Inside Line kicked up a dust storm yesterday by claiming that the 2011 Chevy Volt could not recharge its batteries while driving using its on-board, range-extending 1.4L gas engine. 40 miles of electric-only drive was it, and then the battery packs become “400 pounds of uselessness” was what IL said. They got this impression from a press release issued when the production Volt was unveiled to the public, which stated that the gas engine could only “sustain” the battery pack’s charge and not increase it. GM got its communications crossed and apparently confirmed IL’s take, but has thought about it some more and today reconfirmed what we initially thought was true, that the Volt’s gas engine can recharge its batteries while underway.

What the Volt’s gas engine can’t do is completely recharge the battery pack to its full capacity. Rather, when load conditions are light the gas engine will send surplus electrons to the battery pack, which will also be receiving extra charge from regenerative braking, as well. That sounds about right to us, as we’ve always been told that constantly charging a battery to its maximum will shorten its life, as the optimum charge range is usually between 20 and 80 percent, not completely drained and not completely charged. GM is determining right now just how much it wants to let the gas engine charge the Volt’s battery pack, but rest comfortably knowing that your future Volt won’t be carrying around 400 lbs. of uselessness when the charge runs out.

According to General Motors E-Flex spokesman Rob Peterson, the automaker has reached an agreement with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) that would see the 2011 Chevy Volt get a unique classification different from other current hybrids. This new classification takes into account the fact that the Volt’s 40-mile battery range allows it to complete the bulk of the emissions and economy test procedure without ever running the engine, which would likely give it a mpg rating of 100 mpg or better.

This is problematic for the EPA, which considers dual-power vehicles like the series hybrid Volt no different than a parallel hybrid like the Prius. Currently the EPA is expecting the Volt to complete the test cycle with a charged battery, which means the engine would have to run a lot more and essentially kill the charge sustaining control plan. According to Peterson, GM is still a long way from reaching an agreement with the feds on how to test the Volt, despite what the Detroit Free Press says. However, having CARB consider the Volt essentially an electric car is certainly a bargaining chip in GM’s favor.

Live images of the Chevy Orlando, possibly shot during GM’s own photo session, have surfaced online, showing the seven-seat crossover in all its conceptual glory ahead of its unveiling at the Paris Motor Show next week.

The Orlando shares the same Delta II platform as the Chevy Cruze, with power provide by a 2.0-liter turbodiesel, and blends some traditional Chevy styling cues with a blocky, upright silhouette and show-friendly lighting tricks. Unlike other pie-in-the-sky concepts, the Orlando’s interior looks downright drivable, with two-tone leather seats, a traditional steering wheel and a center stack that wouldn’t shouldn’t look out of place on anything rolling off the General’s assembly line.

All the details and plenty of live images from the show floor are coming in just over a week.

It must be pretty hard to unload an unwanted truck business these days. Just ask General Motors, which has attempted to sell its medium-duty truck operations first to Navistar and then Isuzu. Both heavy-duty diesel makers have passed on the offer. Isuzu had been rumored as a possible buyer for the unit after Navistar let the non-binding agreement pass by unsigned. Now, Isuzu President Susumu Hosoi tells Reuters, “There will be no such acquisition happening” from his company either, suggesting that the market for heavy-duty trucks has not yet hit the bottom.

GM and Isuzu still have dealings together as the two companies jointly develop and build the Duramax engines that power the General’s most powerful full-size trucks, SUVs and vans. This cooperation is expected to continue on as it has with neither Isuzu or GM buying out the other to gain full control of the operations.

Needless to say, stealing cars is big business. If your vehicle becomes a target for thieves, there’s a good chance it will be stripped of its parts and scrapped within days or even hours of being stolen. There are plenty of security options to locate your vehicle, but OnStar takes it one stop further by powering down the vehicle in a safe fashion. A simple call between you, the police, and OnStar can activate the vehicle slowdown system, which lets the driver continue to steer and brake as needed, but the engine decelerates until the vehicle stops safely.

The bloggers over at Kicking Tires took a Chevy Impala equipped with Stolen Vehicle Slowdown for a spin to see exactly how it works. Hit the jump to view the video, and let us know if you think OnStar’s system will deter thieves from stealing GM products.

GM is not going to let the Volt or its E-Flex powertrain get lonely. The first Volt — the one due in late 2010 — hasn’t been finished yet, yet is so popular that GM is publicly theorizing about how far it can spread the technology through the empire. Ideas include a smaller car with a smaller battery pack that could go 20 miles on pure electric, and be much cheaper. A proper wagon, just “a little bit bigger,” could also make the cut.

And those variants don’t all need to be Chevrolets. Other GM brands will certainly be blessed with Volt technology, if not an outright case of brand engineering. Cadillac is one of the wolves thought to be circling the Volt’s henhouse, and using Volt systems in a Caddy might allow GM to make a profit on such a car without tax breaks. If there were a more economical Volt with a shorter electric range, Saturn would seem to be a prime candidate.

It looks like the sole E-Flex powertrain option not planned is an electric-only car, one without a range-extending gasoline engine. GM feels that people would find it too risky to have no backup. But back to that first car, the plain vanilla Chevy Volt that’s still two years away from showrooms – a Volt team member doesn’t appear to have forgotten the prime directive: “You always have to do the first car right and well.” Amen.

When GM and the UAW agreed to a new contract in 2007, several new models and the plants in which they would be built were agreed on. Drastic shifts in customer tastes are changing those plans rapidly, and the General is scrambling to deliver. GM was planning to build a seven-seat crossover based off its global Delta small car platform at the Detroit Hamtramck plant next year, but the Wall Street Journal is now reporting that the vehicle will no longer be produced for the US market.

The small MPV, which is being unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in concept form as the Chevy Orlando, will still be available in Europe where small seven-seaters are much more popular than here in the States. The small crossover will instead be replaced by a compact vehicle from Asia, possibly the Chevy Beat. However, GM never designed the Beat to meet U.S. crash-test standards, but hopefully the extra resources freed up by nixing the Orlando’s U.S. launch could make that happen in quick order.

Reports are coming in that the General is considering selling its medium truck operations to Isuzu. This news is totally unconfirmed by both parties, though Isuzu says it would be more than willing to listen if GM felt the desire to talk.

All of this comes shortly after Navistar chose not to follow through on its non-binding agreement to purchase the commercial truck unit from General Motors after seeing what’s been happening with the U.S. economy and gas prices. After that deal went sour, GM said that it would continue looking for options, so this particular piece of the rumormill pie is anything but surprising. We contacted GM to see if the automaker had anything to say regarding the hubbub, and, as expected, it’s staying tight-lipped for the time being. An Isuzu tie-up makes some sense, as the two truck makers have had dealings together in the past, most notably in the design of GM’s current mid-sized trucks, the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon.

General Motors car czar Bob Lutz hopped online yesterday after the official unveiling of the 2011 Chevy Volt to address criticism of the car’s design that began to surface after images of the series hybrid were leaked online last week. Most complainers have decried the fact that the production Volt looks little like the Volt Concept that debuted at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. This is certainly true, but Lutz points out on GM’s Fastlane Blog that while automakers often use design to make an emotional connection with customers, the Volt will instead use the technology beneath its skin to make that same connection. What it looks like on the outside has been largely shaped by the “Form follows Function” rule, with designers given as much leeway as possible to add some style as long as it doesn’t violate the Volt’s prime directive of fuel efficiency.

We also went back to our coverage of the 2007 Detroit Auto Show and looked at comments left on our post covering the reveal of the Volt Concept and, as we thought, not many people were talking about its design at the time. We’re not sure where all these fans of the concept’s design have come from all of a sudden, but they certainly weren’t around when it was debuted. Perhaps we couldn’t hear them over all the talk about its technology.

The LA Auto Show is still a couple months away, but images of vehicles set to be unveiled in the land of fruits and nuts are already leaking onto the web. GM’s Chilean website had the above photo of the production Saab 9-4X available for all to see earlier today, so now we know the production model looks almost identical to the 9-4X Biopower concept from last year’s Detroit Auto Show. We’d be interested to see if the concept’s integrated tail pipes and large front/side air dams make it to production but, judging from spy photos we’ve seen, probably not. The 9-4X will be built on the same platform as the upcoming front- or all-wheel-drive Cadillac SRX, which will also be unveiled this auto show season.

We don’t have many details on the 9-4X just yet, but it will have a turbocharged 2.0L engine with 245 hp and 265 lb-ft mated to a six-speed automatic. The concept also ran on ethanol, which is also likely for the production vehicle considering that two thirds of all vehicles in Sweden are of the flex fuel variety. Other engine choices could include GM’s 3.6L V6, which is likely to be found under hood of the SRX at launch, and an upcoming 250-hp 2.9L diesel. Either way, European customers will likely have an engine lineup twice as large as what we’ll be offered in the U.S.