Yeah, dealers actively discouraged buyers from the Volt because it was too much investment to train people and add the tools and intelligent people to maintain it. When GM finally caught on, they cancelled it. The manufacturers can't win a fight against dealers.
Dealers own the state governments, and often are elected to office. They own the real estate for selling, and people need cars to participate in today's economy. Tesla's sales model will work until state laws catch up to technology and kill it.
The Volt is a car designed to satisfy the needs of customers (less maintenance, cheaper to drive if you plug it in, longer useful life). In doing so, it goes against everything that car dealers live for: oil changes, warranty work, brake parts, replacement cars, etc etc.
The parts Triad association (Autozone, Advanced Auto Parts, O'Reilly) and their cohorts are always lobbying against electric cars because their livelihood depends on selling crappy parts and accessories for engines and hobbyists that need to feel useful to the blind competition of driving culture.
I think the PHEV is a bridge to a dead end. It improves the lives of people in a dead-end civilization (the auto-based Economy of Stupid Consumptionism).
My vehicle repair skills are becoming obsolete even as transport devices are falling apart from over-complexity. Self-driving cars and electric chargers sound great compared to gasoline cars: until you look at the massively increasing fault modalities and shift to push-button 'labor'. People no longer think they have to understand the nuts and volts because they've "got a button for that".
"Someone" will do "something" if there's a 'need' for it.
Until the money fails to feed them.
PHEV would be great for trucks (smaller engine required, but same high torque), but so far, it's not popular because it's not marketed or developed because car companies have spent decades selling machismo, image, comically oversized grills and noise instead of intelligent use of vehicles.
A PHEV truck with a gas turbine generator could burn used oil from the construction site or farm....
