Chevrolet Volt News
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It was a sad day. After three years, 34,752 miles, roughly 7,500 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and 327 gallons of gas, I said good-bye to my 2011 Chevy Volt last week. Its lease was up, and there was no one left in the family to drive it. I've been at the wheel of a Tesla Model S for the last 18 months. My wife, a fanatical stick-shift devotee, refuses to give up her Mini Cooper. And my 18-year-old daughter--the Volt's primary driver since I got the Tesla--has gone off to college. DON'T MISS: Tesla Model S Vs Chevy Volt: Owner Compares Electric Cars After three years of ownership, I've...
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2016 Chevy Volt Range-Extending Engine To Have 75 HP?
Electric power is only one part of the Chevrolet Volt equation. While it's a part that covers two thirds of all Volt miles driven, the other third is handled by its range-extending 1.4-liter Ecotec gasoline engine. The 2016 Chevrolet Volt is expected to downsize to a three-cylinder unit to boost...
Antony Ingram -
Who Wins Electric-Car Brand Battle? BMW, Tesla Have The Buzz Now
Sales numbers aside, are BMW and Tesla winning the electric-car brand battle?
Stephen Edelstein -
2014 BMW i3 REx Vs Chevy Volt: Range-Extended Electric Cars Compared
Until recently, the Chevy Volt was the only range-extended electric car available in the U.S. I've driven a Volt for almost three years now, and it's been a splendid car--quiet, smooth, peppy, and amazingly economical. New REx on the block But now the Volt has a formidable new competitor: the new...
David Noland -
Could Less-Pricey 2016 Chevy Volt Undercut Plug-In Hybrids?
The average new vehicle transaction price in the U.S. today is around $32,000. Now it appears that the upcoming 2016 Chevrolet Volt may possibly have two model variants, one of them targeting a base price of $30,000. That price could potentially equal--or undercut--every plug-in hybrid offered...
John Voelcker -
Chevrolet Volts In Fleet Use: Might As Well Not Have A Plug
Chevy Volt owners, and even Chevrolet itself, are usually quite proud of the amount of miles the range-extended electric car covers on grid electricity. The company said last week that 63 percent of all Volt miles driven have been covered on grid power, totaling more than half a billion miles...
John Voelcker -
The current 2015 Chevrolet Volt, now in its fifth year, will be the last of its generation before a revised and updated 2016 Volt is unveiled next January and goes on sale later in the year. But GM's first range-extended electric car turns out to have logged another minor distinction in its list of firsts: The Chevy Volt is, thus far, the sole vehicle in the entire current GM lineup that hasn't been recalled for safety reasons during the last seven months. DON'T MISS: All Green Car Reports news about the Chevrolet Volt This distinction was uncovered by reporter Nick Bunkley, in a perspective...
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2016 Chevy Volt Coming: A Look Back At GM's Range-Extended Electric Car (News Video)
The Chevy Volt has been on sale for three and a half years now, and it's never quite lived up to the big expectations that GM and the world had for it. But this week, the company confirmed that a new 2016 Volt will debut in January, at the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit...
John Voelcker -
Marketing For 2016 Chevy Volt To Be Rethought, Use Owners As Evangelists
It's no secret among owners of the Chevy Volt range-extended electric car that the innovative car's advertising and marketing has been muddled at best. Now, with a new 2016 Volt to be unveiled next January, Chevrolet's recently-arrived global chief marketing officer promises that a thorough...
John Voelcker -
2016 Chevrolet Volt To Debut At Detroit Show, First Teaser Photo Released
General Motors confirmed this morning that the revised 2016 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car will be released at next January's Detroit Auto Show. And the company released the first teaser image of the car, showing a more rounded rear to the liftgate of what will likely continue as a...
John Voelcker -
What's Inside Chevrolet Volt Battery Pack And Drivetrain? Video Teardown Shows All
There's a childish pleasure in seeing something disassembled to its component parts, whether it's a jigsaw puzzle, Lego set or an entire car. The Chevrolet Volt is new enough that you're unlikely to see too many broken up at scrapyards right now, but crash-damaged ones still give some individuals...
Antony Ingram -
IIHS Tests Small Cars On Small Overlap: Volt Does OK, Leaf 'Struggles'
One of the toughest crash tests a car can face is the new small-frontal-overlap, introduced by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in 2012. By crashing a vehicle so that only 25 percent of its front end contacts the barrier, far greater forces are transmitted through the car than in a...
Antony Ingram -
European buyers may soon have one fewer plug-in vehicle to choose from, with news that the Opel Ampera--European cousin to the Chevrolet Volt--could be dropped due to slow sales. The Ampera arrived to much critical acclaim, just as the Volt did in the U.S. While expensive--it hit the market at just shy of $60,000 back in 2012--critics praised the relaxed drive and its elimination of some of the electric car's traditional drawbacks, such as range anxiety. It even took Europe's Car of the Year title back in 2012, along with its Chevy Volt cousin--the second plug-in vehicle to do so, after the...
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2015 Chevrolet Volt: Bigger Battery, But 38-Mile Electric Range Remains
With widespread expectations that we'll see a redesigned second-generation model unveiled early next year, the 2015 Chevy Volt was expected to be a carryover model with few changes. And so it is, with one important exception: Without any fanfare, its battery capacity rose to 17.1 kilowatt-hours for...
John Voelcker -
2016 Chevy Volt To Get More Efficient, Less Expensive Inverter
General Motors is still hard at work behind the scenes on the next-generation Chevrolet Volt. We won't know full details of the car for some time, but one upgrade it's likely to feature is a new, more efficient and less expensive power inverter. According to Charged EVs, GM is currently developing...
Antony Ingram -
June Plug-In Car Sales Surprise: Ford Fusion Beats Chevy Volt
We've got used to seeing plug-in car sales inexorably rising over the last few years. Different models sell at different rates of course, but when one or two cars each month hit some kind of individual sales record, the growth is rarely remarkable. But every so often we're taken by surprise by one...
Antony Ingram -
Plug-In Electric Car Sales In June: Leaf's Best-Ever June, Volt Up On May (FINAL UPDATE)
It hasn't reached the heady heights of May's record-breaking sales tally, but Nissan still has the highest-selling mainstream electric vehicle on the market. Nissan rounds off the month's sales having moved 2,347 Leafs. That's 770 fewer than May's best-ever Leaf sales total, but it's still a record...
Antony Ingram -
What Improvements Do Owners Want From Next-Gen 2016 Chevrolet Volt?
Ask an electric car owner what improvements they'd like to see in the next generation of the model they own, and nine times out of ten you'll get the same responses. "More range", they'll probably say. "A lower price" is the other--even if you can afford an electric car, who wouldn't want to pay a...
Antony Ingram -
General Motors will perform free servicing to fix potentially low battery coolant in certain Chevy Volts.
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Chevrolet Volt Drivers Pass 500 Million Miles On Electricity
Chevrolet Volt drivers reach another electric-motoring milestone.
Stephen Edelstein -
Aerodynamic Tesla Model S Electric Car Wins The Wind-Tunnel Wars
Aerodynamics are a vital component of automotive efficiency. The more air you have to push out of the way to reach or maintain a certain speed, the more energy you're using. And the more energy you use, the less efficient your journey will be. ALSO SEE: Solar Roadways Smashes Crowdfunding Target...
Antony Ingram -
Mother-Daughter Team Installs Battery Packs In Chevy Volt Electric Cars
A mother and daughter work side by side to install Chevy Volt battery packs at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck plant.
Stephen Edelstein -
Chevy Volt: How It Really Works Vs Common Myths & Misconceptions
How badly does the public misunderstand the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car? Pretty badly indeed, if the comments received by Volt owners are any indication. DON'T MISS: Three Years Later, Most Consumers Don't Understand The Chevy Volt Last week, we wrote that Chevrolet admits most...
John Voelcker -
Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf Ready Second Acts (Video)
The Nissan Leaf electric car and Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid went on sale within days of each other back in December 2010. Now, we're expecting second-generation versions of both cars for 2016--and each will have significant upgrades. The most significant upgrade to the Nissan Leaf will be a choice...
John Voelcker