Folks, remember that this car is a Version 1.0, compared to the Prius Version 3 coming out.

The price of the Prius is going down.

Prices of the EV-packs are going down.

The 2010 date? For just 1,000 cars, version 1.0, to work out the real life bugs.

Don't expect to be able to buy until 2012.

So much hype over a vaporware product.

The Mitsubishi iMiev will be available, and a better buy, than the Volt will be. Meanwhile, keep your old car an extra five years, properly tuned.
Or get a Prius.

Yeah, it's sad that GM is behind, but the Volt - even if vaporware for now - is doing great work popularizing series plug-in hybrids.

Even if it just ends up influencing other automakers, that'll be a net benefit.

I really don't get it. GM's all-electric EV1 had electric wipers, an electric stereo, an electric heat pump (with heat/ac), etc. It's not like GM is in completely uncharted territory here. The Gen 2 Panasonic lead-acid batteries used in the EV1 could keep the car (including the wipers) going for 75 to 150 miles. GM is only trying to keep the Volt batteries charged for 40 miles -- using far superior lithium batteries. How difficult could it be to reconfigure the EV1's electric system for use in the Volt? Can someone who knows more than I do about automotive engineering tell me if this is truly a valid issue? It seems like GM is just dragging its feet.

It's probably a question of cost. They could just make the battery pack bigger, but they'd miss their price-point even more..

It's just like going to the Moon.
All the people that worked on the Saturn 5 rockets are ... well the tech is over 30 years old.

Didn't they crush all the EV1s? Oh ... in their move towards the 'paperless office' all the info got lost in cyberspace.

Someone should have claimed an EV1 as stolen on their insurance and made replicas.

vsk

One of the problems is that we've had 100+ years in which gasoline cars were dominant, and 100+ years to perfect them, and now people are demanding electric cars that meet those same standards. I'm not saying that that's good or that it's bad, I'm just saying that's a problem facing companies like this.

I'm an engineer in the auto industry - we are supposed to be reading between the lines here, and the wiper and stereo thing is a lame excuse for some other issues. These issues could be anything from costs of certain components, to the undecided assembly location. It isn't necessarily bad news in fact, it just means that the program is now big enough and visible enough that GM's upper management is hedging their bets on how successfull the program will be, and who will get eventual credit for it if all goes well.

Wow. They haven't even shipped the darned thing and the're jacking up the price already.

That is a realy fantastic car

Price? I'm not sure I care as long as they make it. It will get cheaper in time.

Wipers, stereo? The engineering department at GM is gritting their teeth at the stupidity of this I'm sure. Ever heard of a class D amplifier? Their are available as after market car amplifiers, and I imagine at least some head units use them (they are so efficient they require little if no heat sinkinks, and heat sinks aren't cheap)

I'm losing interest in the Volt. GM needs to quickly push through a new model. Keep the 40 mile range and the plug-in hybrid concept. Drop the radio and all the luxury features. Steal the SMART body design and drop the price to just under $20,000. That's a car that I'd buy!

Let's see - the drivetrain probably uses about 100 kW, the stereo uses about 500 W and the wipers about 100W. Yes, I can see where the performance would suffer, loosing 1/1000 of the power to the wiper blades.
"Warning: do not crank 'Santana' solos on rainy uphills"

I know this has been mentioned before, but the Volt looks as heavy as a muscle car. Maybe they should start there.

GM knows if the Volt doesn't work well the first time it will hurt their image even more and it will give a black eye to all EV's. Does anyone remember diesels in the 80's. It took them 20 years to recover.

I would buy a Volt w/o air conditioning

I'm losing interest in the Volt. GM needs to quickly push through a new model. Keep the 40 mile range and the plug-in hybrid concept. Drop the radio and all the luxury features. Steal the SMART body design and drop the price to just under $20,000. That's a car that I'd buy!

Same here. I live in the city, so a long, low-slung car won't work for me. Of course, neither would a plug-in hybrid, so I guess it's a moot point.

GM is probably banking on the next presidency creating huge tax credits for hybrid vehicles that will bring the price of the Volt down to acceptable levels.

But when you compare a $35,000 Volt to a $25,000 Prius, it's pretty much a no-brainer.

So many people still want to attack GM for the EV-1. Look forward people and stock living with negative energy.

The Volt is a great concept and if GM can make it work then I expect we'll have dozens of EVs coming out from all over. Will everyone be thanking GM for forcing the market to EVs fifty years from now? I doubt it. Get off the complain boat people and get on board the future.

The drain of accessories on an electric car are not insignificant. During an interview Kristin Scott Thomas said of her G-Wiz that on rainy nights you have to decide between headlights and wipers. The exponentially increasing amount of power drawn by convenience items in cars, even since the days of the EV-1, has prompted the auto industry to consider moving from the now standard 12V system to a 48V system just to keep up with the load.

Consumers will have high expectations of the Volt. They will expect it to operate just like their other cars, but on a rainy night, with the headlights, wipers, electric heat or a/c, stereo, DVD player, and sat-nav on and cell phone chargers, ipods, laptops, etc. plugged in, it may have difficulty maintaining the load with its ICE range extender, much less going 40 miles on the battery.

If the Volt fails to meet buyers' expectations it could be a disaster. GM can't afford that. It is easier to apologize for a high price for something like this now than for browning-out or slowing to a crawl on the freeway later.

gl - moving to a 48V system won't fix the load issue. You get the same amount of watts from a battery whether its 12V or 48V. A higher voltage will allow them to use smaller wires, which will save a few pounds, but only a few. Higher voltages are really only advantagous over *long* wire runs which isn't an issue on a 10-foot long car. Safety becomes a bigger issue at higher voltages, since shock and arcing become easier. For all these reasons I doubt the accessory circuits on cars and trucks will ever change from 12V.

The primary battery for the drivetrain is a different matter, where large wattages demand higher voltages to cut down on heating losses. Those batteries are usually several hundred volts.

Keep in mind that GM didn't sell any of the EV1 cars, they were all leased, and GM lost/spent a bundle on the program. Had they been manufactured for sale, they likely would have cost as much as a Tesla roadster. The EV1, like the 1960s Chrysler Turbine car, was a test program, not a retail product.

The Volt (which, personally, I despise) is intended to be a retail product, thus the price reflects the actual cost of manufacturing.

I don't understand why GM can't explain it in those terms, maybe they should hire me to do their PR, and their new product development- I'm looking for a job...

Doug,

"moving to a 48V system won't fix the load issue. You get the same amount of watts from a battery whether its 12V or 48V..."

First, the battery isn't the limiting factor, the circuit capacity is. In this case "load"=current, which is what circuits are limited by with breakers, fuses, etc. You'll get 4 times as many watts from a 48V battery than from a 12V battery at a given current load. For example, a 15A circuit at 12V can only handle 180W, which can be used up fairly quickly. A 48V circuit at 15A can deliver 720W. In all likelihood, the 48V system idea will become moot with the proliferation of HEV, PHEV, or EREV systems, which as you mention are hundreds of volts.

Second, you seem to have completely missed the point, which was nothing to do with voltage, but that the load of additional comfort, convenience and entertainment items on cars has increased to the point that the industry was considering an entirely new standard, and thus is not insignicant with respect to maintaining the range of an electric vehicle.

cave man likes grog!

Chevy's not dragging their feet. Have you looked at their financial losses lately? They need this car out YESTERDAY. I think they will be a step beyond prius's if they get this architecture smoothed out sufficiently. Remember they are talking NO gas for the majority of commuters. We're talking some mighty clean air in Phoenix Arizona when enough of this vehicle gets on the road.