Chevrolet Volt News

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt MPV5 concept, Unveiled at 2010 Beijing Motor Show

    With the anticipated launch of the revised 2016 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car now less than a year away, expectations are that it will be a compact hatchback similar to the current model. Whether it has four or five seats remains up in the air, though the addition of a fifth seat would clearly bring more buyers than the current, somewhat snug four-seat model. DON'T MISS: 2016 Chevrolet Volt To Launch Next Year: What We Know So Far The challenge in adding a fifth position lies in the Volt's current T-shaped battery pack, which fits inside a wide tunnel between the left and right...

  • 2014 Chevrolet Volt
    Three Years Later, Most Consumers Don't Understand The Chevy Volt

    Chevrolet's range-extended electric vehicle, the Volt, has been on sale for more than three years now. Its sales of 58,000 units so far are still small compared to more conventional vehicles, but many people will have seen one on the road by now--and seen TV ads or information on the internet. Even...

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt  -  Driven, December 2012
    Chevrolet Volt: Range-Extended Electric Car Ultimate Guide

    The Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car has been on sale since December 2010--but it's still one of the most popular electric vehicles on sale. At the moment, the Chevy Volt is fairly unique in the plug-in car market, in that it's neither a traditional hybrid vehicle, nor a full...

  • First 2011 Chevrolet Volt built on production tooling at Detroit Hamtramck plant, March 31, 2010
    GM To Add Plant Jobs, Invest $450 Million For 2016 Chevy Volt

    New jobs and plant updates by carmakers often get little attention outside the towns involved, but sometimes they telegraph information about future models. The Detroit News said Saturday that GM is expected to announce it will update its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, spending $450 million and...

  • Vandalized charging cord from 2013 Chevrolet Volt, Venice, Florida [photo: M Cummings / J Brown]
    Chevy Volt Charging Cord Cut: Angry Neighbor, Electric-Car Hater?

    Owning a plug-in electric car, as buyers learn, is a process of educating the public at large. Mostly, people are curious when they see a car plugged in to recharge. But occasionally, uglier emotions come into play. That's apparently what happened to Matthew Cummings and Jennifer Brown. The couple...

  • 2013 Opel Adam
    Opel's New 3-Cylinder Engine May Preview Volt's Next Range-Extender

    It's been expected for some time that the next generation Chevrolet Volt could use a smaller, more efficient and likely three-cylinder power unit as its range-extending engine. Now, we may be getting our first glimpse of that engine, in a more conventional installation than last year's Opel Monza...

  • 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel, test drive in Hell, Michigan

    This year, 2014, is going to be the big test for diesel engines in U.S. passenger vehicles. It's the first full year in which two popular cars--the Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan and the Jeep Grand Cherokee--are offered with diesel engines as optional equipment, complete with higher EPA fuel efficiency ratings. MORE: Volkswagen Jetta TDI: Much More Mileage Than EPA Admits? And they're joined by additional diesel vehicles, too, among them the Audi Q5 TDI and Mercedes-Benz GLK 250 BlueTEC, both luxury compact crossovers. Chrysler refuses to say how many Grand Cherokee EcoDiesel models it sold...

  • 2014 Cadillac ELR
    2014 Cadillac ELR Software Gives Hints Of Future Voltec Uses

    General Motors' Voltec drivetrain, the range-extended plug-in setup used on the Chevrolet Volt and the new 2014 Cadillac ELR, is among the most advanced drivetrains on the roads. That's not to say there isn't room for greater improvement though, and that's exactly what GM is doing. In fact, as...

  • 2012 Nissan Leaf winter test
    Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt Range Loss In Winter: New Data From Canada

    Just in time for the holiday-feast season, we now have published charts that detail the effect of cold weather on the battery range of Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt electric cars. Think "range shrinkage". The data comes courtesy of FleetCarma, the Canadian company whose app MyCarma tracks vehicle...

  • Replacement mirror with aero winglets, black window-trim air deflector for Chevrolet Volt [EV World]
    Chevy Volt's Wind Thrumming Noise: Aero Fix Now Available

    It's become a common part of road testing: Get the car up to speed, then roll down a window to see how bad the drumming and buffeting gets. Never experienced it? Try it on your own car sometime. Now, it turns out, there's an aerodynamic add-on fix available to cure the worst of the thrumming...

  • 2014 Cadillac ELR
    2014 Cadillac ELR: Faster On Gasoline Than On Electricity

    The Cadillac ELR sounds like the perfect car for green-minded buyers after a little more luxury. Underneath is the Chevrolet Volt, a car rated highly by its owners and saving the U.S. millions of gallons of gasoline. On top, a stylish Cadillac silhouette and a typically stunning cabin. The only...

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt  -  Driven, December 2012
    Chevy Volt Owners Drive More Electric Miles Than Nissan Leaf Drivers: Why?

    Is it a case of picking the right electric car for the right job? Or could a lack of "range anxiety" really lead drivers to cover more miles? It's a kind of chicken-or-egg question, but it came to mind when our author Matthew Klippenstein sent us some data. On average, owners of the Nissan Leaf...

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt

    It's hard to picture how much fuel we use as a nation when given the raw data--the numbers are usually so unimaginably vast they lose all meaning. Just how vast is spelled out succinctly when we're shown how much we save by driving electric or hybrid vehicles. In the case of the Chevrolet Volt, that's seven million gallons and counting in California alone. Or if you'd like to equate that to a figure of some significance, GM says it's equal to shutting off gas pumps in the state for a full eight hours. Actually, eight hours doesn't seem like a lot, but then that's another sign of just how much...

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt
    Chevy Volt Plug-In Electric Car Development: Academic Study Published

    The development of the Chevrolet Volt is now the subject of a 29-page academic paper.

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt
    Is $35,000 Or Less The Threshold Price For Volume Electric Cars?

    The recent $5,000 price cut for the 2014 Chevrolet Volt has dropped the range-extended electric car into a significant price bracket. That group is the "$35,000 and under" club--occupied by every plug-in car on sale right now except for the Tesla Model S and the Toyota RAV4 EV. It makes us wonder...

  • 'Revenge of the Electric Car' premiere: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk on red carpet
    Elon Musk Talks Leaf, Volt; Unimpressed With Either (Video)

    Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] has every right to be proud of his creation, the Tesla Model S. It's snatched so many awards he probably needs a second office to keep them all in, and it's just been rated as the safest car the NHTSA has ever tested. When it comes to whatever the rest of...

  • 2014 Chevrolet Volt
    2014 Chevrolet Volt Price Cut By $5,000, To $34,995

    The 2014 Chevrolet Volt electric car will carry a base price of $34,995, a cut of $5,000 from the 2013 model. That price includes an $810 destination fee, but not any optional equipment. Chevrolet has "made great strides in reducing costs as we gain experience with electric vehicles and their...

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt
    Chevy Volt Plug-In Electric Cars Now Have Battery Cells Made In U.S.

    Over the next few months, the Chevrolet Volt will get just that little bit more American--as its battery cells are now produced in the U.S. Korean battery maker LG Chem opened a plant in Holland, Michigan two years ago, and production of lithium-ion cells for Chevy's range-extended plug-in Volt is...

  • 2013 Ford C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid, Marin County, CA, Nov 2012

    Ford plug-in hybrid drivers are really making the most of the electric range of their vehicles--with nearly 60 percent of trips done entirely gas-free. That's according to Ford itself, using aggregated data from the MyFord Mobile app. The most interesting thing is that as many Ford plug-in owners are driving gas-free as their Chevy Volt counterparts, despite the shorter electric range. One year ago, we reported how 63 percent of Volt miles are electric--suggesting drivers really were making the most of their Volts and plugging in wherever they could. At the same time, the remaining 37 percent...

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt and 2011 Nissan LEAF
    How We Became An All-Plug-In Electric Car Household

    Since November 2006, our family has always owned at least one plug-in car and one powered by gasoline. For almost two years, our fleet has been a Nissan Leaf electric hatchback, and a used 2008 Toyota Prius. After two years and nearly 42,000 miles of driving the Leaf, however, our once high-tech...

  • 2012 Chevrolet Volt
    2012 Chevrolet Volts--Just Four--Recalled For Brake Valve Glitch

    It just may be the most minimal safety recall in history. General Motors said yesterday it would recall precisely four 2012 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric cars to fix a potential problem with a brake component that could have safety implications. As reported in The Detroit News, the company...

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt  -  Driven, December 2012
    Electric-Car Price War Heats Up: Chevy Volt $5,000 Cash Back

    Last month, the Nissan Leaf passed the Chevrolet Volt to take this year's top spot among plug-in electric cars for sale. Now Chevy is fighting back. It announced that it will offer $5,000 cash back on remaining 2012 Volt range-extended electric cars, and $4,000 on 2013 models, according to...

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt  -  Driven, December 2012
    Next Chevy Volt $10,000 Cheaper To Build, Profitable For GM?

    Here and there, a few little tidbits about the next-generation Chevrolet Volt electric car are starting to leak out. The latest comes from GM CEO Dan Akerson, who told the audience at Fortune's Brainstorm Green conference Tuesday that the next Volt would cost "$7,000 to $10,000" less than today's...

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt  -  Driven, December 2012
    2014 Chevrolet Volt Orders Start In May, Two New Colors Offered

    Seems like just yesterday that we wrote about the very first Chevrolet Volt delivery--in December 2010, actually. Now the range-extended electric car is about to enter its fourth model year. So far, we don't know a lot about changes to the 2014 Volt beyond the addition of two new colors: Brownstone...

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