Q: Did GM's Tony Posawatz coin the term "range anxiety"?

We know that General Motors has tried to trademark "range anxiety," but did someone in the company actually come up with the term? In an interview with Txchnologist, GE's new science and technology magazine, Posawatz said:

I think I am not officially credited, but I probably coined the term in the Fall of 2006. We were doing backgrounders for the Volt with many different constituencies to try them give them a feel for what GM's plans were for electrified transportation.
I elaborated on the term when I spoke to our former EV1 drivers. They never liked to plan their life around the available range – and whenever you got low on the range you could not be spontaneous with your life.

The idea of range anxiety isn't new – our own Gary Witzenburg has written a great tale about dealing with a BEVs limited range back in the EV1 days – but we admit we're unsure when the phrase entered general use. We found one citation that dates back to 1997, so probably Posawatz isn't the originator he thinks he is. Still, we wanted to see if our readers is anyone can remember how this term came to be used. Thoughts?

Also, we're pretty sure our friend Wayne Gerdes coined "hypermiling," but if anyone has any information to the contrary, we'd be happy to hear about that, too.

[Source: Txchnologist]