Chevy Volt

At Electrek, we try to focus on all-electric vehicles and not plug-in hybrids because they most often offer only very little electric range.

The Chevy Volt is the exception with its 53 miles of EPA range. It is enough for most people to cover their daily commute and we often hear about Volt owners not having to fill up their gas tank in months or even years.

Now with the 2019 model year, Chevy is enabling you to use the battery pack even more with faster charging and less reliance on the engine. Expand
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GM today announced a somewhat minor upgrade to the 2019 Chevy Volt PHEV that will be available this fall.

Headlining the new feature set is an improved 240V charging system that will up the rate of charge from 3.6kW to 7.2kW or 16A to 32A. The move, which matches the charging rate of Chevy’s Bolt on Level 2, will give the Volt a full 53 mile EV charge in 2.3 hours according to Chevy. There is still no DC fast charging option for the Volt.

Other updates to the 2019 Volt include:

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Love it or hate it, wireless charging has been around for years. While stereotypically the technology comes with enough convenience issues to make most users question its superiority to traditional chorded tech, like any contemporary invention it has steadily improved over the past few years.

Earlier this week, a partnership was announced between Boston-area startup WiTricity and General Motors (GM), with the goal of developing wireless charging pads for electric vehicles. Expand
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The introduction of the Tesla Model X in Canada and consistently strong Chevy Volt sales helped the country reach record numbers of electric car sales during the last quarter. Canada now has a fleet of over 20,000 plug-in electric cars (BEV and PHEV) and added a record of over 3,300 electric cars in just the last quarter (July to September).

That’s 60% growth year over year. Expand
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Tesla hacker Jason Hughes’ idea to build a car from two Tesla performance drive units, a few Tesla battery modules and two full Chevy Volt battery packs doesn’t seem so crazy now. It’s still crazy, just not “so crazy”. Ottawa-based car tuner and car shop, Eurodyne and Tapp Auto, just released a preview of a new race car using a similar setup, albeit not as powerful. Expand
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GM announced today that it surpassed the 100,000 mark for Chevy Volt sales in the US – making the Volt the first plug-in vehicle to achieve the milestone. Interestingly, GM broke down the EV miles vs Gas miles driven by the fleet since its introduction in 2010.

The company says that Volt owners have driven “almost 1.5 billion miles in EV mode of a total 2.5 billion cumulative miles.” Expand
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When Jason Hughes, best known as the ‘Tesla Hacker’ who first spotted the upcoming 100 kWh battery pack in the Model S’ OS, retrofitted a classic Tesla Model S P85 with an entire Autopilot hardware suite, something Tesla itself refuses to do because of the cost and complexity, we thought we just witnessed the apogee of his ‘Tesla hardware hacking’ experiments, but we were so very wrong.

We learned a little more about Hughes’ latest project this week and it could prove even more impressive technically speaking than his Autopilot retrofit, and certainly more spectacular. Expand
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I’ve been forming my big picture opinion of the 2017 Chevy Volt over the past week and journaling the experience in a set of diary posts (1, 2, 3-4). It has definitely been a journey from my initial impressions to becoming extremely comfortable with the car in a matter of days.

Overwhelmingly, the 2017 Volt is a fantastic car that will fit into many people’s lives and probably be one of the most functional mass-market electric cars for the next 3 years. The numbers don’t lie – Volt sales are up while some EV competitors are down.

I say 3 years because I believe that is how long, give or take, it will take electric infrastructure in the US to be as convenient as gas – at which point it will become more convenient. Sure, almost every house, building and structure has an electrical outlet which can charge on level 1 or 2 (and the 2017 Volt does both levels of AC charging), meaning you wake up every morning with a full 53 mile “tank” of electricity. But to finally close the convenience gap of gasoline and frankly beyond, pure electric cars need to be outfitted with high power DC chargers and long range batteries — both of which the Volt lacks.

As a pure electric car owner, there are still a bunch of ski resorts in Vermont I can’t go to with my long range ‘200 mile’ electric car. To travel to my parents’ house in Ohio from New York, I need to avoid the straight shot Interstate 80 and dip down almost to Maryland to stay on the Supercharger route. Even going to an EV show in Montreal next month will require me to go 2-3 hours out of my way to stay charged up.

Don’t get me wrong. We’re close, but we’re not there yet with electric infrastructure. The case is being made but there are still many obstacles outside of the $1 Trillion dollar Oil industry.  For one, currently three different DC fast charging standards exist (Tesla, SAE and Chademo) so there’s work needed to either consolidate or build (more) adapters. DC charging will also speed up over the next few years. Teslas can currently charge at 135kW while most other EVs top out at 50kW. That means most DC charging “fill ups” will take at least 30 minutes.  But Tesla wants to take that down to 5-10 minutes by the time the Model 3 is released and has all but abandoned its under 90 second battery swap plan.

I’m currently willing to make these route/time sacrifices because I love EVs, clean air and my Tesla, but I don’t think mainstream users are OK with going hundreds of miles/several hours out of the way to make a medium-long trip electrically for the next few years.

That’s where the 2017 Volt fits in. Expand
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The fine folks at GM have given us a shiny new (OK, 500 miles) electric blue 2017 Chevy Volt to test drive for the next week. I’m keeping a diary of my experiences every day here and will wrap up the week with my conclusions. Catch up on Day 1 or Day 3-4.

Day 2:

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2017 Electric Blue Chevrolet Volt

The fine folks at GM have given us a shiny new (OK, 500 miles) electric blue 2017 Chevy Volt to test drive for the next week. I’m keeping a diary of my experiences every day here and will wrap up the week with my conclusions. (Day 2, Day 3-4, Conclusion/Wrapup)

Day 1, Delivery and Setup Expand
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I managed to come into a lease of a Ford Focus Electric starting in August 2013, and this is my review of my time with it. For a little bit more background on me, and my newest primary car, please check out my review of my Cadillac ELR here.

The Ford Focus Electric (FFE) is an excellent first all-electric car to market. Coming out starting in 2012, there was not much competition, and in my opinion it was the best all-electric on the market at the time.

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Earlier this year at CES, Seth and I had the opportunity to test drive the new Chevy Volt hybrid (okay, I actually just held the camera in the back seat) which has one of the best CarPlay screen we’ve seen yet. Check out our hands-on experience with the Volt’s very nice display from our test drive below …

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Yesterday AutoNews reported that Cadillac wasn’t going to be following up its ELR disaster with an upgrade to the 2016-17 Volt platform.

Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen confirmed last week that the brand plans no successor to the light-selling ELR.”I plan to continue admiring it as one of the most beautiful cars on four wheels” de Nysschen told reporters during a media drive of the forthcoming CT6 large sedan here. “But we don’t plan further investment” in the coupe.

I panned the ELR on its announcement and saw this date coming, especially with its initial $76,000 price tag. Instead of improving the Volt’s drive specs, Cadillac wrapped the Volt in a luxury design (which isn’t bad to my eyes) but with the original Volt’s lack of rear cabin space and 40-mile range limitations.  This simply wasn’t going to get ‘Tesla Model S money’…

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=105&v=Oji9NIqIqac

I have to say, as an EV enthusiast, these new ads from Chevy leave an incredibly bad taste in my mouth. Yes, the Prius’s NiCad batteries are older technology –and frankly as a Prius Plug-in owner there are plenty of vectors for attack on its battery system – but the Prius STILL gets better mileage than the Volt once the battery is used up, and the Volt’s battery ain’t that big. If I were making the Volt ad and I felt the need to attach the Prius, I’d point out that it is almost impossible to drive electric only with it where the Volt only uses gas on long trips.

Chevrolet’s global chief marketing officer, Tim Mahoney, said those ads have been extremely effective in helping improve Chevrolet’s brand image. Mahoney said Chevrolet’s “shattering perceptions” ads have bumped consumers’ favorable opinion of the brand by 3 percent.

The Leaf ad traps the focus group between floors in dead elevators, leaving them stranded there to emphasize the frustration of being stuck, a major concern for drivers of battery powered cars such as the Leaf. The Prius attack ads points out the car’s engineering is yester-tech.

The Internet ads will be cut down and broadcast on TV, Mahoney said. Volt ads will stress three things: The car’s 53-mile all-electric range, its technology and a combined gasoline and electric driving range of more than 400 miles. Most drivers, Mahoney said, will go between 1,000 and 1,500 miles between tanks of gasoline.

“We’re going to go head-to-head with Leaf and Prius,” Mahoney said. “The ads allow Chevrolet to talk in one way and they allow Chevrolet’s personality to come through. We’re going to be taking more risks,” he said.

In the below commercial, Chevy compares the Leaf’s 80 miles (guess they didn’t hear about the 100+ mile version that will be available in many places before the 2016 Volt) to the Volt’s 400+ with gas. I get it – but why not play up the bits about being electric? Expand
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GM CEO Mary Barra made a series of announcement today about the “future of personal mobility”, most notable of which a new plan for autonomous Chevy Volt to be available to GM employees to drive on private property next year.

A fleet of 2017 Volt equipped with GM’s self-driving technology will be made available in late 2016 for GM employees to reserve through a new car-sharing app and drive around the company’s Warren Technical Center campus in Michigan. Expand
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An updated production timeline for the Chevy Volt sent to GM dealerships leaked on the GM-Volt forum over the weekend. The new timeline shows that GM decided to push the nationwide launch of the new Volt to February-March 2016 instead of the planned November-December 2015.

Production meant for California should start right about now and then GM will include all the other CARB States; Oregon, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire from October 2015 to January 2016. Expand
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Electric vehicles are here to stay, there’s very little doubt about that at this point, but which automakers are making sure that EVs are not a fad, but a trend? A new report from EV-Sales, a website tracking electric vehicle sales through car registration data, compiled the top automotive groups selling EVs in volume. Expand
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It looks like a Nissan dealership either jumped the gun or is making claims it probably shouldn’t on the upcoming 2016 Nissan Leaf.  Andy Mohr Nissan (via InsideEVs/Green Car reports) publishes the following info on the 2016 Nissan Leaf:

2016 Nissan Leaf Changes

While there are many features that make the Leaf a popular vehicle, there is one thing it’s known for above all else: its battery. The 2016 Nissan Leaf redesign will bring a first to the electric car: your choice of two different batteries.

• The standard Leaf will come with the same battery as the 2015 model, featuring an EPA-estimated driving range of 84 miles.
• Drivers of higher trim levels will enjoy a battery with as much as 25% increased capacity, delivering a driving range of as much as 110 miles.

The majority of electric cars only feature one battery option, and by providing drivers with their choice of a lower capacity battery if they don’t intend to drive long distances, the new Leaf can find a home in even more garages.

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