Volt Birth Watch 49: Due Date Announced! Voila Paris?
Channel 4 reports that GM will unveil their Next Big Thing, the Hail Mary upon which The General's hope for an American ressurrection reside, in Paris. Oui, c'est la vérité! "Chevrolet will also make an announcement in Paris [this autumn] over production of the Volt- another car on the Delta platform. The Volt will be seen in Paris in US production specification, with its electric powertrain and auxiliary petrol engine said to be very similar to that of the original concept. GM is planning also to offer a version with a diesel engine, as in last year's Opel Flextreme concept; this may be sold as a Vauxhall or Opel, with the petrol-electric Volt taking the Chevy badge." So, a diesel Volt avec un peu de badge engineering. More importantly, we'll finally get to see the discrepancy between the chopped show car's heavily advertised look and the production-ready hybrid's design. Frank's money is on a new Malibu-esque retread. Can GM Car Czar Bob Lutz sing? Why or why do I love Paris? Because my love is near. [thanks to Dinu Uscatu for the link]
Comments
Join the conversation
Anyone catch Autoline Detroit over the weekend? They toured Honda's R&D facility, which had a demo of a home-based hydrogen plant and refueling station, powered by a roof's worth of solar cells. Looks very interesting, especially providing just plain electricity, instead of hydrogen.
If these things come online and the price of electricity goes up, then simply add solar to your rooftop. At least that way you control the cost of your lifestyle and not Wall Street. I too really hope GM does this and then doesn't recall of them for crushing... Yeah, I know - they are selling them, not leasing them.
Seeing that plug in the picture reminds me of the "magic sauce" the Volt really needs. It needs some sort of automatic way to plug in and unplug (at least as an option). Perhaps you install a charging station in your garage that has a plug at a certain fixed height exactly equal to the height of a plug mounted in the front bumper of the car. When you get your car close enough to the station, a sensor detects the presence of the car and uses a robotic arm to plug the power cord into the car's receptacle. When you pull away in the morning, the station detects the disconnect and retracts the plug to await your return in the evening. The coupling could be a guided magnetic one like on Apple's current laptops. With the Volt as it is, the laziest people will not like replacing weekly trips to the gas station with twice-daily effort. With Autocharge(TM) technology, the Volt could go months on end without the slightest driver involvement.