GM Volt Electric Car
The new GM Volt electric car offering: the Chevy Volt, is quite the hot topic these days. And why wouldn't it be with claims that it will average a cool 230 mpg, essentially quadrupling the efficiency of the current frontrunner the Toyota Prius.
How the GM Volt electric car is set to work is powered in equal parts by an electric motor and a battery pack with a 40 mile range to it. After the initial 40 miles, a very small internal combustion style engine takes over to generate electricity to give the car a range of roughly 300 miles. It only requires a very small amount of fuel to function, and even has a fail safe built in so that if you run out of electricity, the car begins converting the remaining fuel into electricity so that you can safely make it to the next service station.
Most interesting of all is that the battery pack can be powered from a standard home electrical socket, so you can essentially recharge your car right next to your cell phone and other appliances.
The major downside is that the Chevy Volt price looks to be hovering just over $40,000, putting it in the luxury car price range. Furthermore, the GM Volt electric car likely won't be ready for mass production and shipping until the end of 2010/beginning of 2011. Below is one of the first of the Chevy Volt pictures.
While the GM Volt electric car is and will likely be the first mass produced automobile to run predominantly on electricity, this technology in some form has been available for some time now as there are a number of electricity for fuel guides devoted to teaching even the least technologically savvy among us how to convert their cars to run in part on electricity to boost their existing mileage several times over. In fact the government has been rewarding those who have converted their cars this way with $1,000 tax rebates among other incentives because they are both cutting back air pollution as well the consumption of finite fossil fuels.
