And yes, he’s dead serious.

Via Chicago Tribune op-ed by former vice chairman of General Motors Robert Lutz:

It’s not every day you’ll find the two of us on the same page. One of us is the leader of an organization that believes we need to take every step possible to stop the current and future damage of global climate change. The other famously calls global warming “a crock” but led the efforts at General Motors to develop the Chevy Volt. You can probably guess who’s who.

Yet despite our differences, we absolutely agree that our country’s leaders should be celebrating and promoting the technological breakthroughs that will help put American automakers — and not just the ones in Detroit — back on top and reduce America’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, neither side of the political aisle is doing much good in this area. […]

But in our world of 24/7 partisan politics, the Volt and other cutting-edge technologies we are going to need sooner or later to end our addiction to oil are viewed with scorn and derision. The speed bumps they encounter, like all breakthrough technologies do at some point in their development, are heralded as utter failures and some cheer their “impending” demise with a twisted “told you so” flare.

Sadly, earlier this year we remembered the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 1 disaster that killed three of our hero astronauts. Had the space program folded upon this early failure, we would have never gone to the moon and reaped many of the scientific and medical riches that we enjoy today. Moving America forward in that same vein is what we must support with vehicles like the Volt and other innovative vehicles trapped in this pathetic political circus.