The Chevy Volt a taste of electric car of the future

At a time that most of us buy streaming of YouTube videos and multimedia entertainment in the iTunes store, like the memory of a time when we connect over an analog phone line get a dial a few kilobytes text country depended on, vaguely ridiculous.

But during our consumer entertainment and communication gadgets to have almost magical ability, our emerging electric vehicle industry is reminiscent of the dark ages of the dial is still in its formative years,.

The Chevrolet Volt is an example of this. Of the Volt, we can look at the future driver's seat, we can taste it, and we experience it even up to a degree. But just as if we agonising wait a single image online, download of the Volt and the current state of the electrical despised vehicle technology us equivalent of broadband connectivity will look forward to the vehicular.

The Volt with which contain 120 Volt charger want to charge? Be ready to take you more than before, send a large PowerPoint file for final approval to your boss wait - way longer. It takes 10 hours.

The nifty concept OnStar Smartphone applications check of the car to charge or use its battery status? On this creeping Windows progress bar and long enough wait thinking, to a large photo file to downloaded via the dial connection.

And if the battery is fully charged and you are ready to off to the electric Nirvana run? Nirvana better be not far away, if it is cold and dark outside your ten hours of charger you bought only 26 miles of electric range will have.

Now, GM says that the Volt range between 25 and 50 miles rather than the 40 miles previously discussed. The distinction is important, because the 26 miles, which I experienced in the car, which I tested much different from 40 miles on a round trip drive.

And the complication is that since it takes that long, until reaching your 26 miles of the area on the charger, it hard, can the car to keep at or near a full charge. GM invites only the $500 (plus installation) for the 240-volt charger home happily, because if you integrated with the 120 Volt charger behind fall it seems impossible to replenish the charge that you have lost. (Area 75-mile winter of an electric-only model as the Nissan leaf appears suddenly amazing.)

However, in contrast to the leaf which has Volt, a gas engine fall back on. It generates electricity, the electric motor spin if the battery is empty.

This is of course, better than walking. But on gas power not the way for a rider is on the acquisition of Volt feel good. 26 Miles down the road and the forty Grand spent for the Green goodness the electric motor is reduced to a car gas-burning, also on the highway when the Chevrolet doesn't Cruz eco - a conventionally powered car built on the same platform as the Volt, but one that costs half as much.

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Still, if it provides electric driving every day the Volt really were. The numb electric-driven power steering recalls the bad old days of the American speed, inviting one-finger rotate like in old cutlass Grandad's steering with parking, but it tightens with speed and provides a better feeling once in progress. The good thing about this problem is that it simply a question of a software optimize the arcade game is steering to eliminate feeling.

The Volt electric motor the car drives forward with impressive authority in low-speed and low noise. Electric motors provide their maximum torque at low speeds, when leave may passed that 50-70 mph they want, speed is necessary to get from this large truck on the highway. Fortunately the Volt destruction certificate appropriate oomph at such speeds, the driver must not vulnerable feel, if out of harm's way having to squirt.

I have the drive in other versions of volts I tested have to be good, thanks the road hugging a 435-LB battery pack weight. However, the version of the car, which for this review, I tested had confirmed a harsher ride as the others, and a quick check with GM that the pressure was too high 37 PSI. (Perhaps a previous Tester was Hypermiling with the higher pressure, but it is not good for the ride, so I recommend sticking with 35 PSI).

The Volt is basically healthy in its operation, but there are areas for improvements.

Vehicle silent running in parking spaces can sneak on pedestrians and the Horn bubbles would probably frighten them to death, so Chevy has included the ability, the Horn quack like the AFLAC duck, to warn the Volt approach. It is a nice idea, but the horn control on the headlight dimmer means regularly Chittering the Horn accidentally when moving from high to low beams.

In fact other controls in the Volt will get so bad she a Microsoft engineer would be thrown. In the middle of the dashboard - the "centre console" in the industry is language - a smooth, glossy Panel equipped with an array of capacitive switches, the way that touching a finger the. But not touching with a finger in a glove feel - it promotes in a car that give up to save on heat to the battery.

In addition, dozens of controls in the dashboard are difficult to distinguish from each other. If you want to find a different radio station? Good luck with the. This heinous system resembles the Ford infernal MyFordTouch system, with its surface, which was so evil, that consumer reports withheld its recommendation by the excellent Ford Edge due to the shortcomings of the system. At least MyFordTouch is optional on the edge. The Volt is only with this terrible controls, so that it risks a similar complaint despite its other properties.

And then the question of the car lights. Without the single back-up rear looks cool, but it raises behind a useless single beam engine length if at night back up.

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A more serious problem is the darkening of the headlights of the Volt. Think of the toy spotlight on Schwinns and Huffys grow? She worked also in our fantasies, but little actual light, our hopes ride our bikes dashing at night converted. Today, LED lights for bicycles create the appearance of motorcycles on the bike path at night, the lights are so bright. So while the Volt drivers aims, to save power, switching to LED lights is economical as Tom Hanks in Apollo 13, both power save and improve the light.

Tony Posawatz, Volt Chief Engineer, indicated that better lights on future versions of the Volt can come. Chevy already tested the version 2012, adding small upgrades and planning to certify the car as a California advanced technology partial zero emission vehicle, a label, the a battery of ten-year warranty requires. So the race to deliver the first Volt have completed, can now go back to Chevy's engineers and things that were optimized in a hurry, production does not improve.

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