"Bob Lutz, the vice-chairman of G.M. and the champion of its electric Chevy Volt, which will début next year, told me, “All the geniuses here at General Motors kept saying lithium-ion technology is ten years away, and Toyota agrees with us—and, boom, along comes Tesla. So I said, ‘How come some teeny little California start-up run by guys who know nothing about the car business can do this, and we can’t?’ That was the crowbar that helped break up the logjam.”"