Cristi Landy, Volt Product Marketing Manager

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Make no mistake, General Motors officials believe the Chevy Volt will change the world when it goes on sale late this year.

“There is a strong desire to go to electrically driven transportation,” said Cristi Landy, GM’s marketing manager for the Volt, speaking to Michigan wllz via Skype from the floor of the Washington Auto Show.

While fully electric vehicles might be the goal, GM and many others believe the driving public isn’t ready for them, mostly because of “range anxiety.” Most electric vehicles have range limited to about 100-200 miles, then require as long as 4 hours to recharge. That’s fine for commuting to work, but not very useful for a trip up north.

GM: Volt performance will not suffer once battery is depleted

But the Volt suffers from no such range anxiety. Company officials expect the Volt to be able to travel about 40 miles — enough for most people to drive to work and back — on battery power alone after getting a full charge from a standard wall outlet. After the Volt’s battery is exhausted, a small gasoline engine will kick in to power a generator, providing electricity to drive the car. The gasoline engine will give the Volt a 300-mile range. At that point the gas tank can be refilled, giving the Volt another 300 miles of range.

Landy admitted that one of the biggest challenges for GM is educating consumers about how the Volt, which GM calls a extended-range electric vehicle, works. She admitted that many people don’t know that the Volt will have a gasoline engine.

“It’s a common misconception we’re constantly battling,” Landy said.

Perhaps more than any new vehicle since the dawn of the automotive age, GM will have to do a lot to educate the public about what the Volt is and how the E-REV system works.

“We have a huge challenge,” Landy said.

Fortunately, GM officials know they have a passionate contingent of potential buyers who have driven other electric vehicles such as the GM EV1, Toyota RAV4 and Mini E.

“They see the Volt as a better solution,” Landy said. Those early adopters are probably the Volt’s best ambassadors.

So what does the future hold for what GM calls Voltec? Where might the technology show up next in GM’s lineup?

“The plan for General Motors is to continue Voltec in other vehicles,” Landy said. “We’re talking about a lot of things.”

A vehicle similar in size to the Volt would be the easiest, she said. But bigger vehicles are also possible.

Many observers at the North American International Auto Show earlier this month were disappointed that GM did not show a production version of the Cadillac Converj, an E-REV concept that GM introduced at the 2009 show. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz told a group of analysts that GM planned to build the car, but Cadillac officials said later that a decision had not been finalized.