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Mark Reuss, president of General Motors North America, is no stranger to plugging in an electric vehicle. But when a Chevrolet Volt took the place of the Power Wheels electric Cadillac Escalade in his garage this September, Reuss made the switch from 120-volt to 240-volt charging. While all electric vehicles will charge from a standard household outlet, a 240-volt supply significantly reduces charging time. In the case of Chevy’s Volt, a full recharge drops from eleven hours to four hours. There’s no telling how many plug-in buyers will opt for the higher voltage equipment, but for the early adopters and the fanatical electric-drive enthusiasts, we expect a 240-volt installation will be a rite of passage.

Infiniti's current advertising spots begin with a Shodo brush stroke of a car silhouette, the designer's first representation of how a new car will look. With the IPL -- Infiniti Performance Line -- the brand puts figurative pen to paper and begins to sketch out a new, high-performance sub-brand. In creating the IPL, Infiniti is following well-established practice in the luxury-car arena. All of its major rivals already have a family of extra-sporty variants: M for BMW, AMG for Mercedes-Benz, S and RS for Audi, the V-series for Cadillac, and the nascent F models for Lexus. Given its comparatively small global sales footprint, however, Infiniti is starting small -- as a package, the IPL G Coupe is a considerably more modest effort than any of those specialty machines.

Earlier this year, General Motors showed us its Chevrolet Aveo RS concept, which was supposed to be a thinly veiled version of the next-generation Aveo. Like GM's recent Cadillac CTS Coupe's transformation from concept to production, the Aveo RS concept carried over to the production 2012 Aveo, which debuts at the Paris Motor Show, almost unchanged.

The CTS-V coupe is without a doubt the coolest member of the CTS family so far, although the upcoming CTS-V wagon might change my mind about that. The CTS-V sedan debuted about two years ago, perhaps a bit too quietly, but the V coupe should remind us all of how cool any flavor of CTS-V is.

After the demise of the Dodge Magnum, it's refreshing to have a wagon offering from a domestic manufacturer. It's likely that the CTS wagon will find very few takers -- if the slow-selling Magnum and the now-redesigned wagon-like first generation Cadillac SRX are any indication -- but in my opinion, this CTS wagon looks great and is hard evidence that Cadillac is willing to take chances to regain its world class status.

This is the high-performance import sedan for those who march to the beat of a different drummer. It's decidedly different from the longtime category leader, the BMW M3, from the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, or even the Cadillac CTS-V. Like those three sedans, though, it's got one helluva V-8 engine stuffed under its hood, and it's mated to a state-of-the-art eight-speed automatic gearbox. The IS-F feels a lot smaller and more intimate than the other cars, which will be good for some people and off-putting for others. It's a bit more frenetic than its competitors, too, and perhaps falls more on the sport/performance side of things than the luxury side. Whereas the Cadillac and the Mercedes split luxury and sport equally, I'd venture. If you never thought Lexus could make a truly hard-edged sport sedan, you ought to drive this car; it likely will surprise you.

Less than two weeks after D-Day, Warrant Officer Robert J. DeMatio hit Omaha Beach with the 118th Field Artillery Battalion, 30th Infantry Division, XIX Corps, United States 1st Army. It was the first stop on a journey through France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany that wouldn't end until VE-Day in May 1945, a journey he chronicled in a typewritten history of his "rear echelon" section. Sixty-six years later, that journal in hand, JOE DeMATIO retraces his late father's route in a Cadillac CTS-V coupe and learns that American power -- at least automotive power -- is still embraced on the Continent.

The 2011 Cadillac CTS coupe goes on sale in August 2010, thirty-one long months after a thinly disguised concept-car version of it debuted at the 2008 North American International Auto Show. The good news is, the CTS coupe's exterior lines look just as good on the road in summer 2010 as they did under the hot lights of the Cadillac stand in January 2008, and there were plenty of heads turning on the streets of Ann Arbor when I drove it. Although this car is a serious performer, I imagine it will be purchased primarily for one reason and one reason only: it looks like a million bucks. Let me return to the April 2008 issue of Automobile Magazine, where our Design Editor, Robert Cumberford, sung the praises of the CTS coupe and its creators: