Chevrolet Charging Ahead with Volt Development

When it arrives on the market in 2010, Chevrolet’s Volt will not only
be the world’s first mass-produced plug-in series hybrid (which uses the electric motor as the primary power source, sort of the reverse of today’s hybrids that use the electric motor to assist internal combustion engines), but it’ll be
big news. Development on the car has been accelerated and GM’s
engineers are currently hard at work trying to meet a battery life
of 40 miles per charge and lifetime capability on the lithium-ion battery
packs of 10 years / 150,000 miles. The “generator” portion of this
electrical drivetrain system, for the first North American models, will
be an E85-capable gasoline engine, although diesel and hydrogen fuel
cell variants are expected to follow.

The
design has been more or less finalized on what the Volt will look like.
It will lose the concept’s four-door notchback sedan for a five-door
hatchback body style, which will certainly help to boost interest in
European markets, ensuring greater international success. The Volt is
also slated to loose some of its sharp and edgy corners in favor of a
softer, more rounded shape. A drag coefficient of well under 0.30 is
necessary to allow the Volt to achieve good highway fuel economy, a
reduction of 30-percent from the initial concept car.

Chevrolet
knows that the Volt will be special when it’s launched, which is why it
is giving its plug-in hybrid such distinctive styling. Besides being
identifiable as a Chevrolet, the brand also wants the vehicle to be
sort of a fashion statement, a similar type of trend seen with
Toyota’s Prius.