The Chevy Volt claims 40 miles on just electric, and extended distances to 640 miles with a 1 liter turbo charged engine charging batteries on 12 gallons of fuel. 53 mpg. I assume they are talking highway mpg.
It’s all vapor ware at this point of course. But with the ability to charge at home from 110v in 6.5 hours, it would cover most peoples daily commutes. And be able to make it to grandma’s and back when a longer trip was on the schedule.
It’s a pretty um…. Stunning looking car. I’m not really sure what demographic they are going after. It has some of the same ‘gangsta’ look as the Chrysler 300. I’ve driven the 300 and found it a bit hard to see out of. Seems they are going after kids with trust funds or men in mid-life crisis. OTOH, it is a car that will turn heads. And perhaps that’s just what we need.
The Volt would not work for myself or my Wife, but I do think it’s a step in the right direction.
What are your thoughts? Would it work for you? Seems the price will be in the mid $40’s. But I think we need to take steps in this direction (plug in series hybrids). And with interest in this type of vehicle, the cost will come down.
I think Henry Ford had it right: Build a car for the masses, that the Average Joe could afford. (What did the Model T get, anyway? 25 mpg?) Forty kilobucks is a lot for a lot of people to spend on a car. I’d rather see small cars that get outstanding mileage, including higher-mileage hybrids, priced in the mid-teens.
An electric car wouldn’t work for me. It’s 100+ miles to the office and another 100+ back. I telecommute two days a week, and I’m hoping to increase that. Of course in the current climate there’s no way I could sell my house and get one closer to work. BTW I’m getting about 46-48 mpg in the Prius.
I’m not into the gangsta styling, so the Volt doesn’t appeal to me at all. It looks biggish. I’d prefer to see smaller cars on the roads. Granted, smaller cars won’t work for everyone; but I’d like to see more of them.
I’d buy it today if it was available. I drive 15 miles round trip to work every day, and a few miles to lunch. I could go all month without using gasoline, instead of spending $300+ on diesel like I’m doing now.
IIRC back in the 70s a lot of proposed electric cars were scrapped because they didn’t think people would want to plug them in.
The Volt is really sharp. It looks a lot like the retro/updated/concept Camaro. File:2006CamaroConcept-001.jpg - Wikipedia (IOW, really hot). I’m at the perfect age for a midlife crisis, anyway.
Work for me? Probably not. I could make it to work and back but if I had errands etc. I’d have to budget my electric, so to speak. Add the IC engine with 640 mile range and we’re good. But could I afford upwards of $40K for a car? Definitely not.
Lutz said, in the article the OP cites, that they didn’t really know what it would cost. I’m guessing that means at least in part that they don’t know how many they’ll sell. If they sell a lot, production costs get spread across a large number of vehicles and the price goes down. Sell only a few and the price stays up.
Yeah, I think it’s a step in the right direction. Much like the FWD X cars from GM (remember those, e.g. Chevy Citation?) were dogged with problems, given time Detroit learned and improved.
That’s pretty good MPG. I get about 19. I drive 25 in and 25 home. And I’m in the same boat, no way I could, or want to sell my house (still remodeling, two story addition).
Yeah, me too. I wonder if Chevy should have made a more standard design. As you nodded to Henry Ford and the car for the people, I think Chevy could have done the same. But they made the Volt.
I think Chevy screwed up there. I think the idea of a series hybrid is a good one. Direct drive (saves weight) plug in at home at low peak hours and has the ability to go as far as you want.
I didn’t realize they were actually planning to put it in production. I’m guessing the appearance might change a bit by the 2010 target date. My first guess is that it’s a vehicle for the wealthier, adventurous, early-adopter types. To me, it’s too ugly, too expensive, too heavy (chevy-volt.net says it’ll be 3500 pounds!) and really doesn’t get good enough gas mileage at a projected 53 mpg highway to put up with anything experimental. Oh boy, Chevy has two companies working on new batteries, which are critical to the vehicle’s success. Nothing ever goes wrong with new battery technology. At 6.5 hours to charge overnight, I guess that’s daily, how would one calculate the power costs?
Toyota is coming out with a lithium ion battery plug in hybrid in 2010. I hope it will be less expensive and more practical than the Volt. Toyota has certainly proved its mettle in hybrid car design, and I hope in succeeds in this endeavor. I love Toyotas and I’m pretty optimistic about this.
It’s 53 MPG on gasoline.
It’s more like 150 MPG on electric, which is how I’d be using it most of the time. For reference, my current truck gets 15 MPG (Diesel). If the Volt was 10x better, I’d save $290/month or more on fuel costs alone.
Too bloody expensive for what you’re getting, $40K is only affordable to people who have more money than sense anyway, and if you can drop $40K on a vehicle, you likely either don’t care what fuel costs, or are doing it for your “image”
40 miles on electricity alone is laughable, considering GM made the EV-1 back in '99 and it got much better range than the Volt;
PEV’s need to be affordable if they’re to make any significant impact, even the EV-1 was priced too high for the average car-owner ($45K+, lease only, payments around $300-500/mo)
We need a car smaller than the Prius, lets say Fit/Aveo/Yaris/Astra size, as a PEV, pricing $20,000 or less
The Chevy Volt gets no more than a “Meh…” from me, sure it looks nice, and it’s an intriguing use of technology, it’s just too bloody expensive
Same shit they think every day, Pinky…er, I mean treis.
Damn company has been run into the ground by the B Ark Marketing people for the last forty years while insisting that America wants companies that can fly underground.
Sports cars have a smaller manufacturing run than the passenger sedans , mini vans etc ,for breaking customer ground on. Something unexpected happens they can shit can the line and rename the volt platform with an IC engine.
If it works they can incorparate the tech into the follow on passenger platforms.
It still doesn’t make sense. If you are dropping 45 Gs on a car, are you really going to care that much about gas prices? Not really. You’re going to be focused on performance, styling, luxury, etc. The attractiveness in this platform is gas economy, and the people that are looking for that are going for generic type cars. You can get a better performing sports car for less than the Volt. Why would you buy the Volt?
Playing devil’s advocate, I think many people realize that the justification for buying a hybrid is primarily green. If you run the figures, to recoup the difference in cost between apples and hybrid apples—like an Accord vs. an Accord Hybrid—it probably takes 100K miles or more. Much as rich people become philanthropists, it could be that those buying this car are waving their wallets to their conscience.
And then, there’s the “racing team” thing. Lots of mfrs put cars out there on the racing circuit. Some of that technology (including safety) is proven on the track and ultimately filters its way down the line, into the family sedan. Maybe the Volt won’t be the perfect finished product, but it’s an attempt and an opportunity to start the learning curve.
I think you’re overlooking the not inconsiderable number of people, with money, who very much want to be seen driving a hybrid or electric car so that everyone can know just how terribly important they think the environment is and how they are doing-their-part. Limousine liberals, upper middle class governmental employees and tenured college professors, I’m looking at you. That’s the market for this car.
Judging by the number of people I see driving SUVs in the $40k range, when I’m pretty sure they don’t all really need a utility vehicle to take the kids to soccer, I don’t think the price is out of whack for a high-end vehicle. Not much difference between flaunting extraneous green and flaunting extraneous off-road capability, from a marketing perspective.
Tesla sold out its first run of all-electric cars at $100,000 a pop. So yeah, there’s a market.
I believe GM’s thinking was that they have this new power platform that they want to roll out; version 1.0 should go into a unique, highly stylized body in order to attract the well-heeled customer who likes to flaunt, well, their well-heeledness.
In other words, they needed to put it in something that the early adapters could justify buying. Tesla’s using the same strategy; their next car will be a $50,000 four-door sedan, followed by a $30,000 car of undetermined size or style.
Hey, something has to pay for all that R & D.
You can file the Volt, and the Tesla, under “You gotta crawl before you can walk”. New powertrains will never get introduced in the low-end market; they go into the expensive cars first, then as the economics get better they filter down the model line.
An additional question for hybrid owners. How’s the AC? I suspect they can handle heating OK with the ICE. But now you’re burning gas again. And if the batteries are charged, that would be real waste.
Couldn’t that kill it? (as a design). Where I live, it was 28f this morning (mid June). Would the serial design draw heat from electric resistance from the batteries?
