General Motors and battery-electric vehicles have a twisted past. The Michigan mega-corp’s earliest flirtations with electricity-propelled cars date back to the 1960s with the experimental “Electrovair,” a battery-swapped Corvair sedan. It never sold, but GM engineers knew they were on to something.
In 1973 - a decade later - the infamous OPEC oil crisis hit, causing shortages and price hikes on fuel that all but crippled economies which centered the automobile. Out of this sprung a renewed interest not only in economical cars but also cars which, should such a crisis happen again, could get around without using a drop of dinosaur juice.
GM seized on this opportunity with the Electro-Vette; an EV-swapped Chevette hatchback, a “family auxiliary car for shopping, neighborhood errands or short-trip transportation.” It was such a success that you probably thought “Electro-Vette” was some kind of one-off electric Corvette project.
It would be another twenty years before the next serious electric project from The General: the infamous, mythical tragedy of the late-1990s EV1. It’s a car worthy of its own story that we’ll save for another occasion, but in 2010, when GM announced it would be returning to the EV market with an advanced plug-in hybrid called “Volt,” the buying public’s opinion of GM as a purveyor of electric vehicles was skeptical, at best.
However, as yet another decade has passed since GM’s recalcitrant launch of the Volt, sold here as a Chevrolet and in other markets as a Holden Volt or as an Opel/Vauxhall Ampera, the car has proven itself to be a plug-in pioneer and a car which, as it ages and becomes more affordable, makes more sense for more people.
The original Chevy Volt has a long way to go to becoming a true classic, but believe it when we say, it will become one. Someday. Here’s why:
It's Not *Quite* An Electric Car
Despite its name and lightning bolt badging, the Chevy Volt was not a pure-electric EV. It was a gasoline-electric hybrid, but it was unlike any hybrid which had come before. Unlike a Toyota Prius or a Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid, which uses an electric motor in constant pairing with a gas engine, the Volt was the first range-extender. It used its gasoline engine primarily to extend its driving range beyond the limitations of its battery pack without needing to recharge. It relies on internal combustion to generate the electricity that feeds the electric motor, which drives the wheels. Like a diesel-electric locomotive, you can park in your driveway.
What this creates is a car that produces energy from gasoline far more efficiently than one which drives its wheels through a gearbox. The Volt will do around 40 miles (~ 60 KM) on its battery alone, only feeding in gasoline power if you demand full throttle under load. It'll drive pure-electric for as long as it can, and when the battery is near empty, the gas engine kicks on to charge it and maintain enough energy to drive the wheels. Using both its energy stores, the Volt can travel well over 300 miles (400+ KMs) and can be refueled at any gas station with 91+ octane.
Speaking of which, the Volt may be an eco-car but it isn't powered by an asthmatic hamster. Total power and torque outputs are 149 HP & 273 lb-ft respectively, which is enough to shift the Volt's 3,800 lb curb weight from 0-60 MPH in nine seconds.
Since the wheels are only ever driven by an electric motor, torque is delivered instantly, making the car feel nimble and quick in city driving, where the car is at its best.
Range-Extended EVs: Clever Tech or Clunky Compromise?
The Volt is not the only range-extended EV on the market but it was the first. Unlike the limited-run Fisker Karma or carbon-fiber-bodied BMW i3 REx, the Volt was an affordable proposition for most buyers, especially with government incentives. Depending on where you lived, you could have saved anywhere from $7,000 to $12,000 off the MSRP, which meant you could get into a car that felt contemporarily space-age for very little more than a conventional hatchback.
You did have to sacrifice one rear seat compared to most economy cars though, as the Volt's T-shaped battery pack obstructed the space where a middle rear seat would fit. Both rear seats fold flat to create a 1,000L trunk space, which is still competitive with small cars and CUVs today.
Up front, the Volt looked like a car decades ahead of its time. Despite a steering wheel taken directly from the GM parts bin, the rest of the interior was entirely unique to the Volt. A pair of LCD displays, one in the center and the other in place of a gauge cluster, feed the driver's eyes with at-a-glance driving information that is highly configurable, but some reviews criticize it for information overload, and the difficulty of using haptic touch buttons for all the dash controls instead of traditional switches, which we still complain about in new cars today.
To drive, the Volt was as unremarkable as its technology is fascinating. It shares most of its underpinnings with the Chevy Cruze compact car, so its behavior feels similar, according to reviews. The gasoline engine makes itself known when it's running but never enough to irritate, but you'll have to re-train your brain not to equate engine revs with acceleration. Brake regeneration is also strange at first, but one-pedal driving quickly becomes its own little game. Reviewers describe it as a seamless experience, and one which works exactly as it should.
Are Plug-In Hybrids A Thing Of The Past?
For the small number of people who can rely on pure-electric vehicles for their needs, the answer is yes. But for the rest of us, the answer is a lot more complicated. A Tesla owner may find range anxiety to be an unconscionable concept, something that stopped being a problem the first time they used a Supercharger, but not everyone can afford the relatively high barrier of entry for the Tesla experience (or any other expensive long-range EV), nor can everyone rely entirely on the current infrastructure of public chargers.
There is simply still an abundance of gas stations around us and despite shortages and price hikes, gasoline is still a plentiful and practical resource for billions of people around the world. The environmental powers that be may have intentions to phase out internal combustion as early as the end of the decade in some places, but we don't live in the future. We live in the present, where gasoline is still available everywhere but its price is going up. We just need to drink responsibly.
Instead of the cold-turkey method, we should instead be weaning ourselves off the stuff by burning it in far more efficient ways, like in a plug-in hybrid car. For that matter, if you're one of the millions of people who buy used cars instead of new ones, you'll be pleased to know that the earliest Chevy Volts can be found fairly regularly around $10,000, a far cry from the $40,000+ for modern EVs with similar range.
Electric cars don't yet work for everyone, but an EV with a backup plan just might.