Chevrolet Volt Is Motor Trend Car of the Year, Plus Automobile's Fave
 

http://media.il.edmunds-media.com/ch...111610_196.jpg The Chevrolet Volt has been named the 2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year and the Automobile magazine 2011 Automobile of the Year, as the automotive awards season kicks off.

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The car isn't even out yet.

It's been in development for over ten years.

For the $40,000 base price you can buy two Priuses or the little conventional car of your choice and a ton of gas.

If you don't plug it in and the battery gets below freezing, you have to idle the gasoline motor until it warms up.

It takes premium gas.

It weighs 3,800 pounds; only 375 is the battery, so it's a heavy slug by any car standard.

It takes 10-12 hours to charge after going only 40 miles.

According to GM PUBLISHED SPECIFICATIONS, the vehicle has a 310 mile range after the batteries run out until it runs out of gas. It has a 9.3 gallon gasoline tank. That means when it's running on gas it gets 33 MPG. If you factor in the 40 miles on batteries, it goes 350 miles on a tank and that comes out to less than 38 MPG. According to GM PUBLISHED SPECIFICATIONS, the car gets less than 40 MPG.

It isn't even a fully electrically driven vehicle; the gasoline engine clutches in to the electric motor between 30 and 70 MPH. It isn't even an important technological step.


Who the heck wants a car that has no performance, costs $40,000 and gets less than 40 MPG whenever you go over 40 miles? The car has no niche beyond the "Look at Me! My farts don't smell!" crowd. It should be a complete failure and I have no sympathy for anything GM suffers in the slightest because this thing is a pile of Edsel droppings.

For the price you could turn a Prius into a "plug-in hybrid" and come out way ahead.

shoot my 2010 Civic work car gets 37-39mpg hwy depending on driving conditions. it cost WAY less than that and the only battery it has is the one to start it..... remember that Government Motors, GM, gets whatever awards they want or publicity they want because they are the Government.

remember that if it wasn't for the Government bailing out the unions and everyone in GM and Dodge except the men and women who were the stock holders that lost their nest egg, the only American car company still functioning would be Ford and therefore Motor Trend would award only Ford or imported vehicles, that is if there was a need for Motor Trend at that point in time.....

sorry for my rambling..... let me crawl back under my rock.....