 2012 Chevrolet Volt. Click image to enlarge |
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Review and photos by Jil McIntosh
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2012 Chevrolet Volt
Toronto, Ontario – When I stood at the Detroit Auto Show earlier this year and heard the Chevrolet Volt announced as the North American Car of the Year, I shook my head. This was on top of it also being named Motor Trend’s Car of the Year, Green Car of the Year, and similar awards from Ward’s, Car and Driver, Popular Mechanics and Automobile.
Really? I’d driven the Volt before, at low speeds and for short distances. While it seemed nice enough, I wondered what the judges were smoking to hand over so many awards to an expensive, low-volume model that wasn’t yet on sale and would initially be limited to a few markets.
Now I’ve driven it for a day in the real world, on city streets and highways, on battery and then with its gasoline engine. The verdict: the awards are deserved. The Volt is the real deal. It’s a great car that does exactly what GM said it would, and even though mine was a pre-production model (with Canadian specifications), the quality and fit-and-finish were exemplary. If this is the future of the automobile, bring it on.
   2012 Chevrolet Volt. Click image to enlarge |
Before you fire up your email, let’s do some housekeeping. GM didn’t (and never does) pay me to say nice things about its cars – in fact, it has let me know on a few occasions when it wasn’t happy with a negative review. And – full disclosure – while GM’s rep did buy me lunch halfway through the drive, you better believe that if it were somehow possible to purchase my praise, I think I’d ask far more than just a schnitzel sandwich and glass of Perrier. In short, I received no incentives for my words: the Volt stands on its own merit.
Basically, the Volt is an electric car with a gasoline engine backup. You plug it in, with a full charge taking ten hours on basic 120 household current, or four hours on 240 current. The car comes with a 120-volt plug, but you can buy a 240-volt fast charger. It’s around $500, plus professional hardwire installation; Quebec offers a rebate on it. Once charged, the car runs on battery alone for between 40 and 80 kilometres, depending on your driving style, ambient temperature and terrain.
Based on the Cruze platform, the Volt also contains that model’s 1.4-litre four-cylinder gasoline engine. Once the battery depletes, the gasoline engine kicks in but doesn’t directly propel the vehicle. Rather, it acts like a generator to produce electricity, and the Volt continues in electric-only mode. (If the battery is depleted, the gasoline engine is running and you mash the throttle hard, the car can send some of the engine’s mechanical torque to the wheels in conjunction with the electric motor for short bursts of power. The company received some nasty press when that was revealed, by a few journalists who said the Volt was actually just a hybrid; GM says that it chose to allow mechanical torque to run through the drive unit because it improved efficiency over using electricity alone.)”
As with a hybrid, the gas engine shuts off when the wheels stop turning: sit at a light or in traffic, and there are no emissions out the tailpipe. (The climate system, stereo and other electronics continue to work.) An engine/battery management system revs the gas engine lower or higher depending on how much power is required. If enough energy has been fed back into the battery, the gas engine will shut off and you’re back to emissions-free operation. The management system maintains a minimum amount of battery power as a buffer, so you can hit the throttle or climb hills without the gas engine screaming at the top of its revs to provide enough power.
It requires premium fuel, according to GM’s specifications, but many drivers will only use a tiny bit of it. If your commute is within that 40-to-80-km range, and you plug the car in daily, you may only ever use a splash of gas – if you run on battery-only for long periods of time, the engine will start up occasionally to keep its lubricants flowing. With a fully-charged battery and the 32-litre fuel tank full, GM claims a total range of up to 580 kilometres.
  2012 Chevrolet Volt. Click image to enlarge |
The Volt goes on sale in Canada this fall at specific dealers in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Victoria, Ottawa-Gatineau, Quebec City and Oshawa, Ontario, and nationwide within the following twelve months. It starts at $41,545 for the single trim line (a Premium Package, rear camera and park assist can be added). In Ontario, the government will rebate you $8,230 on its purchase, while Quebecers can get back $7,769. GM is expecting an announcement shortly for rebates in British Columbia.
That’s a lot of money for a compact car, but you have to look at it two ways. First off, the technology isn’t cheap, and it has to start somewhere – remember what the first cell phones and computers cost. Secondly, GM estimates that the best-case-scenario cost of running it, against a comparable gasoline compact, will be one-quarter the price in Ontario, one-fifth in British Columbia, and one-sixth in Quebec, based on electricity rates. Natural Resources Canada hasn’t yet figured out how to rate its fuel efficiency. In the U.S., where GM has backed down from its ridiculous initial claim of up to 230 miles per gallon, the EPA has given it a rating of 93 mpg (3.0 L/100 km) equivalent on electricity, and 37 mpg (6.4 L/100 km) on gasoline.
In crash testing, the Volt has earned the highest five-star rating from NHTSA, and has been named a Top Safety Pick by the IIHS.
The battery is a T-shaped unit that fits between the seats, making the Volt strictly a four-seater, and it accounts for around $16,000 of the car’s cost. It’s under warranty for eight years or 160,000 km. GM can’t estimate the replacement price after that, since technology advances are consistently bringing down battery costs. Early adopters have to accept that they probably won’t see much in the way of resale value. (While those in very cold climates will get less range than those in more moderate areas, heat is more of a problem for battery life than cold. On average, cars in Arizona will chew through their batteries’ lifespan faster than those in the frosty north.)
Indeed, the battery is the Achilles’ heel of alternative vehicles. It isn’t the electric car itself, which automakers pretty much nailed as far back as 1899. Battery technology has been slow to catch up, and more range means more weight and more money. The engineers could have coaxed out more battery-only range, but with diminishing returns. About 78 per cent of potential U.S. customers commute less than 64 km each day (Canadians travel about half that distance). Adding more range to reach another potential 22 per cent would have raised the Volt’s price far beyond what most commuters would likely pay for it.
  2012 Chevrolet Volt. Click image to enlarge |
GM had a suggested route for my drive, but I ditched it in favour of meandering in downtown traffic and then out on a major highway. The Volt is quiet, but it isn’t silent: as with any car, there’s some road noise from the tires. It will reach 160 km/h, while I took it up to 120 km/h on the highway.
It feels like a smooth-driving regular car. Electric motors make their peak power instantly, so the Volt feels peppy getting away from a stop, with an equivalent of about 150 horsepower and 273 lb.-ft. of torque. It cruises smoothly, feels solid at highway speeds, and the electric steering is quick and accurate with no vagueness or wandering. The car can be set into normal mode, into a “sport” mode that lays on a little extra power, and a “mountain” mode that manages the power feed for extra oomph when climbing hilly terrain.
With the air conditioning on, and with some lead-foot driving to test the response, my battery ran out after 55 km. In an all-electric car, I’d be walking home. Instead, the Volt started up its gasoline engine and kept on going. It’s seamless, especially since the gas power doesn’t go directly to the wheels, so there’s no jolt as can often happen with a hybrid. As with a hybrid, the gas engine starts up and shuts off as needed, and most of the time I had to look at the display to know when it was running. The car uses regenerative braking to top up the battery, which can help increase the range. An available “low gear” increases the regeneration and slows the car down abruptly when the throttle is released.
 2012 Chevrolet Volt. Click image to enlarge |
While both the Volt and plug-in hybrids such as the upcoming Toyota Prius PHEV both plug into the wall and initially run on that charge, they don’t always work the same. When the Prius’ charge depletes, it runs on gasoline and battery like a regular Prius does. However, even when running on the initial stored charge, the Prius PHEV will kick in its gasoline engine when extra power is needed, such as during highway passing. Except in rare circumstances such as extreme cold, the Volt’s gasoline engine never comes on until the stored charge is depleted. If you need more passing power, the car takes it from the battery.
The Volt looks great inside: good-quality materials, excellent fit-and-finish and comfortable seats. Still, I hate the centre stack, which uses tiny touch-sensitive buttons that are way too hard to find when you’re driving. There are two liquid crystal screens that display all sorts of information, including power flow, remaining battery and a bouncing green ball that encourages efficient driving. They’re very distracting, so remember to watch the road.
The key to the Volt, as with any other vehicle, is that it needs the right owner. It’s too expensive if you’re only going to occasionally plug it in. It won’t work if you need five seats. It will take several years for its running costs to offset its purchase premium. But if the Volt is right for you, then be prepared to drive one really well-done machine. GM took a long time to bring this car to market, but it was worth the wait. I didn’t believe it would happen, but the Volt is everything the company promised it would be.
