Chevy's Miraculous Volt to be Produced By 2010

Volt Photos

The Volt will be based off of the next Cobalt's architecture, but it'll cost GM a cool $500 million to adapt the Lordstown plant to build it. (Photo: Chevrolet)

E-Flex Chassis can feature diesel, gasoline, ethanol or even a fuel cell as the fuel source. (Photo: Chevrolet)

Isn't it shocking how General Motors wants the Volt to be on the road in just 36 months? (Photo: Chevrolet)

There’s a lot of hype surrounding the Chevrolet Volt, more than the so-called”Blue Devil” super Corvette, and more than the rebirth of the great ’60s muscle car, the Camaro. The Volt is one of those concepts that has everyone from showgoers to auto enthusiasts begging General Motors to build it, but not only because of its looks. More so because of its powertrain. The idea of using a small gasoline engine as a way to charge the batteries of a hybrid vehicle, rather than driving the wheels directly is a stroke of genius. But of course, great innovations sometimes need a little help. To keep the world focused on the wonders of the Volt, General Motors has just announced that it is committed to putting it into production … as early as 2010! Testing the many components used in the car is expected to begin by the end of this year.

Larry Burns, VP of RandD told Automotive News that the Volt was undergoing GM’s formal production program, just like any other GMproduct. He also revealed that funds have been allocated towards the research and development of the Volt, and that it would be built on the forthcoming Delta II architecture, which will be shared with the next-generation Chevrolet Cobalt and Opel/Saturn Astra. General Motors wants the Volt to be a world vehicle, a product that it can sell in the vast majority of its markets.

The great thing about the Volt as a world car is that the series hybrid powertrain is flexible to fuel type. Buyers in Europe prefer diesel to gasoline due to its efficiency and the advancement of the technology on their continent, therefore European Volts would be diesel-powered. In South America, where carbon-neutral E100 ethanol is popular,Volts could be powered by an engine that runs on this fuel. Meanwhile, here in North America, our Volt would operate on plain old gasoline, or even E85. GM is also planning to make a fuel-cell version of the Volt, and has China in its targets for this particular product.

With the recent news that Toyota overtook General Motors as the global sales leader, there is plenty of sentiment inside the company that wants to do things the American way. Even though GM intends the Volt to be a “world car”, it wants it to be built in the United States, showing that American technology and American ingenuity can still lead the way.

The tentative plan would be to build the Volt at the Lordstown, Ohio assembly facility where Chevrolet currently puts together the Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5. An early estimate pegs the tooling costs for the plant to accommodate the Volt at around $500 million.