[Wolfman01]

This is something that has always been known to those who have been following the car's development closely. That said, I do still hold out that there WILL be times when the engine would be able to shut down. That situation will be mountain driving. The batteries range will be altered somewhat by how much regen it receives. The power in regen mode needs to go somewhere, and that will be the battery.

If you are easy on the vehicle going up a hill, it is entirely conceivable that you'll get plenty of extra charge back into the system on the downhill side. As I've stated in a previous posts, I witnessed this very same situation in my '03 Prius. Toyota maintained tight controls on battery charge as well. Still on extended downhill stretches of highway, regen would be sufficient to bring the battery above the softwares normal high limit. In my case, the battery symbol on the video game display would go solid turqoise, and the car's software would then begin using the excess power to propel the vehicle.

The Volt will no more be exempt from physics than the Prius. If the battery SOC gets high enough, the system should conceivably shut down the engine, to allow the car to use this "excess" power to run in EV mode. These situations will however, NOT be considered in the normal range of driving for the vast majority of its owners.