As of now, there is no long-range, affordable, snazzy electric car available in the American market, but behind its factory doors, General Motors has rolled up it sleeves and gotten to work to put the first car featuring all these characteristics on the road by November 2010.
The Chevrolet Volt, as one reader astutely pointed out to me, has green-minded drivers everywhere buzzing. The Volt follows in the low-selling footsteps of the EV1 produced in 1996 (the failure is the subject of 2006 documentary film, Who Killed the Electric Car). But it is a smoothly re-packaged, re-furbished car that will appeal to many consumers this time around, and is one of GM’s top priorities now-with over 200 engineers and 50 designers working solely on the project.
The Volt is sleek, silver, and sporty, with 100 mph top speed and 0 to 60 acceleration in less than eight seconds. It runs entirely gas and emissions free for 40 miles on a battery, after which the battery combustion energy generator kicks in and extends the range an additional 300 miles.
While the battery combustion generator runs off gas, the car is not a hybrid. It only has one propulsion system-the generator supplies the car with electrical power. What this means is that GM is leaving the car’s design flexible, leaving breathing room for faster, better, stronger batteries in the future.
The car was slated to cost about $30,000, but GM executives have estimated the initial selling price to be around $40,000. While this is more expensive than the average car, several factors are expected to lower the price over time. For one, a tax credit of up to nearly 8,000 dollars will be available for the first customers. Also, Volt has a faster production cycle than the average car and manufacturing costs and battery size are expected to fall fast with increased production.
Not to mention, charging the battery (which takes eight hours) only costs an estimated 50-80 cents. At this price, if the car is driven entirely within a 40-mile range, about $1500 k will be saved compared to fueling a same size gas engine car. (see Chevrolet Volt website).
So how green is this car? The gas-engine is certainly a downer, but hopefully that will be eliminated with better battery technology. Another issue with the battery is they generally have a short lifetime and because they are toxic have to be disposed of properly-an involved process. Also, GM Vice Chairman Lutz thinks that by 2025 up to half of new vehicles will run off either electricity or hydrogen-about 50 million cars. (The current number of registered American vehicles is around 250 million). This would put an awful amount of strain on electric companies to produce electricity, which if it was still being generated from non-renewable sources, could cause pollution to skyrocket.
However, in terms of minimizing your carbon footprint, if you can’t be persuaded to bike everywhere, GM’s volt seems like a step in the right direction. Perhaps the best realistic step at this moment, but keep your eyes peeled for other players in the electric-car field, currently Toyota and Nissan are also in the midst of developing their own plug-ins…
