G.M. Says Chevy Volt Is Still on Track

The Chevrolet Volt engineering development mule vehicle at the General Motors Tech Center in Warren, Mich.

The Chevrolet Volt program could be compared to a World War II bomber flying through heavy flak over occupied Europe. Somehow, against the odds, it keeps flying. And despite declaring bankruptcy on Monday, General Motors said it remained committed to keeping the Volt not only in the air, but on schedule for a late 2010 delivery.

A radical departure from anything else G.M. has ever offered, the Volt is a plug-in hybrid car that G.M. claims will travel 40 miles on a full charge of its batteries. Last September, Rick Wagoner, then the chief executive of G.M., said it “symbolizes G.M.’s commitment to the future.”

Mr. Wagoner is gone, but that sentiment persists. At a New York press conference on Monday, Fritz Henderson, Mr. Wagoner’s successor, said that given the demands of both higher fuel prices and government regulation, the Volt and other new technology was “all-important for us.”

Terry Rhadigan, a Chevrolet spokesman, said the Volt was “absolutely on target and that will not change.”

“It is as high a priority as we have in this company,” he said. “We will meet the deadlines we have set out.”

G.M. has said that the introduction date will be in November of next year.

Rob Peterson, a spokesman for G.M.’s electric vehicle communications, was even more emphatic in declaring that there will be “absolutely no delay in program timing.” He said in an interview that the company will begin building preproduction vehicles in Warren, Mich., next week.

“We will have vehicles that look like the Volt and drive with its propulsion system” by the end of June, he added. By late summer or early fall, production of these “integration vehicles” will start to ramp up to 10 a week, and by October 80 of them will be on the road. They’ll do double duty as press cars and test vehicles. When not in the hands of journalists, Mr. Peterson said, “They’ll be at Milford Proving Ground having things done to them.”

So G.M. remains committed to the Volt. But keeping the Volt on schedule may actually hurt the company if auto sales (and the economy) have not recovered by the end of next year. There may be few early adopters willing to tap into their bank accounts for a new car model that reportedly costs $45,000 or more.