It is not very often that I am consumed by the test car I have, and the technology it has to offer. The vehicle in this case is Chevrolet’s Volt, a General Motors hybrid electric/gas vehicle. I have seen the car at the General Motors offices and have been looking forward to test driving it for a while.
What makes the Volt a little different is that it can in affect run solely on electric power and get its recharge from your home’s electrical system. Like other hybrids, the Volt has an engine, a battery system and runs on gas and electricity. But in the case of the Volt, the vehicle will run about 60km on a full charge before you ever need to plug it in or switch over to the gas powered engine.
Operating the Volt is a fairly simple procedure. A special power cord comes with the car that allows you to just plug it into a regular house plug. The car has its own built-in charger to correct the voltage for the car’s batteries. A full 60km charge took about 10 to 12 hours, which I did at night. The car is fully automatic and turns the charge off when no power is needed. A fast charger unit can be purchased at an extra cost but needs 220 volts of house current, which all houses have, wired separately.
GM did a study on how much the average person drives in a day, and used their calculations to ensure that the Volt could run a fully electric charge for about 60km (average). During the time I had the Volt, GM’s calculations for distance were right on. So if you lived, let’s say 20km from work, you could commute to and from work with ease and have a little distance to spare. Even with the air conditioning turned on, the total distance one could travel only dropped into the mid 50km range.
As we all know, city stop and go driving is where most of the fuel is used up. For those who might commute longer distances, GM recommends travelling to the highway on electric and then switching to the 1.4L gas engine to travel on the highway, then back to gas or electric off the highway.
In the 10 days I had the car, in which I did two runs with the gas engine, it amounted to about 55km and I used about 3-litres of gas. Running around town I put about 200km on the car and I am guessing maybe $4 in electricity.
Since I picked up the Volt early, the car’s batteries were uncharged but the tank was full of gas, which allowed me to experience the electric/gas switch. As the battery power ran down (screen on dash shows all functions), the engine kicked in seamlessly while on the move.
The engine was that quiet that I had to look at the dash to realize the computer in the car had switched me over to the engine.
I thought I might be disappointed with the performance of the car, but I have to say I was impressed. The batteries set low in the car gave it great weight distribution making handling very good. On battery power around town, power came on instantly, which is something electric cars are noted for. In a test run I easily hit 150kph without any problem.
I never expected to say I enjoyed driving this car, but I did a lot. It did everything well and didn’t cost much to drive. Price for the Volt is about $41,000 and with a $5,000 rebate from the government of British Columbia (different rates for different provinces), that brings the price to about $36,000.
By Glen Konorowski