Tag Archives | Chevy Volt

The Great Hill Country Volt Jamboree

By on December 7, 2010 in Features

By Roger Boylan

That isn’t how GM, who organized the event, billed it. It’s just me being cute. Not quite as cute, mind you, as the herd of little Chevy Volts I found tethered to their battery-charging stations at 8 a.m. last Friday, when I arrived to participate in the Texas leg of the nationwide “Volt Unplugged” media event.  About a dozen automotive writers convened at The Crossings, a plush resort hotel west of Austin, with stunning views of Lake Travis and adjoining hills and bluffs in autumnal shades that reminded me—and a German-born colleague—of the Rhine and Mosel valleys. “Wunderbar,” we exclaimed, jointly. “Jawohl.”  Tears welled; thoughts of beer came, and sparkling Riesling. Then we pulled ourselves together and the drive got underway.

Coincidentally, I’d just reviewed a Plug-In Prius, which impressed me so much that I was unprepared to be equally or more impressed by the much-hyped, perhaps overly hyped, Volt, Motor Trend’s 2011 Car of the Year. And indeed, there are undeniable superficial similarities between the two futuremobiles: a starter button instead of a key; a Star Trek instrument panel; winking displays of electronic arcana on the display screens; otherworldly clicks and faint moans at ignition. But as soon as I moved onto the two-lane blacktop, the Volt came into its own. Even on uphill spurts and cruising at 70+, my power source was all electric, and I made sure that some of those spurts were fast. GM claims 0-60 in 9 seconds, but I estimate that my heavy boot application shaved nearly a half second off that figure.

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GE Plans to Buy 25,000 Electric Vehicles

By on November 11, 2010 in News

By Chris Haak

Giant industrial conglomerate General Electric has announced plans to purchase 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015 for its fleet.  These purchases represent fully one-half of GE’s corporate fleet, and are an immediate shot in the arm for EV demand in the US.

Though there are certainly environmental benefits to be seen through a large purchase of [tailpipe] emission-free vehicles, the move is not purely altrustic on GE’s part.  The company obviously gets a considerable amount of goodwill from stepping up to the plate and becoming an early adopter of EV technology.

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Chevy Runs Deep—Maybe Too Deep

By on October 27, 2010 in Editorials

By Charles Krome

While I’m not sure how many people realize this, the FOX network will be hosting a double dose of history in the making tonight: Not only are the Texas Rangers slated to play their very first World Series game, but Chevrolet is debuting its first significant TV spots since Joel Ewanick enlisted with the General as its vice president for U.S. marketing.

The World Series is, of course, an ideal launching pad for Chevy’s new pitch to reach customers, as baseball—along with hotdogs and apple pie—has a strong association with Chevrolet. Well, at least in the minds of folks who were alive in the 1970s to remember that classic bit of marketing. The thing is, many of the division’s potential customers weren’t, and therein lies a possible problem for Chevrolet’s new “Chevy Runs Deep” campaign.

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Who Killed the Electric Car? Economics.

By on October 27, 2010 in News

Chris Haak

In spite of the relentless hype that the electrification of the automobile has generated over the past few years, culminating in the nearly-simultaneous launches of both the Nissan Leaf EV and the Chevrolet Volt extended-range EV, a new report by J.D. Power and Associates (via CNNMoney) seems to drop a wet blanket on the EV’s prospects for success over the next decade.  In short, the notion that the mix of new-vehicles will be anything other than very heavily weighted toward internal combustion is little more than a pipe dream.

Power projects that hybrids and plug-in vehicles of any kind will make up just 7.3 percent of global automotive passenger-vehicle sales in 2010.  Even more dramatic, though, is the fact that the majority of that number is comprised of hybrids like the Prius, Camry Hybrid, Fusion Hybrid, et al – in other words, cars that aren’t plugged in ever.  If you take those non-plug-in hybrids out of the mix, it drops to between one and two percent of the US market.

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Chevrolet Volt: The Big Lie?

By on October 13, 2010 in News

By Charles Krome

According to my handy-dandy New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary—and by “shorter,” they mean it comes in just two volumes, as opposed to the 20 that make up the full OED—a “coupé” is “an enclosed two-door motor car.” Yet Mercedes insists on marketing the CLS-Class as a “four-door coupe”—does that mean the folks at M-B are lying?

I bring this up because of the recent hubbub over the Chevrolet Volt: It turns out that under certain, relatively uncommon circumstances, the car’s 1.3-liter internal combustion engine will actually contribute some amount of mechanical driving force to its wheels. And if that doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, you either haven’t been paying attention to the automotive blogosphere or you need to update your membership in the Official He-Man GM-Haters’ Club.

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First Drive: 2011 Chevrolet Volt

By on October 10, 2010 in News

By Kevin Miller

This past weekend, GM kicked off the Chevy Volt Unplugged tour, a consumer-oriented ride-and-drive event which takes the Volt on a twelve-city, cross-country tour. Seattle is the first stop on the tour, and I was able to participate in the tour’s second day.

As a brief refresher, the Chevrolet Volt is powered by GM’s Voltec propulsion system, consisting of  a 16-kWh lithium-ion battery pack and 149 HP electric drive unit that provide pure electric range between 25 and 50 miles, and a 1.4 liter, 82 HP (63 kW) gasoline-powered engine that extends the range up to an additional 310 miles on a full tank of fuel by providing electrical power to drive the car; the gasoline engine is not mechanically coupled to the wheels. Continue Reading →

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The Chevrolet Volt and the Price of Success

By on August 3, 2010 in Editorials

By Charles Krome

On the odd chance Autosavant readers haven’t yet heard, GM will be launching a new, extended-range electric vehicle in a few months, with that product slated to offer both a 40-mile all-electric range and the ability to go a further 300 miles by leveraging an on-board, gas-powered generator.

Now, the Chevrolet Volt is far from perfect, but it surely doesn’t deserve the vitriol being spewed in its direction by certain members of the media. I mean, some of these people seem to think the Volt rollout will be the worst thing to happen to this country since the BP oil disaster.

Take the Volt’s sticker price. Sure, $41,000 looks kind of steep, and for some of the GM haters, the federal tax credit of $7,500 only makes things worse. For these people, the car is priced artificially low, preventing the free market from determining the Volt’s fate. On the other hand, other analysts claim the Volt is priced too high and that GM should be following the strategy used by Toyota when it introduced the Prius. When that car first went on sale, the automaker sold it at a $15,000-per-vehicle loss to ensure it would be popular, giving up short-term profits for long-term success.

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Chevy Volt Price Confirmed at $41,000

By on July 27, 2010 in Editorials

By Chris Haak

We’re not quite sure why this is even news today, since former GM vice chairman Bob Lutz told reporters two years ago, in 2008, that the Chevy Volt would sell for about $40,000 before the $7,500 federal tax credit.  But as the Volt’s fall 2010 launch date approaches, the company has confirmed that Lutz’s prediction proved true.  At that time, Lutz also noted that the Volt in its first generation would blow past its cost target by some $10,000, or 33 percent over the $30,000 bogey at the time the program’s development began.

Why is the Volt so expensive, when a new Prius goes for about half the price with similar interior space (actually, the Prius seats five, and the Volt seats only four) and an all-electric Nissan Leaf goes for $32,780?  And why should you consider a Volt over a Prius or Leaf?

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Chevy Volt’s Battery Will Have 8 Year/100,000 Mile Warranty

By on July 15, 2010 in News

By Chris Haak

The Chevrolet Volt – whose production is inching closer, for a fourth quarter soft launch – will see its batteries (including 161 related components such as the thermal management system, charging system, and electric-drive components) covered for 8 years or 100,000 miles.  This warranty is longer than what GM offers on any other passenger cars or light trucks, and was probably done out of necessity to convince hesitant potential buyers that they aren’t likely to have to spring for battery replacement on the car during their first few years of ownership.

GM also announced today that the Volt’s internal-combustion engine will carry at least the company’s typical 5 year/100,000 mile powertrain warranty, though that was not announced today.

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Bob Lutz, the Original ‘Car Czar’

By on December 25, 2008 in Editorials

By Sam Boni

12.25.2008

They called him Mr. Horsepower.

Born in Switzerland, he is the only top executive who worked in that capacity (in alphabetical order) at BMW, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, in Europe and on this continent. At Chrysler he was the driving force behind the V10 Dodge Viper. At the age when most people retire, he was persuaded to become CEO of Exide Technologies, the battery maker. After he “retired” from that position, General Motors coaxed him into revamping its model line-up as vice chairman of global product development.

You will know by now that we are talking about Robert A Lutz, “Maximum Bob” as he is known in Detroit these days. He started to influence the new cars coming from ‘The General’ a few years ago, and that influence has only gotten stronger. The beautiful Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky sports cars were some of the early models designed and produced under his leadership. The amazing 1,000-horsepower V16 Cadillac, which could have topped Rolls Royce, has become a victim of the times. The world now awaits the Volt, the extended-range electric car that everybody knows about before anybody has actually seen the final production model.

“This is now what I’m more excited about than I was about the Dodge Viper,” Mr. Lutz said in early 2008. “I think this can bring about the revolution and really make us independent of foreign oil and solve all the other problems.”

The one problem Bob Lutz did not anticipate is the financial and credit meltdown caused by years of ineptitude by the Bush administration. We hear every hour on the hour how deep we are in trouble, and how much money the auto industry needs to convert for the time “After Oil”. Continue Reading →

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