Dale Earnhardt Jr. Kills Chevy Volt Sales

Dale Earnhardt Jr. drives for Hendrick Motorsports, a team sponsored by Chevy. Junior was asked at an event about the Chevy Volt, a car which Consumer Reports called very inefficient... not to mention very expensive. I'm not sure Junior's response is going to do much for Volt sales:

“I think that the Chevy Volt’s a good product. I think that the consumers need to understand how difficult it is to produce a car with the standards that they have, with the guidelines that they have today, that can actually do what the consumer wants and what the consumer expects.”

“The technology isn’t there yet really to provide the consumer with something that can go a little bit further than that [in mileage] and do a little bit better job with that,” said Earnhardt. “But as the technology gets better, batteries and such things like that get safer to where they can be more heavily charged and the mileage can be a little bit longer.”

“That’s down the pike -- but for where we are today, it’s a pretty good product in my mind.”

I think the "technology isn't there" comment probably won't sit too well with the Chevy overlords.  Why would anyone want to buy a car that's not technologically ready yet?  Electric vehicle sales were already in the tank - this won't help.

UPDATE: From Weekly Standard:

Bonus Fun Fact: The Volt's 2011 production run was originally supposed to be 60,000 units. GM cut that number to 10,000 units. At this rate, the Volt is on track to sell 3,612 Volts this year. (Assuming sales don't decline any further.)