The Chevrolet Volt’s exterior design is both futuristic and aerodynamic.
The year is 2030. If General Motors and many other car manufacturers have their way, traffic congestion would be a thing of the past and internal combustion engines would be the exception rather than the norm.
20 years is not that far away, but can the automotive world actually get its act together by then? Hopefully.
In the meantime, GM has come up with an innovative solution in the edgy shape of the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in “hybrid” electric vehicle.
Essentially an electric car, the Volt enlists the help of an on-board petrol-powered “generator” for a driving range of up to 500 kilometres.
Chevrolet Volt’s cockpit has Cruze-derived bits, but they don’t detract from the high-tech feel.
Using just its lithium-ion battery pack, the Volt has a real-world range of about 60 kilometres (the literature says 40-80km depending on the driver and his driving style). This should be enough for most Singaporeans to get to work and back.
Even if your weekday commute is a round trip of more than 60km, fret not, because the Volt’s 198kg of 16kWh batteries can be recharged from empty to full in less than four hours, using a normal wall socket!
Don’t have a wall socket near your office parking lot? This is where the Volt’s 1.4-litre petrol engine comes in. The powerplant is not directly connected to the drive wheels per se. Instead, it’s connected to a 55kW motor-generator that simultaneously charges the battery and powers the 149bhp electric motor.
Depending on the state of charge, how heavy the throttle application is and which driving mode you’re in, the gasoline engine can come online to “improve” fuel economy at highway speeds or provide more juice to help the Volt climb up a steep incline.
Admittedly, the actual technical algorithm behind the patented Voltec drive system was not explained in detail at the media test drive in Shanghai, but it’s a moot point for most drivers, because what’s most important is how the Volt drives.
We first sample a fully charged Volt. Imagine getting into the car first thing in the morning, with the batteries fully charged.
“Start” the car and it plays a cheesy tune, which sounds bizarrely like a Corvette cranking up. The instrumentation then lights up, followed by an eerie silence.
Quietly select D with the conventional-looking shift lever and off you go. With 149bhp and 368Nm, the Volt is quite quick off the mark, dashing to 100km/h in 9 seconds flat, but don’t expect scintillating performance throughout.
You could have drove your Chevy to the levy, but the Chevy was dry.
Yes, it does have a bit more punch than, say, a Honda Civic at city speeds, but the overall drive feels very ordinary.
Ride comfort is average and, more importantly, the brakes feel like a normal car’s, which is more than can be said for some other eco-friendly cars with regenerative braking, with brake pedals that are either too mushy or too grabby.
Just think of the Chevrolet Volt in EV mode as a Toyota Prius able to zoom up to 160km/h. Oh, and the Chevy looks a lot better, too, thanks to its muscular stance and broad shoulder lines.
Chevrolet’s corporate grille has been reworked to give the Volt a concept car look, and this futuristic theme is repeated at the rear of the vehicle, where shiny LED tail lamps and a glossy black tailgate reside.
Plug-and-play-and-pay is how eelctric cars like the Chevrolet Volt drink their juice.
Inside, the dual-tier dashboard and white-accented centre console continue the prototype-style design theme, while two 7-inch LCD screens are standard.
One is a reconfigurable graphics display in the Driver Information Centre and the other is a full-colour touch-screen in the central array, which also features fingertip-activated switches and an integrated shifter.
My only gripe with the cabin is the lack of legroom for rear passengers, of which there can only be two as the batteries run along the middle “spine” of the Volt, preventing the fitting of a bench seat.
We didn’t get a chance to push the Volt aggressively over the limited test route, but with the suspension tuned towards comfort, most journalists ended up scraping the rather low front lip when braking hard or when turning into a sharp bend.
Garden hobbyists will like the Chevrolet Volt’s 300-litre liftback trunk, where plants and flowers can possibly sprout.
Chevy engineers on site explained that after many hours spent in the wind tunnel to achieve the best possible drag coefficient for the Volt, they concluded that the low-slung polyurethane lip was necessary.
No aerodynamic details were overlooked during the car’s development. The crease in the wing mirrors, for instance, actually helps reduce drag, while the slight upturn in the boot lid contributes to a low drag coefficient of just 0.287.
Even the audio system is a weight-saving element – part of the Bose Energy Efficient Series, the Volt’s hi-fi is 40 per cent lighter and uses 50 per cent less energy than a conventional equivalent stereo.
The lithium-polymer batteries employed in the Volt were developed together with LG Chem and have an 8-year, 160,000km warranty. With the Volt driven enthusiastically, these batteries were depleted after only 47 kilometres or so, sending the vehicle into “extended range” mode.
And this is where I think the Volt shines brightest. I’m a big fan of electric vehicles, having tried the groundbreaking General Motors EV1 years ago in the US, as well as the Tesla Roadster Sport in Singapore.
While the Volt doesn’t offer the “kick in the backside” surge of the typical electric vehicle at low speeds, it does offer something no other production electric vehicle has at the moment – crucial extra range when the batteries run dry.
Most electric cars today can go a maximum range of 150 to 200 kilometres before they need a time-consuming recharge. This is where the Chevrolet Volt’s petrol component comes into play. When the need arises, one can simply run the Volt as a petrol vehicle of sorts, with the gasoline engine boosting the batteries and basically keeping them running on empty.
Of course, doing so on a daily basis will defeat the original purpose of owning a Volt. But when one needs to drive across the Causeway to Kuala Lumpur or if there is no convenient power point with which to recharge the car, then this range-extender function could be a life saver. It’s the Energizer Bunny theory on wheels.
The Chevrolet Volt is definitely more practical in the real world than a pure electric vehicle.
For Singaporeans who “everything also want”, the Volt’s powertrain provides a workable compromise until quick-charging stations become as common as parking aunties in HDB precincts.
It might not be a full-blown electric car and its outright performance is nothing to write home about, but the Chevy Volt is definitely more fun to drive than your usual petrol-electric hybrid.
Its running costs are also significantly lower if you charge it regularly, like a (auto)mobile phone.
The potential market success of the Chevrolet Volt depends on its pricing, or whatever leasing plan the distributor and principal think up. One thing’s for sure – if “General Electric” ever makes it to Singapore, it will be easily the coolest Chevy in town.
Chevrolet Volt 1.4 (A)
ENGINE Voltec electric drive system with 1398cc inline-4
MAX POWER 84bhp at 4800rpm (petrol), 111kW (electric)
MAX TORQUE 368Nm (electric)
GEARBOX Voltec transaxle
0-100KM/H 9 seconds
TOP SPEED 160km/h
CONSUMPTION 13.6km/L (in extended-range mode)
PRICE INCL. COE Not applicable (as of December 2010)
What is the difference between a hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric car?
