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...that Bob Lutz presented to the board (really?) to get the project approval...
GM has what's called an ASB, automotive strategy board. Is this so surprising? Do people actually believe that GM has bunch of folks running around building what they saw in their yesterdays' dream and changing from one hybrid model to another overnight?
The sequential hybrid idea won because it allowed most of the commutes to be electric-only and average something like 150MPG assuming these conditions. So while Volt had worse fuel economy and less efficient than Prius, if all people were doing were short commutes it was actually much better than Prius because it allowed to burn no gas at all, something that Prius could not do (at the time).
So, ASB approved a Plug-in-Prius and called it ER-EV. First part is not questioned or really matters. It is the latter that is.
Plug-in Prius did not exist at that time, nor did Toyota used Li-Ion batteries (which is a big deal). So what's your point? I guess they could have called it anyway they wanted, no?