PopularMechanics released a report on a several-day test drive of a Volt.
Chevy Volt Reliability Report - 2011 Chevrolet Volt Long-Term Test Drive - Popular Mechanics
In this PopularMechanics test, three different drivers got 31, 33, and 35 miles of all-electric range out of it, and the vehicle delivered 32 and 36 mpg after the engine fired up. Enough said.
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Originally Posted by Popular Mechanics
The big difference of course is that the Volt's 16 kwh T-shaped Toyota Prius.
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They'll probably correct the bad formatting on Monday. I found this after a missing HTML tag:
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Originally Posted by malformed URL
The big difference of course is that the Volt's 16 kwh T-shaped lithium-ion liquid-cooled battery pack fills the center tunnel and most of the area beneath the rear seats, where the fuel tank normally resides.
The battery leaves room for only four seats and is the Volt's prime power source. After charging the battery, which takes about 11 hours with a standard 120-volt outlet and less than half that time with a 220-volt line, the Volt silently motors and recaptures some energy during braking. GM estimates the Volt can travel between 25 and 50 miles before depleting a fully charged battery.
The car could likely travel longer on the juice, but GM engineers treat the battery with kid gloves. In normal use, the car only uses roughly half of the battery's 16-kwh worth of energy storage, never deeply discharging it or overcharging. This strategy, GM says, will ensure the Volt battery meets the eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty.
When the car's computer decides that the battery is discharged, the Volt's 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine kicks on to spin the 74-horsepower on-board generator. Once in this charge-sustaining mode, the engine does not top off the battery charge, but simply runs long enough to maintain performance. An electronically controlled clutch connects the engine to the generator.
The generator and 149-hp traction motor are connected by a planetary gearset to the wheels in a way that's similar to the transmission in the Toyota Prius.
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