Speaking of the Volt, what is with GM's design team? The car initially started out looking like this:

and ended up looking like this:

Regardless of your
opinion of the styling of the prototype, it at least looks like
something; it has some character. The production model looks like … nothing. Okay, it's not quite that bad, but it looks like a knockoff Prius.
I can maybe understand the desire to be generic in this case; you don't want to turn off people with styling they might not like who are more interested in the drivetrain. But it's an endemic problem with GM, the new Camaro they released being a notable exception.
I don't know; maybe they feel burned by the Asstek and the SSR.