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GM Volt? It Will Change Perceptions...Will The GM Volt Change The Other Manufacturers? It's GM's tilt at becoming the Green Machine of the future, and first looks are impressive... The car is in production in 2011, also known in the UK as the Vauxhall Ampera and in Australia as The Holden Volt as GM tests the waters to see how it will be received by buyers... It is the latest secret weapon from the General, and will likely take on the Prius and the Leaf and others... The main difference being that it has the capability to be all electric...depending how far you need to drive daily The drive is strictly from an electric motor, which pumps out 120 kw to the wheels... 40 miles of driving from the fully charged Volt's battery packs, at this stage, they are Lithium-Ion with Nano-Phosphate, and will be charged by the on board charger unit, which is a flex fuel Gasoline engine... The main reason that the manufacturers have been slow to produce these cars is the batteries... Because they don't make the packs themselves, the makers have been reluctant to tool up to produce cars which contain a high proportion of outsourced product. Previously, the manufacturers enjoyed the monopoly of producing their own gasoline engines... No longer because, with the advent of electric cars, their previous cost advantage is now gone. Up to to a third of the cost of an electric car IS in the batteries... And they are VERY expensive, which offsets the much cheaper cost of building n electric car... And the cost of a pack for the Volt will be in the range of $10,000 and that must and will come down for them to be really competitive against the cheaper Gasoline or Diesel cars... |
