2007 Detroit Auto Show: More Chevrolet Volt Photos

We can’t get close to the Chevy Volt quite yet; the stand is absolutely mobbed. Not to worry, our photographer is on the scene. Until then, check out the supplemental photos GM handed us on a nice CD. They include plenty of interior shots of the funky, futuristic concept.

KickingTires' Coverage of the Detroit Auto Show

Comments

[Bob Hobart]

Uh. Not sure where to begin on the hideously ugly thing.
And just when you scratch your head about the exterior, you get a view of those interior door panels (!?) what the .... were they thinking? The whole thing is uninspired & looks like the 1970's view of the 1980's car of the future. wow. terrible.

[Tommy Blackston]

Wow, this design has a chance. Not bad at all.

[Michael Landis]

The seats remind me of the rumble seats in Disneyland's old "Mission to Mars" ride... I wonder if they come in different sizes to deal with different girths, or if 90% of the population will find them too loose or too tight?

[Dave T.]

Michael,
Those seats definitely won't make production so I wouldn't worry about girth. If GM does one thing its make comfortable seats for most sizes.

[Kitty L.]

I wonder if the Volt will actually make it to production or if this is just another way to tease those of us who would like to cut our ties to the gas pump.

[D. Lane.]

I would purchase this vehicle today. Come all the way through with this one GM. Deliver it to the showroom floor, and it's sold.

[Lil'Tom]

From Autobloggreen.com:
"In GM's development process, a program isn't considered a real production intent vehicle until a vehicle line executive is assigned. The Volt has a VLE in the person of Tony Posawatz, so it is intended for showrooms, not just the show circuit."

GM is just waiting for the price of the batteries to come down to the point where building the car will be profitable. The last thing they ever need is another EV1 fiasco. The only question is will they be the first to market. I wouldn't count on it.

Interesting side note: the Volt now has a page on Chevy's website which says the Volt can be configured to run on biodiesel. A diesel generator would further increase mileage and reduce operating costs without having any affect on performance.

[Dave T.]

It's not the cost of the ion batteries its the size/power that can be stored in them and to some extent their reliability that's holding gm back, everything else actually works. Its bad enough if a laptop computer catches on fire from a bad lithium ion battery but a bit worse if thats a car going 60 mph.
I think they have to build this or something like it. It won't be cheap though. I'd see this probably $40K in first gen. And they'd sell a lot of them.

[Lil'Tom]

Reliability is a certainly big unknown at this point, but the electric vehicle experts that I've heard from all say that sufficient Li-ion batteries already exist. Granted these people don't know the exact requirements, particularly the size requirement, but I believe that if GM REALLY wanted to produce a car like this now they could. However from an economic standpoint it probably wouldn't make any sense

[Frank D]

I am an atheist, but I am so excited and moved by GM’s E-Flex system that I am compelled to write:

"God bless GM if they make E-Flex a reality!"

This is a SIGNIFICANT step forward in technology and energy management; E-Flex cars could save the world!

Build it, and I will most certainly come back to GM!

[Dan Petit]

Vehicle designs such as proposed in the Volt are a matter of absolute necessity, yet, at the same time, even it they are $35,000.00, are a bargain if longevity would be *thoroughly* designed into them.
As an ASE Certified Educator, L-1 Advanced Engine, (I teach techs how to interpret scan tool waveforms from over 538,000 SYSTEMS), there are these following irritants which plague the motoring public regarding vehicles over 7 years and 90,000 miles:
1. Economic feasibility to diagnose and repair, (and consumer frustrations with): emissions systems, failed or interdependent electronics systems, excessively technically-designed systems, and requirements for excessively-technologically-specific testing equipment, all of which drop the vehicle's value, as word gets around about owner dissatisfaction regarding any given design. ("Bring it back to the dealer" is not generally what an owner of a 90,000+ mile vehicle is open to hear, given the overall shortage of bay time and diagnostic talent not universally-available, generally due to the excessively-diverse extent of excessive technologies.)
2. Now that a dozen or two of interdependent processors are designed everywhere in an auto, if these could be made service-friendly in all ways, (easy to diagnose, easy to repair/replace, and at relatively inexpensive costs), then there will be some long term interest in utilizing the auto as essentially an "equity savings account" such as have several Japanese auto makes provided for their customer/owners.)
3. If the platform is as variable as Chevrolet had in the era of muscle cars in the Sixties (you could order any of a half dozen engines), but in the form of user-swapable power plants to do any of a very large number of things, (not excluding an option whereby the generator could actually power several large home appliances in emergencies), then, what you would have is an incredibly variably-purposive investment:
1. An "equity-savings account",
2. Of course the transportation,
3. Perhaps backup residential power,
(your vehicle might power your friends'
travel trailer for a weekend), and,
4. In not buying fuel when not reaching the end of plug-in range of the battery, then, much more of your income stays within your bank account, and,
5. Your money stays in America, which finally, also is critically-important.
The number of advantages to such a vehicle could be the profitability-ticket of all manufacturers *IF* they are built well enough to hold their value, (which, from my perspective of 409 auto repair shop visits conducted over the last 3 years, needs to be as diagnostically-friendly as is possible, WHICH I KNOW IS POSSIBLE.
Publicizing warranty voids and details of it would help protect subsequent buyers from improperly/inadequately serviced vehicles, as well as the OEM. Such data should also be available as a NONSEQUESTERED DATASTREAM TO ANYONE WITH A SCANNER, such as
"Abuse Management Active/Inactive"
if it even appears at all.
Concerns about battery safety and thermal runaway with the new Nanophosphate Li-Ion cells (patented in USA at MIT) are alleviated as these A123Systems(.com) batteries do not have ANY discharge-thermal-runaway, and can easily be properly constructed to be always monitored by existing well-proven Electrical Vehicle Systems. Safety-Instruction Labels everywhere there is traction battery voltage would be a standard.
Dan Petit
ASE Certified L-1 Advanced Engine
Educator.

[Ted Wootton]

So GM, who couldn't leverage the subsidies they got to produce the EV1 to move on to a hybrid is now going to leapfrog Toyota and Honda and go directly to a plug-in hybrid? I doubt it!
I'll stick with my Prius until GM and Ford actually prove they can put something reliable on the road, and I see it happen for a few vehicle generations.

[Jeff]

The good thing about the Prius is that you avoid most of the losses associated with the conversions of Mechanical -> Electrical -> Mechanical. The piston engine can still drive the wheels directly. With a series powertrain like the Volt, you inevitably lose that efficiency. Although having said that, with the wheels decoupled from the gas motor, you can also have a highly-optimized piston engine that runs at, say, 2000 RPM at all times, and thus requires no variable valve timing or ignition advance other quirks of an engine that needs to operate from 700 to 5500 RPM. Maybe you could save more gas by having that optimized engine than you lose by converting mechanical energy to electrical and back again. And the engine would only need to be 30, 40 HP or so to keep the car moving in the absence of battery power.

Maybe this is another case of "Build it and they will come?" I'm sure tons of people would be happy to own a car that gets 120 MPG, even if they spend noticably more on the electricity bill at the end of the month.

They should also make sure that the piston engine starts up and runs every now and then - you don't want it to seize up just because it's been motionless during a year or two of 15-mile commutes.

[Little Joe]

Haleluhia! Maybe GM is NOT the devil, or Garbage Motor Company! This IS exactly what America needs, to get us out from under the threat of crazy-arab oil blackmail! I only wish they would push the timetable ahead a year or two.
But they had BETTER start to put quality FIRST, and stop designing the "planned obsolescence" crap that made me curse them jn the first place.
After I owned a first production-year Chevy Vega, I swore that I would never own a GM car again in my life. But if they do THIS well, maybe I'll change my mind and forgive them.

[Mark Goldes]

GM could adopt a revolutionary fuel-free electric drive

GM has an opportunity to lead the automotive world and build electric cars that need no plug-in, or any gasoline or diesel engine, or fuel cell.

The technology converts an abundant, renewable, energy source that has not yet ever been commercialized.

Often called Zero Point Energy (ZPE), it first surfaced in a 6 kW solid-state generator constructed by Hans Coler in Germany during 1937. Hitler's Navy supported the work. His laboratory was destroyed by an Allied bomb late in WWII. Coler cooperated with British Intelligence, which issued a Classified Report confirming his achievement, in 1946. 34 pages of the Report were declassified in 1979 and are now easy to find on the internet.

Dr. Robert Forward, a physicist at Hughes Aircraft, published a paper in Physical Review B, a refereed journal, during 1984 suggesting we could derive electricity from ZPE. In 1986, the USAF issued an SBIR Request for Proposals to use ZPE for power and propulsion. Nobelist Dr. Richard Feynmen, once commented that the ZPE contained in a seemingly empty coffee mug, if it could be completely released, would be sufficient to evaporate the world's oceans. The March 1st, 2004 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology carried a major article on ZPE. In that article, BAE stated they were seeking to use it to power Mach 4 fighter aircraft, etc.

Companies in Ireland, Hungary, Germany, Australia, China and Japan are developing magnetic energy conversion technology, as is our firm in the USA. All that prove practical will probably prove to be tapping ZPE.

We expect to convert a hybrid Prius, later this year, to a plug-in, using a kit available from Canada. It uses 1.8 kW from a wall outlet. Our plan is to develop a 1 kW Magnetic Power Module(tm) and have two of these Modules installed. We expect this will allow us to discard the plug. Perhaps 30 miles of driving will be possible without fuel or external recharge.

With further development, batteries can be eliminated. All cars can be fuel-free electric cars. They will require no plug or hybrid system.

Will GM lead the way?
_________________
Mark Goldes
Chairman & CEO
Magnetic Power Inc.

707 829-9391 direct

[eric huang]

First of all, I couldn't help but wonder how did GM manage to pack a 50kw generator into this car? I checked all the usual power generators and anything approaches 50kw is BIG and weighs several hundred pounds to over 1000 pounds. I assume we are not talking about a 1kw Honda portable generator here. I certainly don't mind to have one of this compact generator for my home!

Second, the battery: I have seen a Chinese Lion battery company "Thunder Sky"
"http://www.thunder-sky.com/home_en.asp?id=333&typeid=79&orderby=7"

that claimed to have a pure electric 40 passenger bus running with their Lion battery with a range of 400km back in 2005. Did I miss something? This company's Lion battery is also used for powering their navy's torpedos and submarines. They do have both US and European sales offices.

[Marc Striker]

The car looks interesting, Not pug ugly like a honda elemrnt of scion shoe box.

[VoltMan]

With more and more news coming out on the volt, I think Chevy is going to have a hit!

[Caroline Walker]

Hello every one,

I just saw the commercial so I had to check this out. As for the style of the car I have to say, Yea!!! Chevy!!! Nice!!!! Now this is a good looking car, inside and out, anyone who disagrees is an old fart. I just have two concerns, 1. that the cost to replace the battery would not be to high. Very bad. That the cost of electricity would go up because of the demand. Otherwise I would deffinetly lay my money down. :):):)

Sincerely
Rockgirl New Jersey

[lenny brown]

i heard about this car about a year ago and though that gm was full of it but it seams that they are serous about it but i,m still gonna wait ans see what happens but if they do come out with this i hope its before gas hits 5 dollars a gallon

[lenny brown]

i heard about this car about a year ago and though that gm was full of it but it seams that they are serous about it but i,m still gonna wait ans see what happens but if they do come out with this i hope its before gas hits 5 dollars a gallon

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