Production 2011 Chevrolet Volt leaked
9 Sep, 2008
55 Comments 
The Chevrolet Volt has caused quite a stir in the US and around the world as GM races Toyota to bring a next generation plug-in production hybrid vehicle to the market.
Its official reveal isn’t scheduled until September 16; however official images of the production Volt with members of GM’s executive team have been leaked onto the web.
The styling has been dramatically evolved from the initial Volt Concept whilst still retaining a futuristic appearance.
Unlike conventional hybrids, the Volt is driven solely by its electric motor, with an onboard combustion engine powering a generator which in turn feeds the Lithium-ion battery.
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September 9th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
About time the land of the free got their finger out.
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September 9th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Doesn’t look too bad, but the front styling looks too soft for Chevy though, I could imagine this with a Saab or Honda badge on it.
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September 9th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
This looks pretty good to me! Let’s hope they get it into production sooner rather than later.
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September 9th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I’m with Frenchie.
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September 9th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
It’s a knee-jerk reaction to the rapidly changing market, it’s late, it’s a niche product, it’s going to be very expensive, and its maker is staring bankruptcy in the face.
Let’s hope that it exceeds everyone’s expectations and is as reliable as a Prius, but GM will need a lot more than this car to survive the medium term.
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September 9th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Hot. Kick ar*e look and makes a Priarse look…..well like a dinosaur! Massive nice work Holden and Chev!
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September 9th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
If only the kind gentlemen would move out of the way LOL =p
Not a bad looking car, in my opinion.
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September 9th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I cant wait till the day comes when we all get cars like this and realy be much less dependant on fuel
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September 9th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Chevy is GM’s worldwide ‘family’ oriented brand. I laugh at those guys that stick Chevy badges on their Commodores.
The Volt is a great looking car and offers a stylish alternative to other cars within this niche market.
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September 9th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Looks 2000% better than the concept. I was not a fan of the volt because it seemed like a gimmick car, but now I understand how it works I think it will be a fantastic car, that is if they get the handling, reliability and build quality right.
It’s just that massive price tag that needs to change now!
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September 9th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
@Captain Mainwaring
Id hardly call this a knee jerk reaction given the gestation period of the thing. And besides, what would you propose? This is supposed to represent the new GM thats on the forefront of technology, other products will follow. I think its a great effort and is miles ahead of the mundane prius.
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September 9th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
excuse me… you are standing in frint of the car.
The frnt looks way better and overall i perfer this to te concept………………..except that wierd black trim abvove the doors and below the windows
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September 9th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
i may need glasses like the 3 men in the pics beacuse it looks ugly the rear i could live with but the front ??? looks like a camry.
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September 9th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
The concept car looked like a custom street machine, people would have been lining up like it was an iPhone launch. It was of course, a totally impractical design for everyday use.
This looks like a normal car, no-one will buy it for it’s looks so it better be good.
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September 9th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
At the front, is that a fake grille? looks like a piece of plastic with lines of the grille printed onto it.
Not a bad looking car, seems to have a different profile to the Prius and Insight, thought that was meant to be the optimised profile to reduce drag. However, it doesn’t look like a Chevy to me, it doesn’t even look American actually, which is perhaps a good thing.
I think it’s a good effort from GM, and it’s certainly the right move in light of the current market trend. Whether it will sell well is another matter, however i would be quite concerned about the reliability of the car, may be best wait for Mk2.
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September 9th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
looks like the front of a ford cross with a sabb. but overall it may look better in the fles. going on wat alan said about grille wtf it with that, it makes it look more like a drawing with that
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September 9th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Hard to believe they would make it with *those* side mirrors. Looks okay, would be nice if it looked more sporty.
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September 10th, 2008 at 12:40 am
Now im not a Hybrid Man, but that Chevrolet Volt, by far looks about 4 million times NICER then that FUGLY Toyota Prius, & about 3 million times Nicer then the HONDA FCX hybrid.
Oh & BTW, (for those who are interested) The Chevrolet VOLT CONCEPT, & another Chevrolet Corvette Concept with a body similar body to the OLD Original Chevrolet Corvette Stingray (no not the Z03) are to be seen in the Next & upcoming Transformers Movie.
Transformers 2
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September 10th, 2008 at 9:17 am
ugly. Its like they smoothed out the Chevy Cruiser….
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September 10th, 2008 at 10:31 am
its a mike simcoe design so ofcourse its good! Enough said really, he is a design genius!
The technology in this car is well ahead of the current model prius but so it should be considering the prius is a couple of years old and this is brand new.
As for reliability, i really don’t invisage too much of a problem their, people going on about that i really think are just trying to find something to have a go at GM about. People said the same thing about the prius before it came out lets not forget…
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September 10th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I don’t quite understand… I thought this car would be just a plug in electric car?
If so why does it need an internal combustion engine… Which would need petrol?
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September 10th, 2008 at 10:54 am
RoFlmaTiC- this car is what is refered to as a “plug-in hybrid”. What that means is that, unlike the Toyota prius, this car can run solely on the electric motor using electricity stored in batteries, charged from your home power socket. The only thing is that the range is not very large using just this power, I think its around 60km. That’s probably enough for a lot of people to get to work and back (although not everyone ofcourse) but when you want to take a longer journey, obviously a range of 60km is not much chop! So what happens is the internal combustion petrol engine kicks in and charges up the batteries. At no point does the internal combustion engine drive the car, the car always, 100% of the time, is driven by the electric motor. However when the electric motor’s batteries get low, it needs the petrol engine to act as a generator and charge up the batteries.
It’s a much better version of a hybrid then the current prius due to this feature as for local trips, going to work, basically anything that is a round trip of 60km or less, absolutely no petrol is used at all. And really, what percentage of the average person’s driving is less then 60km round trip? I know that for me personally I would say more then 80% of my car journey’s are less then 60km round trip. So on that basis it’s a bloody smart concept.
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September 10th, 2008 at 11:03 am
While the design is still pretty conservative, it looks much cleaner than the concept. It’s a shame this car is so far away from launch. GM could really do with it now. I also feel a bit like GM have all their eggs in one basket with this car, so here’s hoping it doesn’t tank!
The window treatment still doesn’t look right to me, nor the mirrors, but I’ll wait until I can see it unobstructed before I get too excited. The grille is a little bit naff too, but again, with time I’ll probably get used to it.
The question I have, is why is the petrol motor so large? If all it does is charge the batteries, not run the car why have a (rumoured) 1.4 liter engine? Even a Briggs & Stratton stationary engine would be capable of generating enough juice for the batteries. I guess all these questions will be answered soon enough though.
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September 10th, 2008 at 11:15 am
I guess its something to do with the amount of power required to charge the batteries. Obviously a single piston 20cc engine is not going to produce enough kw’s to charge batteries fast enough, or even maintain charge. See the engine has to act as a power generator, if the “power generator” only produces 10kw’s of power, then its hardly going to charge the engine very quickly. So to charge the engines in a timely fashion it then engine still needs to have meaningful amount of power. But a 1.4ltr low friction engine which basically only idles and will never need to do more then 1500rpm I seriously doubt is going to use much fuel! What I think will be interesting is how are they going to work out the ADR economy of such a car? Because in the first 60km’s it will use 0ltr/100km, and then beyond that 60km it will use maybe 3 or 4ltr/100km. How are they going to work out how to average that out?
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September 10th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Thanks for clearing that up Richo, makes sense now.
Hopefully this will get some of the other manufacturers acting… in the end its the consumers who benefit.
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September 10th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Golden rule says “energy in = energy out”. You cannot expect a 1.4 litre engine which probably gives 50kw to supply more than 50kw of power through the batteries unless the charge time is over a long period. Which then begs the question, when the car is parked and the batteries are low on charge will the petrol engine just keep running until the batteries are charged? So “Richo’s” question about fuel consumption becomes even more valid.
Conclusion, it sounds like a gymic.
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September 10th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Hello Tomorrow. This is future motoring. Once the technology becomes cheaper to manufacture you will see more products in the market. Two questions, what happens if it gets flooded? Is it protected some how. Or could you fry the whole thing. Second, what happens is you have an accident that exposes major wiring, would you get a shock?
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September 10th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
The Salesman - haven’t all those questions been answered by the prius that has been on the market for a number of years now? The technology involved is very similar, its only the application between the prius and the volt that is different
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September 10th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I agree with Tony M…. more of a gimmick than anything else….
does it have stop start tech too or is that not required since it would “apparently” run on battery alone for the first 60kms.
why not put a diesel engine which burns a lot better than petrol to generate electricity?
the 60km range, is that with the air-con and/or heating switched on? If not then what is the range once we start using the air-con?
As someone mentioned that the avg fuel consumption maybe 3-4L/100kms (i realise that this is just speculation) then whats the point of this car - as many diesel euro cars are getting that already and that too without the expensive battery…. and by the time this hits the showrooms this will be old tech already!
Even companies like Mitsubishi already have the all electric car running in Japan - Mitsubishi “i”.
Also, correct me if i am wrong, but doesnt the prius run just on electricity below certain speeds? am not sure what the avg distance is for which the battery lasts?
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September 10th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Ha, looks like an FG Falcon!!!
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September 10th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
This would not be practical for those who live in high density areas. Unless power points are installed on the curb side or in communal car parks you would be better off buying a car with a combustion engine. With a car like this you would be regularly filling up with petrol just so you can keep you batteries charged which I believe would defeat the purpose of the “Plug-In” car in the first place.
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September 10th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I laugh at this “new” technology.
Ferdinand Porsche’s first vehicle back at the start of the 1900’s was an internal combustion engine running four electric motors (one in each wheel hub). All GM have done is add batteries.
The Prius also has EV button allowing it to run purely on batteries for a limited time. This is nothing new but the badge will allow the technology to be more widely accepted.
BTW naughtyus…Holden had nothing to do with the Volt.
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September 10th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
You better get your eyes checked mate. Mild similarity in headlight shape and that’s it!!!
This production version of the Volt proves that you CAN make an electric/hybrid car look different without it being hideous.
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September 10th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Guy, guys,guys! This vehicle is still three years away. At best. They only just named their battery supplier who still doesn’t know how they will “invent” the Lithium Ion batteries! (cooling is a big issue)Plus the Price will be $40,000 US. (thats about $60,000) here.
Plus what happens if GM file for chapter 11 bankrupcy before then? (they are asking for a bailout at the moment from the Govt)
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September 10th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I think the front of the car looks like a camry :D
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September 10th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
all of the facts we have infront of hear are positive people, the only negatives people seem to be coming up with are 100% speculation! Lets concentrate on the facts for a moment, and the FACTS of the matter are that what we know about the care RIGHT NOW say that its quite a promising vehicle. In time as new facts come to light as it comes closer to production date, new facts might arise that make it less promising, but at the moment, things are looking quite good here. Even Dingo said in a previous post that GM actually appear to be on a winner here, DINGO SAID THAT! so lets keep some objectivity and concentrate on the facts, not idle speculation
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September 10th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
After all the conspiracy theories about GM killing the last electric car I hope all the people who believed that ACTUALLY GO OUT AND BUY THIS ONE.
They talked the talk now walk the walk.
15 years or more after the last one and much improved, people will have to BUY it to make it stay on sale.
I bet they will bitch that it costs too much, Well hello!! that is why no-one has sold them till now.
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September 10th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
LMAO MASSIVE…..looks like Camry. Lights do a smidgeon look like Camry and Falcon……as for rest is hot as and hope it sells massive as agree with Richo that under Mike Simcoe some cool lookers getting done. 3 Cheers for Chev and Holden for doing a top car!
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September 10th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
As for most on here…..they can get out of there “LUV ONE CAR MAKER BS MENTALITY AND WILL PICK AT ANYTHING TO PUT NEGATIVE SPIN ON A GOOD PRODUCT”. These people need a swift biffin to look at cars as a car enthusiast!
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September 10th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
that is “cant get out of there…..to above comment!
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September 10th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Here here Richo! Well said and agree fully!
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September 10th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
It’s a step forward for GM, but i don’t see what the fuss about it, hybrid is nothing new and plug in is just a small extention of hybrid. Plus, you still need to use petrol for anything more than short trip to the local supermarket.
In terms of innovation, I’m much more fascinated by Tesla and Mitsubishi’s i MiEV.
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September 10th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Smokin’R32:
When I say Knee Jerk I mean it. Dan Man has it right. Toyota and Honda have had hybrids on sale for nearly ten years, and here comes GM after a decade of assuring their shareholders that pickup truck profits would go on forever, finally admitting that they would have to do something about looking at alternative propulsion.
But this thing (whether it’s a pure electric or a hybrid is irrelevant) is too late, too expensive, too experimental and too limited in potential sales volume to have any real influence over GM’s unlikely recovery.
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September 10th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
U know whats amazing, its once GM, & Honda figure out the Hydrogen Filling stations for the GM HiWire (which was made quite a while ago) & the Honda FCX Clarity (concept Hydrogen version) all this talk about Hybrids, & plug in electric cars will all be gone. And im amazed that Toyota, the Mother of ugly shitty Hybrids still hasn’t developed a HYDROGEN powered car Like GM & Honda
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September 10th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Hydrogen is bull.
Not a dense enough fuel once stored in a car. It will go nowhere in my opinion as a direct fuel unless it can be spilt from water in the car which is unlikely to be viable.
The future is either Fuel Cell or Battery based electric cars
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September 10th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
SamR, hyrdrogen cars use fuel cell, so not sure what you meant by hydrogen is bull.
I don’t think hydrogen fuel cell will be utilised in the short term, more likely to be a long term solution. I like the idea of battery based electric car, but the range limitation will always be a problem.
In the short run, hybrid and plug in hybrid will be the solution, but in the long run, hydrogen fuel cell will become the dominant form of transport. However, all these alternative fuel vehicles are still quite a long way into the future, and until they can bring the prices down enough to compete with petrol powered cars, they will remain a niche product.
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September 10th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
ALAN, thx for informing samR that Hydrogen uses Fuel Cells, u’d think that someone smart enough to come onto this site & start commenting on a article like this would know what they are talking about. lol
NOW samR, & for anyone else who is interested. Im gona give u the links for 2 informative Clips of Hydrogen Cars. From probably the 2 best Motoring shows.
TOP GEAR
& Fifth Gear
Now for the top gear clip on the HiWire, if u wana get straight to the point. skip foward to 0:50 seconds play time
& here is the link
w w w (DOT) youtube (DOT) com /watch?v=hrp9N1soo0o
& for the Fifth Gear clip on the Honda
Here is the link
w w w (DOT) youtube (DOT)com /watch?v=pYgLukcssv4
FOR BOTH LINKs TO BOTH CLIPS copy them, then paste them in the address bar, get Rid of the spaces & REPLACE (DOT) with . & enjoy
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September 11th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Regarding hydrogen cars, I thought you meant the BMW version where they burn hydrogen, hence my comments.
I still think compressed hydrogen as the fuel in a fuel cell is not dense enough and there are other better fuels such as methanol.
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September 11th, 2008 at 9:37 am
the point about hydrogen SamR which i think your missing is that no one is saying its the best fuel available, but the advantage of it is that it is made from water, and emits water, therefore the environmental impact is nil and its 100% sustainable.
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September 11th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Richo
Yes it is a “holy grail”, Hydrogen that is.. But.
It take a hell of a lot of electricity to seperate the hydrogen component from water. A lot. Most of our electricity is generated from coal.. Around and around we go. You get nothing from nothing as they say. The question is which
is the least worst solution, not which is best.
The volt is good. But too little too late. that is a shame. I just dont see this comparing to the new honda or prius ii.
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September 11th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
DanMan - i agree that hydrogen isn’t the answer, i was just telling SamR what it was all about. I think Mitsubishi has it right with its Meiv concept, full electric cars are the future, BUT for the time being we just do not have the battery technology to allow a full electric car to have a commercially acceptable range that is also light enough and affordable enough for average cars. The tesla is a good case in point, yes its very very fast and has a reasonable range and all the rest of it, but the battery pack is still the heaviest part of the car and the only way they could make the whole concept work was to package it all in a lotus elise chassis. Now you can’t have a lotus elise chassis under a family sized car. Even tesla would admit that their car would be over 2 tonnes if it was a medium sized sedan as opposed to a small roadster. Additionally the tesla is still a very expensive car.
So in summary, yes full electric cars are the answer, but the battery technology to make them viable is still some time off. This is where GM have it right. They have made a full electric car in the Volt, however as the battery technology isn’t available yet to give the Volt an acceptable range on the batteries alone, they have had to put in a small petrol motor to provide additional charge. When the battery technology becomes available to give the volt the desired range, while also being light and affordable, GM can quite easily remove the petrol engine. This differs from both the prius and the Honda which both rely on the petrol engine to operate, the volt on the other hand can operate without the petrol engine all together, it just has the petrol engine to extend the range. This is where I think GM’s technology is superior to both toyota’s and honda’s. People have a problem with GM and automatically assume that if there are three hybrids, one from GM, one from Toyota and one from Honda, then the GM one must be the least advanced, its people’s natural perception. But in this case, the Volt really is the most forward thinking hybrid of the lot and is only a short hop skip and a jump away from being a full electric vehicle, unlike Toyota and Honda’s which are still fully integrated with their petrol motors. If the Volt had Mitsubishi’s in wheel electric motors then it would be truly visionary!
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September 11th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
sorry to go on and on, but it seemd that alot of people where writing off this car without even fully understanding what its all about and why its so different to the prius. I wanted to enlighten a few people of the facts here, that being that the volt is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT concept to the prius. And it’s a much better concept to boot
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September 11th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Hi Guys,
I like some of you also thought that hybrid cars would be an intermediate step between the future, which is hydrogen.
However, I think hydrogen as a potential automotive fuel will probably never match plug in electric cars.
www . efcf . com/reports/E04.pdf
To summarise that article, which is from the european fuel cell forums:
A car running on compressed gas hydrogen has a total efficiency of 22%
A car running on liquified hydrogen - 17%
Modern diesel cars - 25%
A hybrid diesel car - 33%
Plug in full electric car - 66%
I did notice that the article assumed the production of hydrogen would be from electrolysis (efficiency 0.7), and I think there are different industrial manufacturing processes that would be more efficient, but even if take away the energy loss from electrolysis you still only have hydrogen cars at 32% efficiency.
Hydrogen would obviously be more convenient though as you would presumably be able to fill your tank up much like you do with petrol/lpg, whereas a plug in electric car might take hours to recharge (at best).
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September 11th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
RoFlmaTiC - “refuling” a full electric car in a timely manner is indeed difficult, but i have heard of companies working on “rapid charge” technology with the eventual goal of re-charging a cars batteries in under 5 minutes. It’s all about the technology though, and how far away it all is. The volt is the first REAL car that bridges the gap between todays technology, and tomorrows technology. It incorporates the best of today’s technology and can be easily updated to a full electric car when the battery technology becomes available.
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September 11th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Richo and RoFLmaTiC, you are both right with the issues with using hydrogen fuel cell technology and fast charging batteries. Fast charging is a long way off, and typically relied on the use of supercapacitors to achieve it, however supercapacitors may never be able to store sufficient energy to provide the required range by themselves.
Yes, hydrogen fuel cells as a power source are not as efficient as plug in electric cars as a system, but where many people fall down is by not considering energy density. We currently use petrol/diesel because liquid hydrocarbons are extremely energy dense, petrol has an energy density of 13,500 Wh/kg, Lithium ion batteries have an energy density of 350W/kg. This is why the Tesla car needs 500kg of batteries, compared to the C63 which might need 50 kg of fuel.
So for vehicles that require long range, plug in electrics are limited. Yes battery technology will improve, but so will hydrogen storage and fuel cell efficiency. As for hydrogen, its energy density is 39,000Wh/kg, the difficulty is that a litre of H2 at 150 bar (similar pressure to a scuba tank) stores 405 Wh/L, because hydrogen is so light. So thats why the Honda clarity stores H2 at 2000 bar.
So you can see that as technology improves we will be able to store significantly more hydrogen into smaller cylinders at higher pressure, probably faster than we can improve battery technology. Hydrogen fuel cells can be easily refueled (same system as LPG), and unlike battery technology fuel cell technology is still very early on in the development process, it will improve significantly with time.
Yes to generate hydrogen gas takes more energy than if you had just directly put that into a plug in car, but if the energy source is renewable, then where’s the loss? If you power the hydrolysis with solar or wind, then energy efficiency is not as important, as the world has more than enough energy, its just we currently use extremely limited resources for energy. With hydrogen fuel cells, you are trading in energy efficiency of the system with energy density, and in this case, energy density equals range and power. Thats why I think Honda is on the right track with using hybrids as an interim solution while we get the hydrogen infrastructure ready.
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