The 2011 Chevy Volt

Despite all of the back-and-forth arguments between many critiques of the Chevy Volt this year, the car has maintained a great name with great mileage and low gasoline consumption.

Some say that the Chevrolet Volt is the number one car to purchase for 2011. Your friendly local Auto Shipping Company will be happy to transport it to you after purchasing the new “It Car”.

The car operates so smoothly that owners do not need to think about the planetary gear sets, the liquid-cooled electrons and all that digital magic taking place below.

Just don’t forget to unplug it when you back out of the garage.

The Chevy Volt is meant to be driven primarily on the energy stored in its battery; the gasoline engine’s contribution to moving the car is largely indirect, by turning a generator that powers the electric motors once the battery has been depleted. The car can manage about fifty miles on full charge. It then switches to gasoline.

As Chevy constantly reminds us, a Volt owner can travel 40 miles each day and never burn a drop, joule or calorie of gasoline (more, obviously, if you can plug in while at the office or shopping mall). That owner will cover those first 40 miles for about $1.50 worth of electricity on average, a figure that includes electrical losses as the Volt draws some 12.5 kilowatt-hours of juice to refill the battery. The Volt only uses about 65 percent of its battery capacity, one of several strategies aimed at ensuring long battery life. While the batteries are warranted for eight years or 100,000 miles, G.M. says it engineered them to last 150,000 miles.

Call the Volt quietly handsome, with a pleasingly sporty stance and uncluttered visage.

It has an iPod-like center stack and dual 7-inch information screens. A navigation system is standard, and there are clever smartphone and OnStar applications to remotely manage charging and check the charge level; owners can also cool or heat the car remotely, using grid electricity rather than draining the battery.

The Chevy Volt Interior

The oddest part of driving the Volt? At times, the engine revs don’t rise in sync with a push on the gas pedal, as they would in a conventional car, because the Volt may be drawing power from its battery instead. Then, a few seconds later, the engine speeds up to replenish the battery’s buffer.

In other words, the Volt is a car that will make fans feel good about driving and about themselves. If that is not your cup of green tea, do not buy it. But if the Volt is appealing to you, then you are probably going to love it more than any car you have driven in years.

The Volt and Leaf are the first two cars in a century to make Big Oil sweat, if only a little. More will follow. And in a first for G.M., it’s an economical car that Americans will buy for its class, not a cut-rate payment.

Source: [Nytimes.com]