The battery that will power the Chevrolet Volt weighs approximately 400 pounds and, stood on end, reaches a height of six feet. The $16,000-plus, T-shaped monolith contains 300 individual three-volt lithium-ion cells, bundled together in groups of three, then wired in series and kept from overheating by an elaborate liquid cooling mechanism. A computerized monitoring system inside the battery pack conducts this little electrical orchestra, coordinating the actions of the individual cells, balancing voltage, watching, above all, for any indication that a cell might be failing, shorting out, or otherwise threatening the stability of the system. This battery, one of the most advanced pieces of electrical storage equipment ever engineered, can propel the 3,520-pound Volt over 60 kilometres before it runs out of energy.

And so can a gallon of gas.

Jon Lauckner would very much like for you to understand this. Lauckner is vice president for global program management at General Motors, a man with a self-professed strong bias toward the electrification of the automobile, and yet he wants you to realize exactly what electric cars are up against -- to recognize that in the harsh, unsentimental view of an engineer, batteries, no matter how advanced they may seem, make gasoline look like a bargain.

"You," in this scenario, are the members of a small group of journalists who have mingled their way through a GM cocktail reception in suburban Detroit in April to gather around Lauckner; tomorrow the group will tour the Warren, Michigan, facilities where the Volt is being developed, for a demonstration designed to prove that the plug-in hybrid's long march to legitimacy is actively under way. It's all very convivial, but Lauckner seems to be anticipating an ambush, nursing the certainty that someone will soon bring up the EV1, the electric car that GM launched in 1996 and, a few years later, infamously hauled en masse to the Arizona desert to be demolished. These days, as GM attempts to convince a skeptical world that its Volt is not, in fact, vaporware, the EV1 is a bit of a sore subject.

For the full story, check out issue two of Popular Science magazine, out now!