![]() Today, Volt owners use battery power on 80 percent of their trips. That is nearly a 40-percent improvement over the first-generation Volt.Ĭhevrolet expects many next-generation Volt owners will use power solely from their batteries for more than 90 percent of trips. ![]() The Volt’s all-new second-generation Voltec extended-range electric propulsion system delivers 53 miles of pure EV range, based on EPA testing. California, Oregon, Washington and several northeast states require a longer warranty of 10 years or 150,000 miles.DETROIT – The 2016 Volt is engineered to offer customers more of what they want: range, range and more range. Chevrolet hopes that the 50-mile battery-only range will increase that percentage.Īs with the first-generation Volt, the battery pack on the 2016 model will be under warranty for eight years or 100,000 miles. Four of every five Volt owners said they never drive on the gasoline range extender. Second, they wanted more range and third, they wanted more range."įletcher said they also wanted the car to be quieter. "This time, we had all kinds of feedback. "With the first one, we didn't know who would buy the car," said Pamela Fletcher, executive chief engineer for the Volt. There are now 73,000 Volt owners, 45% of whom live in California, and Majoros and the Volt engineering team tapped deeply into what they like or dislike. "I'm not looking to sell a half million Volts, but it's a space in the market that Chevrolet needs to occupy." "I could go out there and go hog wild and throw incentives on this car, but we're always looking to balance the business case," said Steve Majoros, Chevrolet's director of car marketing. Pricing won't be announced until the Volt is ready to arrive in showrooms. "When you look across the globe at requirements in Europe and China, we have a path to be compliant and we're going to continue to execute it," GM CEO Mary Barra said last week.Īlthough GM declines to comment on the profit or loss the Volt has generated so far, it doesn't intend to discount it at an even bigger loss. The industry faces the government's requirement that each manufacturer's new car fleet average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.Ĭheap gas may bolster Americans' preference for larger trucks and higher performance cars and crossovers but so far no industry leaders are lobbying for a reduction in the 54.5 m.p.g. But during the life cycle of this car gas prices could easily double or more. ![]() The center screen also includes the Chevrolet MyLink system and other apps.Ĭhevrolet is well aware that the timing is less than optimal. To simplify the center screen, Volt's engineers included fewer icons and added separate manual climate control knobs and buttons below the center display. Unlike the Volt, which uses a 1.5-liter four-cylinder "range extender" to allow drivers to travel more than 1,000 miles between full charges and fillups, the Bolt will be a pure electric vehicle, with the capability to travel up to 200 miles before needing to be recharged.Ĭhevrolet, however, will focus much of Monday's presentation on the new Volt, which offers these improvements from its first generation, including greater range and a slightly sleeker look. But the Bolt concept, whose debut was reported during the weekend, will grab as much or more of the spotlight. The new Volt will roll into showrooms in the second half of this year. Sales of the current Volt, which Chevrolet once projected to exceed 45,000 a year by now, tumbled 19% last year to 18,805, and slipped well below those of the smaller Nissan Leaf. The new GM is defying consumer's tepid response to the first-generation Volt and investing more money and engineering talent to make the 2016 model better. View Gallery: Detroit Auto Show: 2016 Chevrolet Volt
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