Chevrolet bringing 10,000 Volts in 2011, but it's the current of change that will kill you
By Vlad Savov 
posted July 2nd 2010 7:36AM
posted July 2nd 2010 7:36AM
Chevrolet Volt Adds Four States To Launch
AUSTIN – Chevrolet is adding Texas, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to the launch markets for the Volt, Ed Whitacre, General Motors chairman and CEO, announced today. Whitacre said the company is expanding the initial launch of the groundbreaking electric vehicle in response to intense interest in the Volt from customers across the country.
Today's announcement brings the initial Volt retail markets to seven, including California, Michigan, and Washington, D.C. The retail launch in Texas and New York will begin with Austin and New York City in late 2010. The balance of Texas and New York, as well as New Jersey and Connecticut, are scheduled to begin receiving Volts in early 2011.
"We can add markets as diverse as Texas and New York because the Chevrolet Volt can handle both urban commuting and longer trips, in Austin summers and Manhattan winters," Whitacre said. "The Volt can be your primary vehicle, giving you the freedom to drive gas-free without the stress of planning every trip around the battery's charge level."
The Volt is the only electric vehicle that can operate under a full range of climates and driving conditions without limitations or driver concern of being stranded by a depleted battery.
"Chevrolet is extending the Volt launch to additional states because of strong customer interest and our confidence in all aspects of the vehicle and battery," said Tony DiSalle, Chevrolet Volt marketing director.
The Chevrolet Volt is capable of about 340 miles total driving range, with electricity driving the car at all times. For trips as long as 40 miles, the Volt gets its power solely from electricity stored in its 16-kWh lithium-ion battery. When the Volt's battery runs low, an engine-generator seamlessly engages to extend the driving range to about 300 miles on a full tank of gas.
According to a U.S. Department of Transportation survey, the average driver in America commutes less than 40 miles per day, meaning Chevrolet Volt owners may never use gasoline or produce tailpipe emissions in everyday driving.
A portable 120-volt vehicle charge cord that can recharge the Volt using a standard residential outlet comes standard with every car. Volt's intelligent charging technology enables the Volt to be charged from a standard 120-volt outlet in about nine to 10 hours, or from a standard 240-volt outlet in about three to four hours. The first buyers of the Volt also may be eligible for one of 4,400 free 240-volt home charging stations from ECOtality, Inc. or Coulomb Technologies, under a program administered by the U.S. Department of Energy and funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Whitacre also announced that Chevrolet will add five Texas electric utilities and five Northeast utilities to a Department of Energy development and demonstration program that provides Volts and charging stations to key utilities. The program allows the utilities to study charging station installation process, vehicle charging, and customer feedback. The Texas utilities include: Austin Energy, CenterPoint Energy, CPS Energy, Oncor, and American Electric Power. In the Northeast, Chevrolet is partnering with Con Edison, New York Power Authority, Northeast Utilities, National Grid, and Public Service Electric and Gas.
Volt production begins late this year at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck facility. Pricing has not been announced.
@monkey man
40 Miles through the city? What in the world...take the highway man and get a civic. I heard this thing is coming out for $30,000-40,000 ish. I got my 2010 ex for 15k. My commute is also just about half of yours...
You drive ~80 miles a day for work. Assuming you work weekdays, you would be driving at least 80 miles x 260 would be totaling ~20800ish miles a year for work. The civic at worst gets 300 miles to the tank. Filing up its 10 gallon tank would cost 30 dollars in California. 20800 / 300 miles would mean you would have to be at the pump 70ish times a year spending 30 dollars which would mean you would be spending ~$2100 in gas for work.
The chevy volt is expected to be on sale for $30,000 - $40,000 assuming a person with a similar commute to yours spends on a mid-range volt ~$35,000, had they bought a civic for 15k and spending around $2500 for gas a year, they would be able to fuel the civic for 8 years to even equal the price of the $35,000 car.
By 8 years. The exhausted lithium ion battery would need a several thousand dollar replacement.
I think the future would be electric vehicles. But our battery tech right now is unbelievable. It seems like we've only gone through 4 generations of rechargeable batteries. Ni-cd, ni-mh, Li-ion, and P-ion pathetic!
oh the dance is so embarassing that I would propably kill myself if I were one of the dancers.
okay this is just a clone of Civic, look at the mask and everything, exactly the same!!!
@hksduhksdu
I agree. It looks just like a Civic!
@hksduhksdu
I can see some similarities to the civic, but check out some different angles; it looks bigger and fairly different. I'm a Honda fan and not a fan of Chevy, but I have to say that the Volt looks better than the current gen of Civics.
Also, I think you'll find a lot of hybrid/eco cars will start looking very similar to each other. This is because they are usually designed with extra importance placed on reducing drag. The Prius' design has very little drag, relatively speaking, so a few other manufacturers have little choice but to "borrow" this design because it's so efficient. Take a look at Honda's redesigned Insight; looks almost exactly like a Prius.
Does it take Duracell?
@Geoff900
No.
@A25i so it doesn't have a 1.0 Litre engine that run on gas then... gee i must be wrong.... because if it did have a engine that ran on petrol it would be called a hybrid... just like most other car company's would all it...
@MusTang
Again a hybrid uses the gas engine to power the wheels when extra power is needed. This car never uses the gas engine to power the wheels. The drive train is not attached directly to the gas engine.
@MusTang Nope, it doesn't have a 1.0 liter engine at all.
Stop hiring stupid dancers and put damn thing into mass production. This car has been promise after promise. I doubt it will ever end up on a dealer lot for a normal person to walk up and buy.
In the US, oftimes cycling to work is not practical, due to weather, distance (e.g. Belgium is same size as MD) and overall safety.
What I find disheartening is the original push for full electric cars in CA at the end off last millennium. Read up about the GM EV-1, and see "who killed the electric car." It's so sad to think where we could've been today (10+ years later) with a high % of electric cars, running 200+ miles per charge.
@exNewt exactly, I laughed when I saw that this thing only goes 40 miles on a charge. why? so you HAVE to use at least some gas.
@gonintendo
Depends on how far you have to travel to work. I drive less than 3 miles to work (so when the weather's nice, I usually walk or bike) and my wife drives about 15 miles, round trip. In either of these cases, we wouldn't have to use any gasoline if the battery is fully charged.
On the downside, however, we live in an apartment ATM and there is no way we could charge a car like this. The simple existence of people who live in apartment complexes without access to power by their vehicles is why electric cars will, sadly, never become the norm.
@karmaghost
why then, are cars like the ev1 and tesla roadster able to go over 200 miles on a charge?
Ok so you all call it a electric car... so i will go with that a say it is a electric car with a petrol tank and a petrol motor ... but ok it is not a hybrid then.. but what does that make the Nissan Leaf then.. a battery car ?????
@MusTang
They are both electric cars. The volt has two ways of charging the battery. You can plug it in or use the gas engine when necessary. The leaf only has one way to charge it's battery
I hope they made this thing as a joke because it sure feels like one (i dont mean the car, I mean the dance and the song)
The dancers? Couldn't they just borrow that Japanese robot chick. It would have been less embarrassing.
What amazes me is that at least a few managers/directors, that get paid more than most of us, met to discuss the inclusion of this dance and paid someone to perform it and someone else to compose and sing that song. No one seemed to have objected at how cheesy it is.
It's just cheap looking to me. I just really don't like the design. I'd rather go with Honda or Toyota alternatives when they come out.
You got to be F#"## kidding me...
Put me back in the fridge please...
Really want the Tesla Roadster, primarily because it is based of the Lotus Elise, and weighs nothing at all, nothing at all, nothing at all!
Some fake dancing there.. >.>
Chevrolet bringing 10,000 Volts in 2011, or you could say that it is over nine thousand.
isn't it so ironic to plug in a car to your wall where the energy is provided by coal?
@walter164 Sure cuts down on shoveling the coal before going to work though.
@walter164 In our area the electricity is hydroelectric. Other areas get their power from nuclear reactors. Most areas can supplement their main energy source with wind or solar. Using electricity is more flexible and adaptable than gasoline. Also, large power plants are more efficient and effective at controlling pollution than individual ICE in each car.
"It's the Current of Change That Will Kill You?" Best. Title. Ever. Nice work, Vlad.
40 miles on all electric is great. How about if you have to drive and drain the whole tank, what's the MPG for the entire range?
@GeekPI No one really knows yet. Best guess is between 34 and 50 mpg in charge sustaining mode. But that only comes into play on trips more than 40 miles. This is the perfect car for me as I take longer trips about once or twice a month.
My only challenge is initial cost and the place to plug it in. This really isn't a car for apartment dwellers who have no garages to recharge in.
Awesome car! This VOLTEC drive system will defininately be my next car. Hope the will eventually make a Buick roadster version of this on the Z platform.
To the dancers, what you did there was very wrong hold out for that next job!
GM wants to compete with other "green" cars with this? No wonder they went bankrupt.
solar panels; $10,000
volt - after credits $30,000
telling the mid-east to go fuck themselves: priceless...
Chevrolet bringing 10,000 Volts in 2011, but it's the current of change that will kill you
as an electronics major, I absolutely love this headline.
shows overated...
i think consumer is more focused on the actual product launch and it's status and efficiency...
so far, it still does not impress....
I just don't think there is a mass market for a 30k$ econobox right now. Like people have said, this is basically a civic with a pile of batteries in it so you can feel good about your 80 mile roundtrip commute (maybe you should be looking at that first and foremost). The batteries just cost far too much for it to be practical, even with the government subsides (which will hopefully get taken away soon. Stealing from people to payoff "eco" companies or reward early adopters is not good).
And the wonders scale are not going to help much for a while. The demand for lithium batteries in consumer electrics already outstrips supply. What happens when we need vastly more batteries for the cars?
Even the Tesla roadster (which is a neat idea btw) is still a 40k$ car with 60-70k$ dollars in batteries in it.
They need to build a $250 charger that works off 240 Volts. If they won't do it, others will.
@BuzzMega
I believe I heard that a certain number of early adopters -- maybe around 2000 -- will be given a free charging station that puts out 240 volts. They will install it for free, as well. I'm not sure how much money it will cost to get the charging station outside of this free promotion, but I would imagine it would cost a bit more than $250, plus installation.
Electric bills all depend on where you live. In the city of Syracuse there is this little Village of Solvay. The rest of NY and other states rely on Niagra Power. Solvay has it's own hydro-electric plant and just services Solvay. I lived literally on the other side of the street from people getting Solvay power and I was paying 40-60% higher costs and was rarely ever home. Imagine if I was a home body using TV, computer, lights, cooking, heating/AC.
We need more Nuclear plants to service the countries power grid which has needed a physical, let alone power type, overhall for quite some time now.
Battery tech still seems to be the limiting factor here. lion batteries have advanced quite a bit from 500 - 1500 charges i the last couple years but 1500/365 = 10000 cars in the junkyard in four years
@clifdweller
Lion Batteries FTW!
$400 a month for electricity for just your house is not unreasonable if you live in a rather hot and humid climate. I pay that much and I keep the air-conditioner at 77F for the main portion of my 2700 sq-ft house and 74F for the bedroom that I sleep in at night. All of my lights are of the fluorescent type and I used natural gas for cooking and the water heater.
I will NEVER buy another GM product. I got screwed with 1000 shares of their stock when they went belly-up. Instead of the stock being worth next to nothing and still having the paper that I could at least *hope* might be worth something *someday*, they effectively *robbed* me by even taking that paper away. As far as I'm concerned, if GM goes out of business, it won't be soon enough for me. Hopefully they will take the unions with them.
What ever happened to the electric gasoline hybrid that was supposed to run fully on electric power, and use the gasoline engine to recharge the battery. Wasn't that supposed to get 3 to 400 miles per tank?