Is the Chevy Volt Our Energy Salvation?

I am thinking about the launch of the Chevy Volt sometime on or about
year 2010. This is an electric car with an internal engine that is
designed to run only when the battery becomes discharged enough to
need it. Otherwise, the car is supposed to run 40 'city' miles on a
charge that requires 6.5 hours to accomplish.

Now, how many people can get by with <40 miles of driving a day? I
think a whale of a lot of them. With an overnight charge, a huge
number of people could get where they need to go, and back again,
without burning a drop of gasoline/diesel/ethanol/whatever. The
energy could be transferred to sources that the USA has plenty of
within its borders - coal, nuclear, wind, and maybe eventually solar,
geothermal, etc.

Not only does this seem to me to be a great breakthru, but it should
make economic sense as well. The price of electricity to go the same
distance as the gasoline required to do it is said to be one quarter
as much. For those who don't hit the road for long distances very
much, not buying a drop of gasoline all year would be a significant
savings, especially if they can buy this car for 100% of their needs.
The car should have an unusually high resale value as there are fewer
moving parts that are easier to repair (electric motors are dead-
simple in this respect) and by the time the car expends its battery,
battery technology _should_ be such that a replacement battery will be
even cheaper than it will be upon initial release of the car.

So, is the Chevy Volt the beginning of the end of the oil problem, the
refining capacity problem, and other oil-related problems?

Dave Head