Thursday, August 27, 2009

Chevrolet Volt: The Inside Story

Say what you will about waiting rooms and aging magazines, but recently while buying a couple of tires I was intrigued by a Motor Trend story on the much-discussed Chevy Volt.

"Chevrolet Volt - The Inside Story"
is an excerpt from Why GM Matters: Inside the Race to Transform an American Icon by William J. Holstein.

Chevy calls the Volt "an electric car that drives up to 40 miles/day without gas or environmentally harmful emissions."

Others describe the car as "a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle" and "an extended-range electric vehicle."

Here's how GM describes the Volt in "Chevrolet Volt Expects 230 mpg in City Driving," an Aug. 11, 2009, news release posted at http://media.gm.com/:

The Chevrolet Volt uses grid electricity as its primary source of energy to propel the car. There are two modes of operation: Electric and Extended-Range. In electric mode, the Volt will not use gasoline or produce tailpipe emissions when driving. During this primary mode of operation, the Volt is powered by electrical energy stored in its 16 kWh lithium-ion battery pack.

When the battery reaches a minimum state of charge, the Volt automatically switches to Extended-Range mode. In this secondary mode of operation, an engine-generator produces electricity to power the vehicle. The energy stored in the battery supplements the engine-generator when additional power is needed during heavy accelerations or on steep inclines.





GM says the Volt's battery pack will provide a maximum range of 40 miles. Then the car's engine-generator — GMspeak for a small gasoline engine — recharges the battery to provide the rest of the car's maximum 300-miles range.

The gasoline engine never applies power to the wheels.

Also from the news release: "According to U.S. Department of Transportation data, nearly eight of 10 Americans commute fewer than 40 miles a day http://tinyurl.com/U-S-DOTStudy."

I'm neither a true believer nor a reflexive doubter, but it'll be hard to ignore the Volt given the potential it offers GM and the rest of us.

Will this vehicle be a game-changer or a disappointment?

Time will tell, but I'll be watching with interest.