Chevy Volt thoughts

[goofy1]

I have seen several videos/pics, read articles blah blah blah. BUT it became very clear to me that this car will most likey never see the light of day in the market. Lets review the facts. the car is a so called hybrid car with the focus on electric part and not some much on the gas motor. They said that the car can go 30-40 miles on a single charge and if you drive more then that the gas motor kicks in to provide more electricity for the electric motor.....lets stop there for a second
30-40 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!!! come on the EV1 could do 70-100 miles on a single charge. To quote a famous tv show. "we have the technology" well they do. they said their going to use in litium ion batterys.....how many 2 car size ones to get 30-40 miles???? after reviewing how many batterys the ev1 had, how don't they just use the some amount of batterys and increase the mileage. for me 40 miles wouldn't get me home and back from work. not including trips the store and other things. Now one question i would love to ask Mr.President of GM. Can we BUY IT!!! unlike the ev1. there are several companies making ev cars. but the goverment is forcing them to limit their speed to 25-40 mph.(excluding the Tesla) I don't know about you all but this is just plain dumb. The material, the technology and DEMAND is there. whats the deal???? yeah yeah i know big corp. money is married with goverment. but the people(the masses,general public) are outrage, and corps. and goverment just stand there like, oh no there's no problem or we'll get right on that.....in the future.

Your thoughts??

[theholycow]

It's been approved for production as a 2010 model.

It competes with the Prius, not the EV1. The Prius can't go anywhere without using its gas engine. The Volt will get me to work on zero gas, and if I get to charge at work, it will get me home on zero gas too.

[goofy1]

I knot it's not competing with the ev1. I would like to see them increase it's range, i mean they could double it no problem. plus it could be just a lease only like the how the ev1 was. Me and my wife love the idea of a electric car or a hybrid with a "good" ranage. but where we live,work and do. we need more then just 30-40 miles on a single charge.but since we can't run electric cords out the windows of our apartment to charge the car, we'll have to wait until we can get a house.

[GasSavers_BEEF]

the extended range comes from the onboard gas motor. I was looking at a plug-in kit for a prius before I found out about the volt and cringed when I saw that the kit was like $8k and it didn't include installation or anything. I am sure that there are other places that you could get the kits cheaper but I was hoping for a $250 cord to attack to the prius. it isn't that it will do everything that you need but it will give you 30-40 gas free miles first. so you may only use gas for the last leg of your trip. the less gas the better.

I think the volt will be a step in the right direction though I doubt that the price will be as low as they claim or that the range will be as good (you can claim whatever you want as long as it is a concept). I think the long term affect as in competition or with that system in other vehicles will be more beneficial. I am still waiting for the production plug in prius. I think there would be a huge market for that.

[goofy1]

amen beef amen. mass production of a plug-in prius is the way to go. i think i saw the company you were looking at beeg, that calcars i think? some people who've had their cars fixed up by them to be plug-in are getting 100-171 mpg!!! not bad, not bad. thats stucking it to the man lol

[GasSavers_BEEF]

the only problem is you have to add a crap load of batteries to an already pretty heavy car. the volt only has one bank of batteries and I have heard that that the plug-in prius is going to have different batteries than the ones used today. a lot of this is speculation so we will see with time. I would pay 30k for a car that got 100MPG but I wouldn't pay 60k+ which is what is available right now with electrics and other strange technologies. I am not a poor man but the gap between me and the poor man is small.

[goofy1]

we'll have to see what happens. Chevy says production ready for 10' but not word yet set price or buyability.

[dkjones96]

They couldn't go all electric even if they wanted to. For most people 40 miles is plenty of distance for the work and home commute.

But, comsumers are kinda stupid. Even I look at it and say 40 miles? WTF? but, my commute is only 12 miles each way so technically as long as i only do short trips on the weekend I could go without using any gas at all.

When someone looks at an electric car that gets even 160 miles to the charge they'll wonder "what about that trip to Texas we take once every other year" they won't buy it just because of that. Taking out batteries and putting in a small gasoline engine means that the consumer that wouldn't buy it because of the distance they can(can't) travel now might.

I'd probably be guilty of that too. I take road trips at random and as much as I love the idea of dumping my car and getting a ZipCar account I just can't bring myself to do it. Mostly because I'm 11 miles from their lot at the university so half my time would be spent driving to and from the lot. Maybe when I live 2 miles from it it'll be better.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by dkjones96

But, comsumers are kinda stupid. Even I look at it and say 40 miles? WTF? but, my commute is only 12 miles each way so technically as long as i only do short trips on the weekend I could go without using any gas at all.

When someone looks at an electric car that gets even 160 miles to the charge they'll wonder "what about that trip to Texas we take once every other year" they won't buy it just because of that.

Volt's on-board generator FTW!

[Mayhim]

Pure electric vehicles are still primarily a second or third car, useful for little more than commutes and going to get bread/milk. You cannot jump in them and go three hours away to see Gran & Gramps with a load of kids & luggage. So, they won't be top sellers. Ever.

But, many will try to tell us they are what we want, aren't they sexy, and you'll just have to learn to live in today's world.

Vote me out. It's little more than a toy for the non-masses.