s the following list of High Mileage and Green-Tech Vehicles.

This is our future, like it or not. And it will only get worse for devotees of dinosaur-fueled performance cars like you and me.

40-plus MPG
Audi A3 TDI (clean diesel)
Chevrolet Cruze Eco
Chevrolet Sonic
Ford Focus SFE
Ford Fiesta SFE
Honda Civic GX
Honda Civic HF
Hyundai Accent
Hyundai Elantra
Hyundai Veloster
Kia Rio (2012)
Mazda3 SKYACTIV (2012)
Smart ForTwo
Volkswagen Jetta TDI (clean diesel)
Volkswagen Jetta SportWagon TDI (clean diesel)
Volkswagen Passat TDI (clean diesel)
Volkswagen Golf TDI (clean diesel)

Hybrids and Plug-in hybrids
BMW i8 Concept
BMW ActiveHybrid 7
BMW ActiveHybrid X6
Buick LaCrosse eAssist
Buick Regal eAssist
Cadillac Ciel concept
Cadillac Escalade Hybrid
Chevrolet Malibu Eco
Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid
Chevrolet Volt
Ford C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid
Ford Fusion Hybrid
Fisker Karma
Fisker Surf
GMC Yukon Hybrid
GMC Yukon Denali Hybrid
Honda CR-Z Sport Hybrid Coupe
Honda Civic Hybrid
Honda Insight
Honda Plug-in Hybrid concept
Hyundai Sonata Hybrid
Infiniti M35 Hybrid
KIA Optima Hybrid
Lincoln MKZ Hybrid
Lexus CT 200h
Lexus GS 450h

Lexus LS 600h L
Lexus RX 450h
Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid
Porsche Panamera S Hybrid
Toyota Camry Hybrid
Toyota Highlander Hybrid
Toyota Prius
Toyota Prius v
Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid
Volkswagen Touareg Hybrid

Clean Diesel Vehicles
Audi A3 TDI
Audi Q7 TDI
BMW 335d Sedan
Mercedes-Benz S350 BlueTEC
Volkswagen Jetta TDI
Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI
Volkswagen Passat TDI
Volkswagen Golf TDI

Electric Vehicles
BMW i3 Concept
CODA Sedan
Ford Focus BEV prototype
Fiat 500 EV
Mitsubishi i
Nissan LEAF
Smart ForTwo
Toyota RAV4
DOK-ING XD

Hydrogen/Hydrogen Fuel Cell
Honda FCX Clarity

We had a Chevy Volt for a week. As the car sells by the dozens every month, clearly not loved by the US consumer, and has been covered ad nauseam by every magazine, website and blogger, we’ll indulge a bit of what-if product planning and marketing fixes that could improve matters. Sure, sure, Monday morning quarterbacking.

There is much good in the Volt, primarily in the concept of its Voltec powertrain, but the car has significant flaws that make it unappealing to consumers, mostly due to poor thinking on the part of GM product planners, and most specifically the direction of Bob Lutz and his band of merry men. Volt should be an utterly practical transportation pod, yet it suffers because of a cobby gas engine, gee whiz styling that compromises interior space, and a mix of Cruze interior materials that are woefully out of place in a car that costs $43,000. We did find its body fit and finish, and assembly of the interior first-rate. The powertrain technology will be out of date before any long-term quality issues ever surface. Hats off for the body engineers. Not bad at all.

But to be plain, Volt and its Voltec powertrain will not change the world. Volt did not deserve a Car of the Year award from Motor Trend or anyone else. It is at best a lab experiment turned loose on the American public.

In a desperate situation, Bob Lutz and GM forced the Volt onto a wary public. Amazingly, Lutz claims that Volt is doing for Chevy what Viper did for Dodge. What? It’s an ongoing PR opportunity? And the engineering will be fixed later? Not a good way to sponge away the name Obama Motors.

Monday Morning Quarterback

If we had been planning this vehicle? Any number of potential paths, but we will explore a few that highlight the major flaws of Volt.

First, we would not have bothered with the unique body and interior built on Cruze bits and pieces. The powertrain would have been fitted to a CUV like the Chevy Equinox, and put into service in taxicabs to prove out the concept. This could have been a great PR move if handled properly, and would NOT have limited the Voltec’s applications later. Everyone knows that Prius was the start of hybrids for Toyota, yet no one criticizes Lexus hybrids as something impure. And the only time you ever see a Ford Escape Hybrid is at a taxi queue.

Equinox could have accommodated a much larger battery pack. In typical Detroit fashion, Volt planners and Lutz relied on data rather than the real world. Volts and their derivatives will find their biggest audience in California, just like the Nissan Leaf does. We Californians make up 11-12 percent of the legal US population, we have a heavily urbanized society that has adopted Green values, and we have numerous concentrations of tremendous wealth, like Silicon Valley and almost any coastal city in Southern California.

GM relied on misleading data that concluded the AVERAGE American only drives 30-40 miles a day. You just try getting around LA and coastal Southern California on 35 miles of EV range. Doesn’t work. And here is a screen grab showing available Chargepoints.Not too many of them. Hmmm.

To prove the point, we fully charged the Volt at a Chargepoint station on a Saturday, then burned up the EV range in less than an hour the following day, on a drive south on PCH from our beach home to Newport Beach. Yet it did not have enough EV range to reach our usual Newport destinations where we have business meetings, and still get us home on pure EV charge. It would have made our usual spot for the Fourth of July in Laguna—but on the return trip, it would have been burning gas within a few miles. Volt does not have enough EV range. Significant miscalculation. Guys? Get out of Detroit now and then. Might open your eyes a bit.

Biggest planning mistakes:

• 1.4-liter engine is rough, droning horribly at times. Voltec powertrain needs a much more refined engine that is silent and smooth. We can’t wait to see if BMW partners with GM to develop a version, and uses a MINI One four-cylinder as the gas motor, with even greater levels of refinement. Or maybe a specially developed sub-1.0-liter BMW engine.
• The LG battery pack is woefully inadequate. Should be double the charge capacity to give a Voltec-powered vehicle at least 60-70 miles of EV range on a single charge. Matching the 85-mile range of Leaf would be best. So let’s hope for 70-80 miles of range in the future.
• A unique Volt body was a bad idea all around, a mistake no doubt driven by the Bob Lutz desire for a “zoomy” looking exterior to announce the powertrain. That means the rear roofline is raked too steeply, which means anyone much over five foot five has little to no headroom. Bad idea. Really, really bad thinking. Very Detroit.
• You can’t sell a $43,000 car with the interior of a $17,000 car, even if assembly quality is fairly high and one can expect good service life. We have to acknowledge that GM is getting much better at materials and assembly quality and fit and finish. But Volt is a fairly expensive car.

We had impromptu consumer clinics in parking lots several times during the week. A five foot two pixie loved the back seat, but her taller boyfriend hated it. We stuffed a super-tall six foot seven guy in the rear seat, his legs fitting OK, but he would have lost his head in a 20-mph frontal impact. Not good.

Back to the star of the show, the Voltec powretrain. After the powertrain was proved out in Chevy Equinox taxicabs, the next step would have been to Cadillac.

Yup, Cadillac, not Chevy. Further refine the gas engine so it is absolutely sweet, smooth and silent (see YouTube video of “The Edwardians” embedded below to understand the level of refinement needed). Then drop the ultra-refined Voltec powertrain and a big battery pack into a long wheelbase version of the SRX and call it something like the Cadillac EVX. Price it in the low fifties, putting it only a few grand over a nicely trimmed AWD SRX. SRX seems popular with empty nest Boomers, and the SRX I see are fairly high trim level.

Why would this be wise? Well, then the car can likely survive in the free market, though the $7000 rebate in Obama Bucks would certainly help the consumer and GM. You would then also have a functional and comfortable rear seat, Cadillac’s much higher quality of interior materials, more sound deadening to keep the gas motor’s presence a near-secret, and yet another technology statement for Cadillac. You’d need a bigger electric motor to pull the greater weight.

How would this work for Cadillac? In EV mode, Volt gives a whirring rush of acceleration. It can be addictive. Blitzing away from stoplights in near silence, leaving other cars in your distant EV wake is absolutely captivating. Put that in a high-quality Art & Science Cadillac wrapper.

GM will defend its decision to go with Volt and not pursue a Cadillac by pointing to the limited sales of the Lexus RX hybrid. But I see RX hybrids often in my beach neighborhood, and they are not uncommon in our other neighborhood of Greater Pasadena. A practical vehicle with ample room, great comfort and excellent materials, with a Green storyline

Imagine a Cadillac EVX:

• Rich Cadillac interior materials instead of a cheap Chevy plastic interior.
• More generous use of sound deadening, to deliver a true Cadillac experience.
• An emphasis on far greater refinement of the gas engine.
• A higher roofline, and a much roomier rear seat thanks to that stretched wheelbase (I bet the empty nesters who buy the SRX would appreciate the greater rear seat room and cargo).
• Also, Cadillac scores well with its owner body, which means the dealers are still taking care of customers properly.

Margins on Cadillacs are higher. So one could sell an EVX as a technology leader, dress it up as a gorgeous product, and box Henrik Fisker, Tesla and other pretenders out of the market. It would also give Cadillac a real selling point against the Japanese and German hybrid luxury cars.

A Cadillac Voltec would ONLY work if the gas engine was super-refined, silky smooth and hush-hush quiet. The Opel/Chevy 1.4-liter engine is a bit loud, though nowhere near as horrid as the turbo 1.4-liter of the Cruze.

With the tremendous silent acceleration generated by the electric motor, no Cadillac buyer would complain about power. Key would be to put in more battery capacity to increase range without the gas motor running. A cool plug-in hybrid drivetrain would also give Cadillac a chance to be relevant with younger buyers who want to be Green.

If Voltec remained in the Chevy family, fine. But the drivetrain belongs in a roomy transportation pod, not a reskinned Cruze with a nearly useless back seat.

Groovy Baby Boomers

Family friends who own both a Prius and a Volt are an interesting case study. If driving to their home in the mountains far to the north, they take the Prius because it returns far better highway mileage when driven in an “eco” fashion. (By “Eco,” we mean NOT traveling at the 85-90 mph we see Priuses clocking on I-15 to Vegas.)

The husband drives the Volt from the couple’s super-groovy weekday loft to his groovy office, all on electric charge. He even uses solar charging. He wants to be part of the Green Movement and has the wherewithal to help “lead” society to a bold new future.

The only time the gas motor is used? On the trip to their weekend beach house far up the coast. This guy is a total believer in the powertrain, but rarely has more than two people in the car. If treated as an EV commuter, if treated as a four-door coupe for two people, and if supported with proper infrastructure, Volt seems more sensible.

Can you imagine how much more this Boomer would love the car if he could put grandchildren or adult children in the rear seat to motor to a Sunday dinner? How much would he love a Cadillac EVX if it had, say, environmentally sensitive interior materials? Money is not the issue with this dedicated Volt owner. He can own whatever he wants and then some. He wants to help lead the world and the US in a new direction, and believes that the engineering of the Voltec drivetrain offers that possibility. Mental landscape of the Groovy Boomer plays a role. And this guy would probably jump at the chance to have a more practical, more refined and more capable plug-in Voltec vehicle.

Conclusion

Volt is stuttering along, even as the Japanese are struggling to recover from the Attack of Godzilla and cannot meet market demands for Japanese cars. After our drive, we’re forced to conclude Volt will never sell particularly well unless GE and other corporations buy them in large numbers to buoy GM and Obama.

For early adopters with money who insist on having a Volt, we recommend a lease. You don’t want to own this car, as subsequent developments will make it an anachronistic white elephant. Lease it for a few years, and see where the technology goes.

We won’t recommend Volt to anyone unless it’s clear they MUST have a Green car and will not be satisfied with a Prius, Prius Plug-In, Nissan Leaf or a Lexus CT200. We also include some of the German Clean Diesels as options that are “Green” yet remain entirely practical.

We originally drafted an “In Context” review of the Volt, but decided there was little point. The car is well known. But here is our section, Damning with Faint Praise.

Damning With Faint Praise

Praise

• Voltec powertrain is revolutionary, sort of.
• Volt has well-designed energy flow displays and energy usage charts appear on the two LCD screens. We feel connected to the powertrain.
• If you recharge each night and drive less than 35 miles during the day, you’ll burn no gasoline, and Volt’s evening recharge is cheap.
• On EV only, you can drive every day for the price of a half-gallon of gas.
• If you travel farther than the EV range, the gas engine provides very good if not stellar mpg, unless you have a long highway journey, which will kill the hoped-for high fuel mileage.
• As a commuter EV without “range anxiety,” Volt is a great car for two people.
• Useful cargo area.
• Great view forward for driver and front passenger.
• Gas engine cycles off and on very, very smoothly. Beautiful engineering work.
• The basics of the powertrain are well done.

Damnation

• At $43,000, Volt is insanely expensive.
• The $7000 Obama Bucks rebate helps, but Volt is just plain expensive.
• Non-tactile switchgear on center console violates Ergonomics 101. Very easy to sweep your hand over the center console and completely botch HVAC and audio. Not good.
• Based on Cruze, Volt is more a four-door coupe than a useful sedan: the rear seats are for wee people, drunken friends who need a ride home, and short drives.
• Rear seat headroom is laughable for full-scale adults—looks like Bob Lutz Gee Whiz design triumphed over practicality.
• Rear passenger heads are under the glass of the rear hatch, with the leading edge of the hatch opening extremely near to the head.
• An additional problem coming from the steeply sloped rear roofline: at higher speeds, can induce nausea, most likely due to air tumbling over long hatchback, causing a drumming of the hatch and thus changes in air pressure within the ears. A famous hatchback sports car had the same problem in its first year. Perhaps the rear hatch is too steeply sloped and the air is not properly adhering to the surface.
• If used on longer highway runs, gas motor kicks in and high fuel mileage ratings drop rapidly to what a conventional $17,000 compact sedan would deliver at a moderate speed in cruise control.  So, I can have two Civics for the price of a Volt?
• Gas engine is not terribly refined—if BMW partners with GM on development of Voltec, not hard to imagine a silky smooth MINI One engine as part of powertrain.
• If GM was intent on developing a unique body and interior for the Volt, then better to build a more upright pod body with high roofline for ample headroom, plus a longer wheelbase for rear-seat legroom, and high H-point so one slides into the vehicle, rather than dropping down into the seats.
• Same hard and unappealing materials one finds in the Cruze. That’s OK in an $18,000 car, but not in a $43,000 car.
• Would have worked far better as a long-wheelbase Cadillac SRX, allowing bigger battery packs for greater EV range, a more refined gas engine, and a far more useful interior space swathed in Cadillac-quality materials.
• An interesting powertrain in search of a much better car, and a much nicer gasoline engine.

Who’s The Buyer?

Volt is for you if:

1. You have visions of a fully electric future, and you want to lead society.
2. You have ready access to electrical charging stations, and can charge the Volt overnight at home.
3. Most of your driving is commuting, or puttering around town at relatively low speeds.

Volt isn’t for you if:

1. Everything listed above? You reject it or don’t have it.
2. You don’t want to buy from Obama Motors.
3. You need comfortable seating for four full-size adults—Volt’s rear seats can accommodate small children and wee people comfortably, though we were able to place an extremely tall (six foot six) guy in the back seat, but he had zero headroom.

Alternatives To Consider

• Honda Insight. Hmmmm. A barely-hybrid, with a small electric motor built into the drivetrain that gives an electric boost when the overtaxed gasoline engine needs help. Insight meets the minimal requirements to be called a hybrid, but not the spirit. Basically, it has an “electric supercharger” to help the car chug up hills and enter freeways. A fairly cheap interior, following the current Honda pattern. Cheap materials or not, fairly well screwed together.
• Nissan Leaf. Please see our In Context test of the Leaf. AC blasting, Leaf has about 85 miles of range, which gives it several times the EV range of Volt. Downside? Once you expend that range, you’re done. Leaf has a useful cabin design, with roomy rear seats, great rear-seat headroom, and good cargo capacity.
• Toyota Prius Plug-In. Talk about demand-pull sales models. Prius aficionados have been installing Mickey Mouse plug-in hardware, and demanding that Toyota build a plug-in Prius. Well, here you go. Nearly as expensive as Volt. A Prius is still the best solution for a “Green” car, as they deliver 40 mpg no matter how you pound on them, they have spacious, comfortable interiors, and they’ve proven dead reliable.
• Toyota Prius. The car that all enthusiast writers love to hate, and the car that made Green cars possible. It’s also by far the sales king, worldwide. Nicely made, very high quality, a beautifully sorted drivetrain, and the pioneer of most of the technologies we see on other hybrids. Most of the Yellow Cabs in my town are now Prii, and the cabbies state that they get 40 mpg no matter how they drive. (The cabbies all want their Crown Vics back, but that era is done for, apparently.) Prius places an emphasis on practicality, with Prius V extending that..
• VW Jetta TDI. We would go with the Euro-spec Sportwagen that we recently tested. Including a hard pounding up and down a mountain, and a heavy throttle foot around town, TDI Clean Diesel delivered a 29 mpg average, without the Voltec complexity, without battery packs, and with a comfortable passenger cabin—for under $30K. Europe has gone too far with Diesel, forced to ship unwanted gasoline “byproduct” to other regions, but efficient Clean Diesel engines can and should be a part of an energy program in the US. Clean Turbo Diesel V6s might be perfect for US pickup trucks.

This video from “The Edwardians” should show GM how smooth the four-cylinder engine should be in a Voltec. To think this was done more than a century ago. Think Honda small-bore four-cylinder for smoothness and you have it.