GM fuels electric car hype wars

Hyping Volt's claim of 100 km/litre...

The company that gave the world the monster-sized Hummer now claims it will deliver a plug-in vehicle next year so fuel efficient it will take you several times across the city on a single litre of gasoline.

General Motors Co., eager to shift attention from its near-collapse and racing to dump its image as a maker of petrol-sucking trucks and SUVs, stoked international debate yesterday by saying it expects its upcoming Volt to get an unprecedented fuel economy rating of 230 miles per gallon (nearly 100 kilometres per litre) in city driving. That's four times better than the gas mileage of Toyota Motor Corp.'s bestselling Prius.

"Is it hooey? Probably not," said Paul Lacy, a specialist in vehicle power components with consultancy IHS Global Insight in Detroit.

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How GM's failure will affect the Volt?

After General Motors Failure, will Volt still be released as predicted, delayed or simply be abandoned?

GM's bankruptcy and control by the US government will be decisive in keeping the Volt up float. Only time will tell if GM's failure will affect Chevy Volt, and while it might not be commercially viable in the short-term, any Research & Development of Electric cars is a long to very long-term investment that will inevitably produce good results, since the whole industry will eventually move to Hybrid and pure electric vehicles in the next decades.

The government might even try to sell the Volt to other interested parties, but I believe the end result will be the same, the Volt will come out to the public, even if delayed, with different looks or even another company using the Volt brand.

General Motors - Chevrolet Volt

The Chevrolet Volt is one of the first serious contestants, by General Motors, to be one of the leading electric cars in the world.

The vehicle is designed to run purely on electricity from on-board batteries for up to 40 miles (64 km), or about half the range of GM's first electric car, the EV1.
Unlike many other competing cars, the Volt can actually carry 4 people, unlike many other electric cars already in the market, and when the batteries run out a small internal combustion engine starts generating electricity to resupply the batteries, the vehicle's range is potentially increased to 360 miles (579 km) on the highway.



And an improvement over the EV1 with a top speed increased from 80 miles per hour (130 km/h) to 120 miles per hour (190 km/h). The battery pack size has also been reduced between the two, from about 300 L in volume in the EV1, to just 100 L in the Volt.
There might even be an upgrade to the Volt's batteries, making it go 80 miles (128 km) running only on batteries, in a near future.

The Volt is actually ahead of schedule for it's release in 2010 and General Motors will unveil a new photovoltaic roof option at the Detroit Auto Show in January. The roof will be able to charge the battery from 1/4 to 1/3 over 3 hot blazing days of sun, such as in an airport parking lot, and could function keep the A/C on when parked on hot summer days, avoiding battery draw to cool up the car when the driver gets in.

In the United States, the Volt will qualify for $7,500 tax credit. And in Europe it could get a tax cut in many countries, like the Hybrids are, if General Motors releases the Volt outside the US. The predicted cost of this car will be around $35.000