This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?

A123 Systems, the company that builds the batteries for the Fisker Karma and for the upcoming Chevy Spark EV, has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection, according to court documents. This is a major blow for the Obama administration, which has invested heavily in green energy with other companies like Solyndra…

Chevy Volt owners are a fanatical, interesting bunch. Just watch the commercials. But one major gripe has always been that the car can only fit the driver and three passengers. So what is the Founder of GM-Volt.com supposed to do when his family grows? Get a Ford, of course.

Yesterday we reported on a Reuters story that suggested that GM was losing about $40,000 on every Volt sold. But that number is pretty deceptive, and doesn't take into account the overall picture.

The Chevy Volt is a pioneering car, but it has also received a lot of flack. It hasn't helped that it has caught on fire a couple times and been scapegoated by the media as the poster child of the automotive bailouts.

WXYZ, the local Detroit ABC affiliate, reports that there has been an explosion at a battery lab facility on the campus of GM's Technical Center in Warren. Two people have been injured and were taken to nearby hospitals and all employees have been evacuated from that building.

Sales of the Chevy Volt remain so weak that even with higher gas prices, GM had to shut production down for five weeks. Compare that to the brand new compact Toyota Prius C, which outsold a month's worth of Volts and Nissan Leafs in just three days. Beware the Ides of March.

Chevy's new ad for the Volt plug-in hybrid does something that might be a first in a national car commercial: It uses the word "crap."

General Motors has told 1,300 employees at the automaker's Detroit Hamtramck plant they will be temporarily laid off for five weeks as the company halts production of the Chevrolet Volt and its European counterpart, the Opel Ampera.

One gun-totin' Chevy Volt owner responded to Newt Gingrich's claim that "you can't put a gun rack in a Volt" in the best way possible. He built a gun rack and put it in his own Volt, just to prove Gingrich wrong.