Production Chevy Volt interior and exterior spy shots leaked?

We've seen GM's carefully managed Volt PR campaign, but that hasn't stopped our friends at AutoBlogGreen from combing the net for a better look, resulting in these apparent snaps of the center console and the production exterior rolling along the set of Transformers 2. The shiny, rounded all white center console with touch sensitive interface? You're probably thinking what we're thinking. At least the exterior shot -- which shows off a "Volt" badge on the A-pillar -- is a bit more clear. Of course, this might just be a movie-only iteration and any number of things could change before those batteries get out of Malibus and into proper rolling stock... but we'll just sit back and keep our fingers crossed, at least until 2010.

Read - Chevy Volt Interior
Read - Chevy volt Exterior

[216 @ Aug 29th 2008 7:06AM]

sexy

[216 @ Aug 29th 2008 7:18AM]

ha my first first cool. Aaanyway i mean that the exterior is sexy, the interior looks like a toy, i hope thats not production quality. I wouldn't be embarrased to drive one of these, as compared to a prius, which are just ugly in my opinion.

[happy_penguin @ Aug 29th 2008 7:46AM]

I agree. Every time I see a Prius I want to gouge my eyes out with a fork.



Y'all know where the little red minus is.

[iphoney @ Aug 29th 2008 7:07AM]

do want!

[Christopher Price @ Aug 29th 2008 7:13AM]

It's worth noting that there are two, competing interiors for the Volt. I think the one Engadget forgot to picture... looks worlds better than the one that is pictured above.

[Christopher Price @ Aug 29th 2008 7:19AM]

And, as I posted on AutoblogGreen, this shows the rival interior (scroll down to the bottom of the article):

http://gm-volt.com/2008/08/28/chevy-volt-interior-picture-leak/

[Andir3.0 @ Aug 29th 2008 8:58AM]

You mean that even uglier retro 70's spaceship interior from the video clip? Oh, I hope that's not what you think is better....

[B @ Aug 29th 2008 11:19AM]

At first glance, at the interior in the video, I thought I was on the bridge of the Enterprise. Would I be considered lame if I want to watch Star Trek the next generation now?

[DarkHelmet @ Aug 29th 2008 7:24AM]

Why is this POS so exciting? Is there something evolutionary or revolutionary about this Chevy?

[iphoney @ Aug 29th 2008 7:32AM]

Yea, 40 miles and not a drop of gas. Over 70% of America has a daily commute that's 40 miles or under...

[Andir3.0 @ Aug 29th 2008 8:55AM]

If it was able to charge it's batteries with a solar panel on the roof, it might be "not a drop of gas" but you must be forgetting where the electricity comes from.

[Will @ Aug 29th 2008 9:59AM]

We had an electric car that got 150 miles on a charge in 1999, and with todays batteries it could get 300 miles. So, why had technology suddenly "jumped" to 40 miles?

[happy_penguin @ Aug 29th 2008 9:53AM]

Electricity comes from many sources but rarely from gasoline.

[Ignatius @ Aug 29th 2008 10:22AM]

Will, because the car will seat more than 2 people and it will cost under $40,000.

The EV1 did neither.

[eric @ Aug 29th 2008 10:26AM]

you have the option of purchasing your home electricity from renewable resources such as wind or solar farms. or, you could go completely off the grid and produce your own electricity.

as far as the reference to the EV-1, this is a 4 door, car that seats 5. with the EV-1, if you use the a/c or heater, or radio, that range dropped drastically and if you got stuck in traffic you could possibly be screwed, with the volt, if you get stuck in traffic, you won't be frantically looking for an outlet like people at the airport with a dying laptop.

[Andrew @ Aug 29th 2008 10:45AM]

@Andir3.0

When the electricity comes from coal, it is considered to be dirty (until gasification comes, and there are next to NO emissions). Getting electricity from the plant to your outlet is about 50-60% efficiency, while gasoline is about 80-90% or so. Everything looks in favor of gas right? The real efficiency with electricity comes when the gas is combusted and the majority of it is wasted due to heat, noise, etc, while the majority of electricity in an electric engine is used properly. Apparently it's thought that electricity is around 2x better than using gas, or at LEAST as good as the prius (worst case).

Electricity doesn't have to come from coal either, as you likely know. Wind, solar, water .. Gives you a lot more flexibility where the power goes up. If coal skyrockets, switch more towards solar.. Gas you're locked in and if it keeps going the way it is, electric will appeal considerably more.

[DarkHelmet @ Aug 29th 2008 11:52AM]

So, I'll ask it again - what's so revolutionary about this car? Is it the bright blue animated LED power cord that shows electrons moving from the socket in your garage to the storage battery? Is it the ability to flip off every gas station attendant within 40 miles of your home? Is it that instead of buying a full tank of gas, every two to three weeks, you might buy a tank once a month and spend the rest of those dollars on your home's electric bill? It's the logo, right? Or the semi-cool name? Oh yeah, I know - it's the GM (we built it in America) cachet...

But seriously, even if you never have to use a drop of gas for the first 40 miles of your trip, how much electrical power (in dollars) is required to charge this up? How long does it take to charge? Can I quick charge it at a top-off station?

Oh yeah, one more thing, how much does all this cost? And how much ecology is ruined to produce one of these?

[BigD145 @ Aug 29th 2008 1:07PM]

It's a Prius with big hips and low overhead. http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2008/08/28/097940.html

[Stephen Lang @ Aug 29th 2008 1:08PM]

1. Electricity is much cheaper than gasoline on a per mile basis. Even natural gas is significantly cheaper on a per mile basis, if you own say a natural-gas powered Civic and fill it up at home. I wish I knew the exact numbers, but I'm sure you can search for it.

2. Even coal-powered electricity is cleaner than a gasoline-powered car. Going forward, electricity will become cleaner as we switch over to new power sources (nuclear being the most realistic IMO.) Once you get all these cars on the grid, it will be easier to replace/upgrade 1 power plant than say a bunch of gasoline-powered cars. Plus we don't have to import coal from the Middle East, and the less we are 'dependent' on oil from the Middle East the better the prospects for world peace IMO.

3. IIRC it will take a few hours to charge up fully, so you can't 'instantly' charge up at a station. But that's what the gasoline reserve is for. It will give you ~40 MPG (IIRC) when you drive more than 40 miles in a day. The Volt won't eliminate consumption for gasoline, but it should greatly reduce it if you think about typical day-to-day driving.

The advantage of a series hybrid vs. all-electric is that it gives you that extra range by taking advantage of an existing infrastructure for gasoline, while at the same time drastically reducing amount of gasoline used. The Volt is pretty much an all-electric vehicle with a small gasoline-powered generator attached- the gasoline engine doesn't power the wheels directly, it generates electricity for the electric motors that drive the wheels.

4. People compare this car to the Prius, but they are significantly different. A car like this stresses the batteries much more, whereas the Prius batteries typically don't run all the way down because they are being indirectly charged by gasoline power as you drive. But again, zero gasoline consumption for most of your daily driving. I'm sure Toyota will develop a series hybrid car too, as will most of the other makers.

It's not a miracle technology, but it's a very practical one IMO. Much more practical than say envisioning everyone riding bikes, taking the bus, or switching to hydrogen powered cars and having to build a new delivery system and a bunch of refueling stations, etc. At launch the cars will be a bit expensive, but even if gas settles at say $4 a gallon, being able to eliminate 90% of your gasoline consumption is pretty attractive.

Hopefully in 20 years battery technology will economically eliminate the need for any secondary power source. But until then, using gasoline purely as a back up power source is a good idea.

[Stephen Lang @ Aug 29th 2008 1:15PM]

"Oh yeah, one more thing, how much does all this cost? And how much ecology is ruined to produce one of these?"

This is a valid question, but at the same time you 'ruin ecology' with almost any durable good you produce, and definitely every car for that matter. And every time you go out for some exercise, you are creating additional carbon dioxide and contributing to global warming.

I would rather buy a Honda Civic than a Toyota Prius because I wonder if the extra production of batteries really offsets the relatively small increase in MPG (compared to a Civic.) OTOH, if I just keep driving my used SUV then maybe I'm being most environmentally conscious of all, because nothing new needed to be produced (and I can't go back in time now and change my original decision to buy it.) But in the long run, we can't all keep recycling old cars.

I'm sure as the Volt gets closer to production, we'll see some independent analysis on the environmental impact of these different cars.

[Will @ Aug 29th 2008 4:09PM]

@Ignacitius

The EV1 cost US$33,995 to US$43,995, and even then it wasn't mass produced. If it were mass produced, the price obviously comes down. Also, don't you think that the technology in the car would have advanced in the last 12 years? They could have a 4 door that works that well in 12 years.

[Bill Brasky @ Aug 29th 2008 7:52AM]

I think the interior shot looks somewhat like the Cadillac CTS, but in white (just remove the clock between the controls and the display).

http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/7/s/b/gm_06cts_int.jpg

[Sporkinum @ Aug 29th 2008 9:23AM]

I don't know about Transformers2 as a vehicle to push the Volt. Transformers was one of the worst movies I had seen in a long time. A real waste of a dollar at the RedBox video rental kiosk.

[Evan @ Aug 29th 2008 9:31AM]

For a car designed to make people feel smug about themselves and rub their smugness into other people's faces, the exterior is not as dramatic as I was expecting.

[Forrest @ Aug 29th 2008 11:28AM]

I'm hoping I can pick one of these up when they come out. My guess is demand will be pretty high, though.

I don't expect this car to make me feel smug, nor do I plan to rub such non-existent smugness into anyone's face. I would LOVE to have a car that would get me back and forth to work without using gasoline. I wouldn't give two shits what you or anybody else would think, and I wouldn't have giant neon signs claiming "Look at me, I'm saving the environment!"

I have no illusions that this car would be in any way saving the environment in the short term. In fact, the batteries may do more harm than good in the long run, though hopefully as electric/hybrids become more popular we develop good long-term strategies for managing that waste. But this car would do two things for me:

1. Make my life more convenient, as I won't be stopping for gas nearly as often.
2. Get me one step closer to having a vehicle that made no negative impact on the environment.

I don't understand why people's expectations about these vehicles are so high. It's like if the first generation of them aren't 100% carbon neutral with the hauling capacity of an F-350 and the acceleration of a Lotus then we should just forget the whole idea. It's progress, damnit! My first PC couldn't even run Doom (hell, it didn't even have a CGA display!), but does that mean it should never have been made in the first place?

[Spam @ Aug 29th 2008 9:37AM]

Its a cool car and idea....but the electricity still has to be created somewhere and somehow...most likely with fossil fuels. I don't know the comparison to using electricity created by fossil fuels....or by using gasoline...Anybody know what the difference is and which is more conservative or efficient or whatever?

[Ignatius @ Aug 29th 2008 10:23AM]

Our grid is 50% coal powered. That means that there is another 50% chance that your energy is produced by something that is clean, or at least cleaner than gasoline. Not to mention that solar panels ARE dropping in price, which could easily provide you with your daily charge if you don't drive that much.

[Rick @ Aug 29th 2008 1:59PM]

Wait until the GM Bean Counters get done. It'll be another POS from GM.

[Rick @ Aug 29th 2008 2:02PM]

Just wait until the first dumb shit electrocutes themself plugging the charging cord into the car while standing on a garage floor in an inch of water. Me smells a class action right there.

[Brian @ Aug 30th 2008 10:40PM]

I was thinking to myself; and feel free to correct me if it already exists; but why didn't GM use the technology from say the Prius to recharge the battery as the vehicle moves (once the battery is done of course); because on longish trips; once the battery is charged; you'd get ANOTHER 40 miles gas free afterwards. I think it makes sense.

[Brian @ Aug 30th 2008 10:40PM]

Oh it does. Silly me.