Chevrolet Volt - The Car of the Future
67The all new 2011 Chevrolet Volt is not only bringing a new Era of cars to General Motors, but to the whole entire car market. GM is using state of the art technology and many years of engineering to bring to you a whole new type of car.
The Chevy Volt is an electric car with a gas motor. What this means is that you can travel 30-50 miles on a single charge (depending on your driving conditions) on pure electric power. Once all the energy in the battery packs are depleted, then a small gas engine (which gets around 40mpg) will kick in. This means that for people who do not drive very much a day will use zero gas.
The reason why I think that the Volt will do very well and is very useful is that you will not have to worry about being stranded if for some reason you don't have enough power in your battery packs. I think that this is important because it is not like you can drive down the city and find places to charge your car. All you will find are gas stations. That means that the majority of your charging will be at home.
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People who think that charging the Volt will require a lot of energy and will cause their electric bill to spike. Those people may be mistaken. On average, a normal gas car will cost about $0.10-$0.20 per mile to drive. The Chevy Volt, when running on electric power will cost only $0.02 per mile. That is 5-10 times cheaper!
Charging the batteries will take only 3 hours.
Pricing for any early electric cars will not be cheap. When many people think of the price for the Volt, they automatically think $40,000. That is true on the price, but after the government incentives, you will only be paying in the low thirty-thousands. Now that seems much more affordable.
One of the drawbacks I see for this vehicle is that it seats only 4 people. The reason for this is that the way this car was built is that the battery packs are actually located in the center of the vehicle, therefore taking out the possibility of having a middle seat in the back.
Overall I think that the styling for this car is amazing and energy efficient at the same time. Another plus, is that the Chevy Volt is designed and built in America.
Below is a video showing some details of the Volt. Below the video is a place for comments if you have any.
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Yeah, those would be good cars. I just hope that they do a bit more than just rebadge the car like they did in the past with different vehicles.
Nice write up. The problem I see with the Volt is still its practicality. It is very sporty, I agree, but the only true way you will save money is using it on fully electric mode and only driving less than 50 mi per charge. If you plan to do that then just get the less expensive Nissan Leaf and if you plan more than that I still think the 51mpg Prius, although ugly will save you a lot more money, costs about half and runs on regular instead of premium. I think the Volt is on the right track but for now it is a gimmick for the rich. Although it is built here, its battery packs are made overseas & costs millions, at least thats what I've read.
thoughtchallenge 18 months ago
They're talking about a 5 seater and a Cadillac version. It would make sense if they created a sportscar version as well.