In all, it is an impressive lineup of gee-gaws, and should help GM reach its oft-declaimed goal of being the car industry's innovation leader.
As it happens on this rainy day at this facility west of Detroit, these technologies are not delivering a world-class driving experience. Far from it, in fact. But you have to figure that driving this vehicle on this day is like asking 40 of the world's greatest musicians to sit down and play an incredibly complicated piece with virtually no rehearsal time. So there's a tremendous cacophony of noises from various regions of this silver sedan as it rolls along. Because it is so light, and because it uses a highly sophisticated hybrid powertrain and regenerative braking system and all kinds of other things, there are moments when it does not feel like a real car and this is disconcerting.
Still, the information panel that Witzenburg and his engineers have installed is consistently showing fuel economy numbers that would be impossible to reach in the same circumstances with any other vehicle in the world. That's what GM was after, and that's what GM has achieved.
By 2004, when the PNGV agreement calls for a near-production version of the Precept, you gotta know that Gary Gravitas and the rest of GM will have kept that thrifty nature and refined the heck out of the vehicle so that it feels and sounds exactly like a regular car does today.
A moonshot indeed.