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The Chevy Volt has been hailed as General Motors' electric savior. Now, as GM officially rolls out the Volt this week for public consumption, we're told the much-touted fuel economy was misstated and GM "lied" about the car being all-electric.

In the past, and based on GM's claims, we've gone so far as to call the Volt GM's "Jesus Car." And why wouldn't we call it that? We were told the Volt would achieve 230 MPG fuel economy and would always use the electric drivetrain to motivate the wheels — only using the onboard gasoline engine as a "range extender" for charging the batteries. It now turns out that not only were those fuel economy claims misleading, but the gasoline engine is actually used to motivate the wheels — making the Volt potentially nothing more than a very advanced hybrid car and pushing some automotive journalists like Scott Oldham at Edmunds.com to claim "GM lied to the world" about it

opps topic problem

Sorry, they're wrong. Its a NEWLY ANNOUNCED feature that allows the petrol engine to power the wheels for additional power when the batteries are depleted. Volt still goes 40 miles using COMPLETELY electricity, and get still boast the super high MPGs when not using this new feature. Just media looking for something to rag on when really this is very useful feature to have on the Volt. Its not a full electric car nor a hybrid, so we have to stop classifying and comparing it as such.

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Is it a pure EV? Yes, for the first 40 miles. After that, no, it was never intended to be. Is it a hybrid? Not really, as it can run at highway speeds on nothing but electricity for its stated range of 40 miles, and falls back on mechanical drive power only under certain conditions, which is sort of the inverse of a typical mild hybrid. A plug-in hybrid? Sort of, if you don't mind blurring a few lines.

Why they didn't lie.

I think this is a wise idea. This way the car can't just die if there turns out to be a major electrical fault in the battery system.


2010 Honda Fit LX

i love this car

justin Sexton wrote:i love this car

Yeah its pretty awesome

Well if they don't like that its part electric and not as efficient as they thought GM should say fu(k them and put in a 18 mpg V6 in the volt. Innovation takes time, even the Hippies knew that.

I'm so sick of people that can't appreciate steps in the right direction because they want leaps.

I'm worried about the MSRP, as well as GM's ultimate ability to profit from this thing when it's all said and done.

Bring back the 3.1!!!! lol j/k

I think this car will be awesome overall. Just for the same price I prefer looking at an STi. lol

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I'm worried about the MSRP, as well as GM's ultimate ability to profit from this thing when it's all said and done.

Who cares if they don't make any profit out of it? The government will be there to sweep everything!

leaps and bounds http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/

Been out since 2008. A fuel cell vehicle sold to the public. It's great. I think this is the future of motoring.

kevo1586 . wrote:leaps and bounds http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/

Been out since 2008. A fuel cell vehicle Leased to the public. It's great. I think this is the future of motoring.

Fixed it for you
Also GM has done the same thing only with a bigger vehicle

was this available to the public?

MyKoup_owns_theZ wrote:Bring back the 3.1!!!! lol j/k

I think this car will be awesome overall. Just for the same price I prefer looking at an STi. lol

Hell or even a fully loaded Camaro 2SS, or a year or 2 old base Corvette. Both cars returning amazing mpg's from a V8....Or even 3 Kia Koup SX's A track toy, a DD, and a winter beater.

MyKoup_owns_theZ wrote:I'm worried about the MSRP, as well as GM's ultimate ability to profit from this thing when it's all said and done.

Who cares if they don't make any profit out of it? The "Tax Payers (i.e. all of us)" will be there to sweep everything!
Guess what, if we ever have to bail out GM again i will personally go out and savagely beat a union worker crying about his job, or health insurance. Then i will find the executive that green lit the Aztek, Volt, and killed Pontiac and bury him in a box outside of Vegas.



"Formerly known as Jammit - JBO member since 1998" JBOM | CSS.net

look at navigation. it started at the high end. now you can pretty much get navigatin in the cheapest cars on the market. if the volt works as expected they will move it down the line to cheaper models. its how gm does things.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sndsgood/ https://www.facebook.com/#!/Square1Photography

The volt is AMAZING. It may not be GMs savior by making HUUUUGE profits but i think if they develope it further and cut some of the costs, it will one day be a technology worth more than gold.

The thing is, is that those battery cells are SUPERRRR expensive. This is kinda wierd to compare but look at the Segways. They were a crazy new technology, but they were so expensive because of the batteries used to power them. I even had STOCKs in the one battery company that was trying to win the bid to sell to Segway.... I sat on it for years, it took a big drop, i pulled out, and a month later it ended up quadrupling the first day a month later because they won the bid... but thats besides the point.

another way to look at the volt. is if you drive less then 40 miles a day you in essence have unlimited miles. for me and my work where right now im not going out allot for surveys, round trip to work and back is like 15 miles total. i could drive everyday and not need any gas. the one downside to full electric cars is most on the market can't go more then 100 miles before needing recharged, in this day and age that will scare allot of people. so getting them started on electric but having that fuel backup to keep you going longer without having to recharge is a big sigh of relief for allot of people.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sndsgood/ https://www.facebook.com/#!/Square1Photography

Sooooooooooo if everyone is driving fully electric cars, how exactly does this help the environment when the majority of power is produced from burning coal? I know theres a lot of advancement in mercury removal from boiler emissions but few plants posses a lot of the harmful emissions scrubbing equipment.

And what would happen if EVERYBODY would own a 100% electric car. Will they raise the price of power? lol

mctoad wrote:Sooooooooooo if everyone is driving fully electric cars, how exactly does this help the environment when the majority of power is produced from burning coal? I know theres a lot of advancement in mercury removal from boiler emissions but few plants posses a lot of the harmful emissions scrubbing equipment.

true, right now most electricity is produced from burning coal. But we're adding more and more other means to produce electricity. More solar, wind, nuclear and hydro plants all the time. I imagine one day, probably in our lifetimes, we'll be using mainly renewable energy.

Call it whatever you want, the internal combustion engine has been out of date for a long time, even if this car fails theres alot that can be learned from it, cars must be made in a more efficient manner, we can do better, congrats to GM for taking the point and trying its about time someone does something innovative



1989 Turbo Trans Am #82, 2007 Cobalt SS G85