The
Chevrolet Volt is a plug-in hybrid concept car created by
General Motors. However, the company has avoided the use of the term "hybrid," preferring to call it an electric vehicle with a "range extender" due to its design. The vehicle is designed to run purely on electricity from on-board batteries for up to 40 miles (64 km) —which is a large enough distance to cover the daily commutes of most Americans, which is around 25 miles (40 km). With use of a small internal combustion engine hooked to a generator to resupply the batteries, the vehicle's range is potentially increased to 640 miles (1,030 km) on the highway. General Motors Corp. had originally planned to build 60,000 of its Volt electric cars for their inaugural year, however have now scaled back production to 10,000 units, compared to the 15,000 of
Toyota Motor Corp.'s hybrid Prius for their inaugural year.
The
Volt concept vehicle was officially unveiled at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) on January 7, 2007 in Detroit, Michigan. An updated version was unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2007 in Shanghai, China. At the time of unveiling, the Volt project had been in existence for less than a year. The Volt was targeted to cost around $20K to 30K, but Bob Lutz has indicated that $30-40K is more likely.
