Our Chevy Volt Round-Up
This week General Motors turned 100 years old – and to help celebrate Chevrolet introduced (to a fanfare of reporters and well-paid corporate execs) their insanely anticipated 2011 Chevrolet Volt Plug-In Hybrid Electric Car! (Shesh) But what’s in a name, really? We’ve been pumping out the Volt coverage so far this week, and now that the hullabaloo has calmed down Chevroletpedia has a round up of photos and information on the future of electric American-made automobiles.
Initially, General Motors reportedly released promotional photos of the Volt, watermarked by several of Chevrolet GM’s top officials. Shortly after these Volt pictures debuted GM followed up with a press release stating the photos were leaked accidentally. They blamed “human error” for the premature unveiling of production model stills. A day after the executives made their Chevy pictorial appearance, official (non-blocked by human bodies) Volt pictures appeared online.
Volt’s original internal design looked more Blade Runner and less real world, but who wouldn’t want to drive while playing with those signals and touch screen indicators. As you’ll see below, the real Volt dash is much more user friendly, but still keeps the look and feel of a car that should have been produced by the crew of the Starship Enterprise.
And behold! The 2011 Chevy Volt in all its glory. Revealed yesterday morning, the vehicle is a 5-door front wheel drive car with room for four. GM claims the Volt can reach a top speed of 100 mph (not bad for the old Extended-Range Electric Vehicle (E-REV) motor) and a city mileage of 40 mpg! Yes, we said CITY. Volt also has “full regenerative brakes for top energy capture.” Power steering will also be controlled electrically, while 20 lithium-ion cells make up the Volt’s power plant.
GM estimates a fuel savings of $1500/annually. They are also reporting a starting price of $35,000, but if they want to compete with Honda’s more aggressive hybrid Insight (which is apparently starting as low as $18,5) Chevrolet will need to drop that number.
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