A hydrogen powered car with no hydrogen fuel stations, nice. Just stick with the gas engine, electric motor and plug in capability.

I don’t see how paying high home electric bills vs high gas prices is a step forward. What about people that live in apartments? Where do they plug in? I’ll believe it when I see it.

didnt GM also have another hydrogen / electric / hybrid car back in 2004/5 which looked really good and had a see through floor and you could change which side the steering wheel was but they didnt put into production? what was the name of it?. hydrogen is definetly the way forward not hybrids that have batteries that weigh a ton.

hydrogen is where its at

california has 30 hydrogen fueling stations either built or going to be built within the year

30 stations for 53 million people.

at least they are starting to move in the right direction.

Definetly the coolest earth friendly car ever. I mean u want this or a toyota prius?

^ Toyota Prius. Because the Volt is a figment of GM’s imagination.

The Volt looks absolutely incredible, the way it carries off Camaro-similarities while being an edgy compact is awesome.

A few points about a production version:

1. I hope they don’t throw all their efforts into the hydrogen version, I don’t think that’s going to go anywhere for a while, and it’d be a long time before there would be a proper infrastructure for it.

2. Make sure it’s a electric motor CHARGED by a gas engine! None of this crappy on-off-on-off with the gas motor like most hybrids. I wanna be able to drive it full electric locally like GM says it can.

3. Expand the 40-mile electric-only range as much as can be done while remaining practical. If GM can get it to move 75 miles on just the battery, they will put every other hybrid firmly into the dirt.

4. Make sure the battery is efficient, so it’s not just moving your $120 a month gas bill into an extra $120 on your electric bill. Make it cheap to charge!

So what’s gonna get cut to make this happen? Or is this deficit spending?

Either way, I think it’s worth it because it’ll make a pretty big statement if it launches well.

GM’s making a lot of news today, no?

@PrimeGTP: Your fourth point raises an interesting question…would that stop people from buying it?

I mean I think so, but I dunno what the masses would think.

Brendino, I feel it would be extremely damaging to Volt sales. The Prius gets away with being a lot less efficient than it is made out to be because the media gives Toyota a pass. If someone studied the Volt’s cost-to-own and found that it wasn’t saving people money, the media onslaught that would result would be undescribable.

it takes more energy to make hydrogen at the fuel plant then the fuel cell gives. In short… it will take about 60% more power to make your car go thus it will cost ALLOT more.

but do not fret! scientist are working on a synthetic chlorifil (stuff that makes plants food by converting sunlight) which will make solar panels more efficient and the hydrogen extraction much much cheaper.

by 2010 It can all work out… if science speeds up.

Volt looks like a beefier manlier American version of Acura TSX.

The scrubbers make coal cleaner if they are used. Older plants are not required to have them so power companies are keeping older ones operational longer so they do not need to meet those requirements.

roadmaster…..its 36.4 million in California, not 50m

Like the Prius, this will be a “statement car” and people who own one will deal with the problems associated with it. As to the comment regarding apartment dwellers and how were they going to charge theirs?? Well, I have a feeling that the price of the car will preclude too many apartment dwellers (at least initially) from owning one or having to worry about it.

GREAT JOB GM!!

Where are we going to get the fuel please GM? Are we going to cover our houses in fuel-making solar panels or what? Stupid people.

I’m sure Chevy will end up destroying the Volt’s styling by the time it goes into production.

GARY,
I hope not. Though more than a few details won’t make it to market. They said early on that the windows would be trimmed up a bit, and obviously the bumpers will be lengthened/deepened because a very large number of people don’t know how NOT to hit anything, and the lights will likely be made more typical than what is there now.

I love it the way it is but I’m not going to hold my breath. But if all they do is fix the doors and windows then it can’t lose.

Next stop would be to add a rear transaxle, slightly bigger generator and a rear motor for a cheap to build AWD car.

And for those who still don’t quite understand, you CAN – but dont’ have to – plug-in the car overnight for commutes to and from work, or run the generator to charge the battery while driving (that might take a while). The Hydrogen option is a possible upgrade years from now. But the VOLT is clearly a car ready for the future.

It’s not perfect but then nothing is. But this is better than what’s out there now.

blakkar i was thinking the same, you dont have to plug it in just run it as a hybrid. the wal mart by my house has 4 free charging stations, so i guess you can charge for free while shopping thats a bonus, and plug in parking is free for alot of areas in san francisco, you park and charge for free. its not much but its a definate start. i have been wondering why do they have the stations when there is no cars out there to plug into.

in some areas here in so cal io see alot of wind generators popping up on peoples property. their meter runs backward and they receive a check from the power company, the volt would be perfect for them, charge the car for free.

I’m more interested in hydrogen internal combustion and pure electric city cars than in hybrid cars. That said, this is a good concept/R&D car from GM.

…except that it’s front-drive and the placement of the battery section means a driveshaft would be near impossible for this car. What ever happened to electric motors powering the rear wheels via in-wheel motors or maybe just by using a conventional rear differential and independent axles with an electric motor bolted up directly?

As is always the case these days, you get greener technology and fuel mileage but you can’t get a traditional drive layout. I want both.

It’s not a performance car, FWD just makes sense.

The thing that many people overlook is that the car never needs to be plugged in. Yes it can be to top off the batteries, but if you don’t want to, or can’t have a home power grid set up, the gasoline engine(generator) charges them. the Forty mile range is so that a person could get around without having to use the gas, but has the safety of the generator to give it the 300+ mile range. By redusing the battery range means that enormous battery packs are unessesary, like some electric cars reducing cost and weight. As for the price Tesla estimates their high performance electric cars only costs @.02$ per mile. I wish I could get that.

That would be like driving a 30mpg car for 60 cents a gallon. I’d take that!

I remember them saying that like, if you spent $900 a year on gas this would cost $600 a year from your outlet? So yes, your electric bill would go up (duh), but you’d save money.

Hyperion,

With E-drive, or electrically driven vehicles, traditional drive trains are completely unnecessary. I brought up the rear transaxle, a transmission and axle mechanism not unlike say a C5 and on Corvette, because it would allow for the use of a simpler drive system (no reverse and fewer gears ratios, if any, needed), and no one has come up with a good solution to the unsprung weight of In-hub motors (motors mounted in the wheels).

This means less weight and cost. Simpler design and engineering, fewer parts to break and conversely fix if needed, resulting in an overall more durable device. For now performance is not a major goal but with say radio-controlled competitive racing, I have little doubt that third party companies will waste little time coming up with hotter motors, generators and some on for cars that just plain old give themselves over for tuning (or “modding” or “hopping up”).

Have a few models like the VOLT out there and it may not be long before full blown Serial Hybrid sports cars make their appearance.. and it may not be by a major automaker.

Settle down class, time for today’s lesson:

PHEVs and YOUR ELECTRIC BILL

In order to calculate the cost to charge the volt’s battery, simply multiply the capacity of the battery pack by the cost of electricity in your area.

Expected Volt battery capacity: 10kWh
X
Average U.S. cost of electricity: $0.10kWh
_______________________________________
$1

That’s right, $1 to charge your Volt for roughly 40 miles.

Don’t worry about electric bills going through the roof either. A recent report by the EIA says that off-peak capacity (at night) in the U.S. is enough to charge 230 million PHEVs. Cool eh?

Hydrogen? Seriously? Get off that. Well to wheels efficiancy makes it highly impractical from both an energy density standpoint and an economics standpoint. Not to mention infrastructure and boil-off concerns.

The only place I can see GM going with a fuel cell is methanol. If that’s the case then they know something we don’t. Like possibly they are “in” on a clean coal future in which coal is gasified and excess CO is used to make methanol. All the sudden there is only Utilities, Big Coal, and NO MORE BIG OIL. That means 2/3 of the big boys get to split 3/3 of the pie. Hmmm…..

guys you gotta remember many people would WANT to trade a $120 gas budget with a electric on easily. Why? Pollution.
Sure they might pollute to get the electricity, however which is better for the environment
A Bus or everyone bringing their car?

I just realized how good this new chevy front end looks

Until then, your best option for fuel economy will be the Chevy Aveo. By the time this thing gets to market, Honda and Toyota will be on their 4th generation hybrid, Honda will have a fuelcell vehicle already in production, the Europeans will have clean diesel technology on the road, and Ford will have more hybrids through out its brands.

Better late than never. That’s if it makes it to production; I’m not holding my breath…

Toyota and Honda tout Hybrids for fuel efficiency but are really being pushed as a very expensive alternative to Turbos and superchargers. Look at their latest LEXUS hybrids if you doubt me. The fuel savings is a minor side effect to using the Hybrid “synergy” system. When this is being used to promote fuel efficiency, it is usually in extremely small cars, the PRIUS being the obvious exemption among purpose built hybrids. Honda’s go at hybrid conversions of their Accord and Civic are all EPA rated quite well but as we know the EPA updated their standards and you can do just as well or better with a Chevy Aveo, or the base four-cylinder versions of many or these cars. Indeed the Civic HX (I think is was) did better than the hybrid Civic a year or so later at a a few thousand less.

Clean Diesel is an alternative, for vehicles that actually have to have large engines for now, and maybe smaller apps such as the generators in Hybrids. But even this is a stop gap to Hydrogen in the future, but that future will keep being pushed further back as fossil fuels are forced to really improve, until the cost of the fuel demands the change to Hydrogen.

Honda’s FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicle), of which their newest one is about the size of an ACCORD, is slated to sale soon. It will even include it’s own Appliance for making Hydrogen to gas up the car. This would seem to be a no brainer, but what are you going to do for a road trip and this car still is not well suited to work even as a taxi about town. The Fuel Cell replaces the generator AND battery so when you run out of gas you are dead. Only a few areas in AMERICA have Hydrogen and they aren’t very large either. FCV? Japan can keep it. A few European nations may feel differently especially after Iceland has made such huge strides forward. But Geo-thermal technology is no available to or compatible with all areas. Hydrogen is still not workable yet.

That itself is the fault of companies looking to make money for themselves and stock holders and “Geo-taps”, just drill a hole deep enough to make a thermal reactor using the planet’s heat, are not money makers, There is nothing to sell after the hole is dug and the facility built. This seems more in line with a government project than a private corporate venture, but our politicians don’t want to offend “big oil” or “big coal” by forwarding such projects that would put their biggest backers out of business, much sooner.

GM’s VOLT is the right car, it could come sooner, but if it means getting right, I’ll wait. Given this, a smaller car seems to be the best choice, and frankly not everyone is looking forward to a future of Electric powered or propelled cars. But that will change when gas is $5.00 a gallon or more.

But as My Dad says: “You can do what every one is doing, or you can do them at least one better.” The VOLT is that one better. I’ll wait for it.

I spent a lot of time the last two week test driving the Prius, Civic Hybrid, Saturn Aura Greenline, and thier non-hybrid competitors. The Prius was actual very spacious inside. The Civic’s interior was less flexible. Both are averaging real-world mileage around 45 MPG (see http://www.greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/ for owner reported figures). Both suffered from a performance penalty, but not much more than other cars in their class. By the next generation they should be competitive. After crunching the numbers we bought a non-hybrid Civic sedan.
The FCV will probably have limited appeal until the hydrogen distribution infrastructure is better established. From what I’ve seen, it will have a battery for regenerative braking and will have limited capability without the fuelcell. But it’s still ‘1.0′ technology…

^how did the auro feel???

This is a american garbage Mazda is working on a proto-type electric and hybrid model that will go 5 times as far as the Volt on a single charge.

For Right now I will stay with my Lexus Hybrid Model, but my wife enjoys the Ford Hybrid Escape as well.

The Aura felt ok, it came in the middle of the pack. Here were it’s plusses and minuses:
+ interior space: the most volume of all we tested, and the rear seats folded down (unlike the Honda Civic hybrid)
- heft/size: It was the heaviest and biggest, which affected its maneuverability. We live in Washington DC, so a ‘normal’ car elsewhere feels like a behemoth here in traffic.
- Fuel economy: even with the hybrid engine, it’s EPA mileage was less than the observed mileage of some of its non-hybrid competitors
- Price: Right now there’s little availability, so the dealership wasn’t budging on price (unusual for GM…)
- Reliability. Not necessarily a negative, but this is GM’s first hybrid system, so it’s an unknown quantity. Things that didn’t inspire confidence were the belt-drive and 4-speed automatic.
- Depreciation, maintenance, and insurance: more unknown quantities. Insurance was fairly cheap

Overall, it needs more time on the market before I’d consider buying it

Here are the cars we tested: Honda Civic Sedan, Hybrid, Si; Toyota Prius, Corolla; Saturn Aura Greenline; VW Rabbit, Jetta; Volvo S40, V50; Saab 9-3 2.0. It was a fun 2 weeks

I forgot the Mazda 3

Blakkar – You dad is a wise man I like that attitude.

On the Volt side of things… I preach a lot on these type of articles. I think we as society have the potential to do something great, and of course the alternative, something terrible. I embrace the idea of alternative fuels, it’s something we need desparately for reasons environmental, economical, and political. Better for the environment, easier on the wallet, and half of the world’s turmoil would disipate if oil weren’t such a factor. However, I see batteries in cars as the one thing moving this to the terrible side. How many hyrbids are manufactured today? In terms of market share, barely any. The mines that these batteries come from decimate their local environment. Read about Sudburry, Canada where the Prius gets it’s juice from. Now if the market moved to hybrids with batteries, how many more Sudburrys would there be? It’s not the right solution. Electricty, yes. Hydrogen, yes. Ethanol, yes. Nuclear energy, yes. Batteries, no.

hey i want my hybrid with a built in nuclear reactor, screw the gas motor give me some plutonium, talk about never having to refuel (just dont crash).

Tried that but I ended up back at home ten seconds after I hit 88 MPH!