Chevrolet Volt News
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Range-extended electric cars are a great idea, mixing clean electric running for the majority of drivers' commutes, with an extra few hundred miles of gasoline running for those longer trips. As we alluded to last week though, the engine isn't always perfectly optimized for its task, often a standard car unit designed for standard car requirements. That could change with the next Chevy Volt and Cadillac ELR, which Edmunds reports may get a smaller, three-cylinder engine in place of the current car's 1.4-liter four-cylinder. It's part of a plan to reduce both the fuel consumption and weight of...
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EV Project Tells Us How Drivers Use Electric Cars
Just how do electric car owners use their cars? It's the question everyone is trying to answer, as it could shape how electric cars of the future are developed. Virtually every manufacturer with an electric car runs its own field trials or keeps data on its users' driving habits, but the EV Project...
Antony Ingram -
2016 Chevrolet Volt To Have Lower Electric Range, 30 Miles Or Less?
News Flash: The next Chevy Volt will have less electric range than the current one, perhaps no more than 18 to 30 miles. Or perhaps not. We suspect that a comment by Thomas Sedran, GM's vice president of strategy and operations, is going to be one of those off-hand remarks that creates far more...
John Voelcker -
Predicting Chevy Volt Sales: Is California Inventory The Key?
Analyzing electric-car sales numbers and prognosticating on them is somewhere between a parlor game and a black art. Now one blogger has applied some Nate Silver-like statistical analysis to try to divine predictive patterns in sales of the Chevrolet Volt, the range-extended electric car that's...
John Voelcker -
Plug-In Hybrid Specs: Advice On How To Read 'Em (From A Volt Owner)
We’re going to let you in on a little insider’s secret: when manufacturers are shilling their wares, they tend to favor statistics that illustrate their own version of the truth. As any politician (or car company) will tell you, you can always find a set of numbers to work in your...
Kurt Ernst -
Hertz Adds Chevy Volt To Car-Sharing Service, Targets Students
Car rental firm Hertz got in there early with electric cars, saying as far back as 2010 it would put the Nissan Leaf on its fleet. Several plug-in models have followed, and for its newest initiative, Hertz is targeting younger drivers. A Chevrolet Volt has joined the University of Connecticut's...
Antony Ingram -
The Chevrolet Volt is by far the best-selling plug-in car in the United States. Last year, it represented almost 45 percent of all plug-in electric cars sold during 2012. But how's it doing outside the U.S., compared to the Nissan Leaf--which is sold globally in North America, Asia, and Europe? First, while the Volt is sold in Canada, China, most European countries, and Australia, the number of sales outside the U.S. is small. Just 1,336 Volts found buyers outside the States during the portions of the year the car was on sale--against 23,461 in the U.S. Of those, 1,225 of them were sold in...
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Short On Chevy Volt Knowledge? QR Code Sticker Can Help
New technology is brilliant. Just look at smartphones, for example--the world's information in the palm of your hands, with the ability to talk, text and take photos when the mood takes you. Or the Chevrolet Volt--38 miles of electric range, with the peace of mind of a gasoline engine backing you...
Antony Ingram -
Bob Lutz: Volt's Electric Tech Should've Gone Into Escalade First
Ex-GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz played an instrumental part in getting Chevrolet's range-extended electric car, the Volt, to market. So important was his role that he's often considered the "father of the Volt"--but at the Detroit Auto Show, Lutz has said that he'd not have launched the car's...
Antony Ingram -
How Bad Were The Nissan And GM Electric-Car Sales Shortfalls?
If 2011 was the year of overoptimism for electric-car sales, and 2012 was Sophomore Slump after the inevitable shortfall, will 2013 be the year of realism? That really depends on what the world's leading electric-car maker, Nissan, sells this year. Let's recap. Several years ago, Nissan said that...
John Voelcker -
One Owner's Chevy Volt Running Cost: 2 Cents Per Mile
Chevrolet Volt owners love their cars. That's one thing we've realized since the Volt hit the market in December 2010. It's subsequently topped customer satisfaction surveys, saved a supertanker worth of gas, and driven over a hundred million miles on electricity alone. Now, one year after buying...
Antony Ingram -
Don't Like Your Vauxhall Ampera (Chevy Volt)? Simply Give It Back!
With the holiday season in full swing, many will no doubt experience the small disappointment of receiving a gift they neither like, need, or want. It's a mere inconvenience and probably won't distract from the season's high points, but it's a different story if you've gone out to buy something...
Antony Ingram -
If you bought a new electric car today, how much would you expect it to be worth after five years? Concerns about demand further down the line, and further concerns about battery life, initially led some commentators to suggest that electric vehicles would be nearly worthless a few years after purchase. That isn't the case, according to the used pricing experts--in fact, they barely lag behind regular vehicles. Based on initial purchase price, both Kelly Blue Book and ALG (via The Northwestern) say a Nissan Leaf will hold around 20 percent of its value after five years, the Chevy Volt around...
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Two Years In A Chevy Volt: 12,000 Miles, 26 Gallons Of Gas
Two years ago tomorrow, Jeff Kaffee took possession of his keys and became the very first person in the U.S. to buy a Chevrolet Volt. Since then, the retired pilot from Parsippany, New Jersey, has put almost 12,000 miles on his range-extended electric car--using just 26.1 gallons of gasoline while...
John Voelcker -
100 Million Electric Miles Driven By Chevy Volt Owners
Friday evening, when perhaps not a lot of people were watching, a virtual odometer ticked over on the Chevy Volt website. At that hour--about 7 pm Eastern--it showed that Volt drivers had covered 100,000,000 miles on electricity in their range-extended electric cars. (The actual total is about 25...
John Voelcker -
Chevy Volt Electric Car Has Highest Customer Satisfaction Scores, Again
Fewer Chevrolet Volt owners would buy another this year than at the same time last year, Consumer Reports has discovered. ...Of course, when that figure is still 92 percent (down from 93) and the Volt has topped Consumer Reports' consumer satisfaction survey for the second year running, perhaps a...
Antony Ingram -
Hybrid Resale-Value Leaders: Toyota Prius C, Ford Fusion Hybrid
It's good news for many owners of hybrid vehicles, who are not only enjoying great fuel efficiency but could find their vehicles worth more when they come to sell. The Ford Fusion Hybrid, Toyota Prius C and Chevrolet Volt all ranked highest in their respective categories for resale value, in two...
Antony Ingram -
New Onstar App Lets Chevy Volt Drivers Compete On Electric Miles
It happens already: Chevy Volt owners compare their lifetime electric miles, how long they've driven without using gasoline, and their lifetime gas mileage. Now Chevrolet is formalizing the competition, with plans to release a mobile phone app that lets owners register and compete with each other...
John Voelcker -
Navdeep Singh Pandher's driving test was a little different from that of most teens. He had to drive to the same standards and still needed to check his mirrors before making a turn. Instead, the difference was with the car itself--Navdeep has become the first driver in the UK to pass his test in an electric vehicle. As reported by the Hull Daily Mail, Navdeep took his test in a Vauxhall Ampera--the re-badged Chevrolet Volt sold in the UK. Despite learning to drive in a manual-transmission, gasoline vehicle, driving school chain Red was looking for someone to learn in an electric car, and...
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Onstar Will Let Chevy Volt Owners Share Their Data Again, Soon
Owners of the Chevy Volt range-extended electric car are often pretty technically advanced. Many are conversant not only with auto technology but also with apps and software analysis tools. Two weeks ago, the online Volt community erupted when OnStar abruptly shut stopped giving data access to...
John Voelcker -
2013 Chevy Volt Software Update Required To Avert Delayed-Charging Glitch
Yesterday, General Motors announced it will be running a ‘customer satisfaction program’ for some 4,000 2013 Chevrolet Volts to fix a software glitch that could cause the car’s electric motor to power down while driving. In other words, GM is asking all 2013 Chevy Volt owners to...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2012 Chevrolet Volt (Vauxhall Ampera) Drives From U.K. To France, Underground
Last week, the Chevrolet Volt became the first production car to drive from the U.K. to France, using the service tunnel of the Eurotunnel underwater railway line between the two European countries. What’s more, the stunt was orchestrated by Top Gear Magazine, the more measured, printed...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Forget Range Anxiety, Chevy Volt Owners Have Gas Anxiety
When General Motors launched the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid back in 2010, it chose to emphasize how it differed from electric cars by highlighting how its gasoline engine meant folks didn’t suffer from range anxiety. Now, almost two years after the Volt launched, charging data by a...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Judge 'Charged' With 'Theft' For Plugging In Chevy Volt Electric Car
For centuries, the role of Judge has carried with it a solemn duty to uphold justice, the law, and to ascertain which facts are true, and which are not. So when a journalist in Carmi, Illinois spotted a Second Circuit Judge charging his electric car at Wayne County Courthouse, they ran a story...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield