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Chevrolet claims that development of the new Volt is on schedule.
Join more than 33,000 others who have expressed interest in buying the new all-electric Chevrolet Volt by signing up through Lyle Dennis' GM-Volt.com.
Dennis, a prominent enthusiast of the Volt, has been building a list of prospective buyers on his Web site in an effort to show that demand and interest does exist for an all-electric vehicle.
General Motors has stated that the first-generation Volt will travel 40 miles on battery charge alone and will cost $40,000, which is substantially more than most potential buyers on Dennis' Web site have stated they are willing to spend.
The Volt is scheduled to debut in 2010 and GM is racing Toyota to be the first manufacturer to bring a mass-market plug-in vehicle to the marketplace.
For more info: Why is showing demand so important? Rent or buy the movie Who Killed the Electric Car? and learn how a perceived lack of demand for electric cars led to the demise of GM's EV1 in the 1990s.
Comments
It wasn't "lack of demand" that GM perceived; it was BIG OIL profits that it wanted to protect when it killed the EV1.
No matter how many people get on the list, GM won't make the so-called "VOLT", except perhaps a few hundred sabotaged versions, just as it tried to sabotage the EV1 when it released it in 1996 with defective Delco batteries.
It was only the release of the HondaEV and Toyota RAV4-EV in 1997 that forced GM to admit that it wasn't the car, it was the batteries, and once the batteries were replaced with non-defective Panasonic PSB EV-EC1260 lead-acid batteries, it had a range of 100 mile and never failed.
There's no "race" for EVs; if the auto makers wanted to make an EV, they could do it right now, there are still 100-mile-range Toyota RAV4-EV on the road, last sold in Nov., 2002.
But GM is just plain lying. Don't be fooled.
Even in the 1980s GM knew there were electric vehicles that achieved 70 or more miles on conventional lead acid batteries. Ask me, I drive one! The '80s history of electric vehicles is conveniently ignored by the media as well as GM.
It took VW to break the lock the big 3 had on us.
The big 3 have been forcing us to purchase their "money makers" thus appealing to the unions and their botom line. Small and less expensive cars ruin their bottom line and don't support union benefits. They know exactly what they are doing....just follow the money. Don't be fooled, it's not about helping society.
Anybody who keeps spouting the "oil + automaker conspiracy" will keep the Volt down is very very confused.
GM is bleeding billions of dollars (their evil alliance with Big Oil is helping them how?). They have EVERY reason to build cars that people want and will buy. If people want the Volt, they'll build it. It seems that people do - GM will.
If you're "tired" of Big Oil conspiracies, ask yourself this: 5 years ago, the Toyota RAV4-EV was offered for sale, briefly and ending in Nov., 2002.
WHY, OF THE 12 MILLION VEHICLES SOLD THIS YEAR BY THE AUTO ALLIANCE, NONE ARE PLUG-IN?
All you have are promises; promises by a liar like GM, which won't even ccme clean about the EV1, and continues to lie about the EV1's capabilities, demand, and price.
The NiMH version of the EV1 went up to 160 miles on a charge, and GM now claims it can't even make an EV that goes 40 miles on a charge? Wait for it until 2011, and watch GM sabotage it.
Yes well... I consider them all hacks except the top 3 US 100% ev companies. Goss132, Tesla, and Phoenix.
Everyone else sucks. All that money those people have, and they talk about the 'difficulty' in producing electric vehicles, and yet the startups are doing it now, and better than they ever dreamed.
I don't trust the big car companies in an EV world. The way they conduct business is over with. It's finally time for the next big thing, and they are not it. They had their time in the spotlight. That time has passed.
N E X T
GM wants the volt to pay off their past mistakes, but at $40,000 retail price there are other electric car manufactures that buyers will go to.
Sign me up now!
What's the recharge cost? Need to know how many kilowatts of electricity are used to recharge to compare to the price of gas.
kilo-Watt-hours (kWh) is energy, while kW is power. The average home uses about 1000 kWh of energy per month; a gallon of gas contains the equivalent of about 35 kWh of electric energy.
An EV goes up to 6 miles per kWh; let's say 4.
To do 1000 miles per month would require, then, 250 kWh per month, or about one-quarter of your current electric usage.
Even better, if you had a plug-in car, the money you DON'T spend on gas would pay for a rooftop solar system large enough to power the car AND the home.
The average car gets 20 mpg, 1000 miles then costs $200 in gas and oil, not counting tune ups and so on; $200/month buys a 4kW solar system which generates about 700 kWh per month. But with Time-of-Use pricing, you charge the EV slowly at night and get paid extra for valuable daytime peak electric production, leveraging your production up to 4 times, more than paying for all driving and your domestic electric.
And the payments on your solar system, if financed, would be deductible; and the money saved is after-tax, and it goes to pay for hardware on your roof that you get to keep, instead of going far away to some coal plant's profit.
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