Universal Ramblings

General Motors announced on Tuesday that its upcoming Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle will be given a city fuel economy rating of at least 230 miles per gallon by the EPA.

The Chevy Volt is an extended-range electric car being developed by General Motors. It currently exists in prototype form only but GM reports they are fully committed to bring the car to production. In June 2008, GM’s board of directors voted to fund production of the vehicle, and in September 2008 the production version was unveiled. Mule vehicles have been running since 2008 and the first pre-production cars will arrive in June 2009.

The car is a plug-in range-extended electric vehicle with an on-board gasoline generator. It will have a large battery that stores power from your home electric outlet and which is connected to an electric motor. The electric motor directly propels the car. The battery can last for the first 40 miles. After that, should one continue to need to drive, the on-board gasoline/E85 generator will power up to keep the battery from running out.

Today’s hybrids are called parallel hybrids. They use a small electric motor for low speed driving, but switch to a regular gas engine for acceleration and faster speed driving, hence both engines work side by side or in parallel. The Volt is a series vehicle meaning only the electric motor power the car at all times, the gas engine is just a generator, making electric to keep the batteries in a steady state of charge.

The Volt, which runs purely on electricity for the first 40 miles of driving, carries a small internal combustion engine on board to generate electricity after the battery has drained. The EPA is currently developing a special methodology to calculate fuel efficiency for vehicles that work in this fashion which averages the results of test cycles run separately in electric and internal combustion modes.

The Volt’s highway and combined fuel economy ratings have not been calculated yet, but during the press conference, GM’s C.E.O. Fritz Henderson said that that the combined figure would be in the triple digits, meaning at least 100 mpg.

The EPA model is being developed for cars used in different climates and a mix of electric and gas driving conditions, GM executives said. City mileage will be better for the Volt because the extended-range electric power train runs for 40 miles on battery alone and then uses an internal combustion engine to recharge batteries.

The cost of fueling a Volt will be significantly less than gassing up at the pump, Henderson said. In Detroit, where off-peak electricity rates are 5 cents a kilowatt hours, it will cost about 40 cents to recharge batteries over night.

On the cost of the car itself, Henderson said that GM has not priced the Volt but that it will be expensive because it is a first-generation product. Unconfirmed estimates are said to be around $40,000.

The car will qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit and GM is working on bringing down the cost of future generations of the Volt, particularly the battery system, he said.