General Motors has a lot riding on the upcoming Chevy Volt hybrid. As it turns out, the Volt has more going for it than just its hybrid powertrain. Yes, it’s nice that you can run on electricity alone or you can opt to use the gasoline engine too, but this GPS trick is awfully neat.

GM’s Bob Lutz went to the blogger town hall after the official Volt unveil yesterday, revealing a feature that we had not heard about before. As it turns out, the Chevy Volt will make use of the integrated GPS to constantly determine how far you are from home. Based on this distance, the Volt will then determine whether it needs to run the gas engine to charge the on-board battery pack or not. This is to ensure maximum fuel economy.

Here are the words direct from the horse’s Lutz’s mouth:

With the Volt, you never have to worry you use the full 40 (mile range), the worst thing that happens is the gasoline engine comes on, and the car will know how far you are from home, and it will only run the gas engine long enough to give you enough charge to get you home where you can actually plug it into the wall outlet. So the car will be smart enough to know where its home base is.

I figure there has to be a way to overide this feature when you happen to be on a road trip someplace, right?