Hybrids make great economic sense if you buy them at the right price. I own two of them. Neither is a Prius, by the way, which just makes too many sacrifices and is too darn ugly.
The Volt was just a terrible concept. As I noted in my slightly-modified article above, a "series hybrid" may work great for diesel locomotives, but it is stupid for cars. If you're going to add the weight and expense of an internal combustion engine, don't just use it as a backup generator - connect it to the drive train just like more conventional "parallel hybrids" such as the Prius do. Or, get rid of the ICE completely for a cheaper, short range EV such as the Nissan Leaf.
Ironically, after insisting that the ICE only generates electricity for the Volt's batteries, GM engineers later admitted that the ICE actually does power the drive train in very limited circumstances. Why limit it? Perhaps some bureaucrat or marketing whiz suggested that it wouldn't be "electric" enough.
At the end of the day, you get a very expensive mid-size sedan which doesn't save any money. The heater sucks. So does the AC. And, of course, nearly all of the electricity used to charge the car comes from oil and coal-burning power plants, so you're not even "saving the environment."
