2011 Chevrolet Volt Review

Running right on the ragged edge of badly overhyped, here's the production Volt.

2011 Chevrolet Volt Review Well, here it is the Chevy Volt we're actually going to get in the United States. A production trim version of the vehicle that is the most hyped thing coming out of General Motors, period, right now. You know how it works. It's a range extended electric vehicle. What we're learning are a few more details about how it's going to hit the market. First of all, California gets it first because they know two things. One, Californians like new ideas in cars and two, Californians don't really like Chevys a whole lot so this might change some perceptions, at least they hope. By the time it does launch in the very, very tail end of 2010, they hope to have about 500 charging stations around California working with various municipalities, business parks, commercial buildings and of course some residences as well. Now the center stack here I'm a little bit dubious of. I can't imagine this really going into production. This is a very different looking feel than anything else GM does right now. Kind of IPod meets Wii in a sense. We'll see if this kind of very different interface makes it to production. That big wide lever at the bottom that is the gear shift you'd pull back and as you can see it's an interesting sort of a contact touch interface to work the buttons. In the center in front of the steering wheel you've got this largely visual or video based LCD gauge system and that's got all kinds of indications of how greenly you're driving prompting you kind of like the smart gauge in the Ford vehicle to drive more efficiently and you get kind of some bennies from it if you do. You'll also be able to access this car. A set of charging behaviors and unlock the doors and such via remote connection on a smart phone. In the rear, you'll find some interesting use of space. There's a rather dramatic glass backlight over here that looks right down into the seats kind of like a fast back Mustang or an earlier Camaro and of course a pretty decent amount of trunk space, you know, cargo area space in the tail end. If anything I find the car is a little smaller in person than it looks in photographs, so be wary of that and it's based on the same basic platform as the Chevy Cruze which is a pretty small car though this is being aimed as a family vehicle. Pricing is still rumored to be about $40,000.00 and perhaps qualify for as much as a $7,500.00 Federal credit. That will make it manageable. Otherwise, this might be a tough sell. It's a $40,000.00 car.