The Low Down On Green Living
August 11th, 2009
Chevy Volt To Get 230 MPG In The City
Stumble it!
If you’ve been surfing the web for the past few weeks, then you’ve inevitably come across those intriguing ads showing the number “23″ followed by a smiley-faced plug icon (or a “230″ if you see things that way). Some wondered whether it was some new smart grid product. Others mused that it must be some new tech company marketing campaign (Apple?). Still others thought it was a new announcement from an electric vehicle manufacturer.
Well, today GM announced that the Chevy Volt is on track to get 230 MPG in the city based on the combined performance of its plug-in electric / gasoline drive train. Some other interesting stats in today’s announcements:
- The Volt will drive 40 miles on electricity alone, and has a total range of around 300 miles per tank/charge;
- The battery can be charged using a typical home outlet, and a full charge will cost about $0.40 / day;
- MPG on the highway will be “in the triple digits.”
- The car should reach showrooms in late 2010, and will be in the $40,000 range. (At that price, will they be leapfrogged by a Prius plug-in?)
- There are also photos of a more production-ready Volt - not as futuristic as the concept car, but still pretty attractive (see below).
GM seems to be on track to solve the two biggest challenges (excluding cost) of the Volt: ensuring necessary battery life / performance, and perfecting the software that switches between electric and gasoline power.
Let’s hope that they pull this off, and that the announcement stimulates the competition to get more specific about their plans for plug-ins as well.
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Comments
Alex
August 19th, 2009 at 6:23 am
I hope no one thinks that they just invented this last month. It’s probably sat on the shelf for years. After all why make something new when they can sell the same 30-100 year old technology. America has no drive or initiative just the desire to keep the status quo. No wonder the car companies went broke.
Jackie Moore
August 19th, 2009 at 7:45 am
This is great, but the masses who need it can’t afford it. So it’s just another toy for the rich, like always.
Matthew Brenner
August 19th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
This isn’t anything that great….as a matter of fact it really is a lame attempt to make Americans think that GM has done something amazing….How can we all forget about the origonal EV1 made in the early 90’s, by GM, that was fully electric, was fast, went the distance and was easy to recharge. Lets not forget that GM took back these cars to destroy them and sold the technology to Mobil Oil Co. GM had offers of of crazy amounts of money by private individuals and groups, to purchase the leased EV1’s, all turned down so that they could be destroyed and forgotten about. As a matter of fact most of the auto manufactures came out with their version…all dissapeared….all because of the oil companies and greed……We should demand that these auto giants produce these cars. The only reason I want to see GM suceed is because we now own GM…otherwise I would like them to fall on there ass just for doing such a disservice to the environment and its human occupants!
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