Last week, CEO Rick Wagoner set off what we see as something of a tempest in a teapot when he told journalists and bloggers, as Detroit News [link]. 801040361 reported, But he cautioned that the timeline isn't a sure thing as the automaker works to develop the technology required to produce a battery-powered car for the masses. MORE >>

Detroit Free Press profile of GM's Frank Weber. Tacoma News-Tribune op-ed on Washington State policies. Is Silicon Valley the new Detroit for electric cars? Also at FORTUNE: The great battery race: Dramatic developments in stored-power technology make electric cars more viable than ever. Salon.com's primer on PHEVs. MORE >>

Yesterday we excerpted some of the major news stories on the Volt launch. Now the high-power weeklies and the top clean car sites weigh in. We've combined them so we don't crowd your in-box with multiple stories on GM (we hope to get back to lots of other news too). "We can minimize impact on the grid." On Sept. MORE >>

GM-Chrysler Merger and Hybrid Cars. isn't just the Detroit companies that are struggling. Toyota has enormous resources to weather the storm that GM, Ford and Chrysler do not. People talk about fuel cells, but I don't really see the kind of energy and effort around that that I see around the electric power train." MORE >>

We're amazed at how large the backlog of news gets in one week! Here are summaries of leading developments from automakers (the Part II posting will cover other news; aplogies for any typos): GM: analysis of declining sales; impact on product development & Volt. The idea is to find another way to power our cars that uses less oil. MORE >>