General Motors plans to build some 25,000 Chevrolet Volt cars this year to meet a strong demand for the plug-in electric vehicle, chairman and chief executive Dan Akerson said. "We have been pleased and a bit surprised with the initial demands, initial orders for Volts," Akerson said at an event on the sidelines of the annual North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Volt production for 2011 was increased from an initial planned run of 10,000, Akerson said. Akerson also said that it was "likely" that GM would produce a plug-in hybrid version of its popular Cadillac SRX model, and said he would like to use the technology in all of the company's vehicle brands.
Akerson, speaking at one of his first major appearances since he took over the top job at GM in September 2010, was confident about the future of both his company and the automotive industry. "We are a growth industry," Akerson said.
GM, the largest US automaker, saw its sales collapse in 2008 amid the country's economic meltdown. It received 49.5 billion dollars from the US Treasury and emerged from a bankruptcy restructuring in July 2009.
The restructured GM returned to public trading in November 2010 with a 23.1-billion-dollar initial stock offering, marking a dramatic turnaround for the embattled company.
On January 10, the Volt was named car of the year at the Detroit auto show by a panel of automotive journalists. The Volt can operate on electric power for 55 kilometers (35 miles) and then automatically switches over to a gasoline-powered engine which extends its range for another 550 kilometers (340 miles) on a single tank.