The Volt Unveiled: Slippery and Nearly Set

G.M. introduced the production version of the Chevrolet Volt on Tuesday.

Rick Wagoner, chief executive for General Motors, unwrapped the production version of the series hybrid Chevrolet Volt as part of the company’s 100th anniversary celebration on Tuesday. But online viewers who watched the video event unfold live at www.GMNext.com had to sit through nearly an hour of upbeat presentations from around the world to get to the car.

The colorful travelogue took us to, among other places, Russia, Mexico, India, Korea, China and included a great deal of positive sales news. If you blinked, you would have missed the brief mention by Fritz Henderson, G.M. president and chief operating officer, of the company’s difficulties in North America. (G.M.’s overall losses totaled $15.5 billion in the second quarter of 2008.)

It’s fair to say that there’s a lot riding on the success of the Volt, even if it is not produced in very high volume. If it works, it will be a shiny green star for the company.

The Volt, whose small gas engine does not drive the wheels but keeps the 16-kilowatt lithium-ion battery pack charged, will look nothing like the nondriving concept car that G.M. carted around to auto shows for years.

“Many of the design cues from the concept vehicle endure in the production Volt,” G.M. said in a press release, but the final result is considerably more conventional than that car – think of a more streamlined Saturn Aura or Nissan Altima.

Asked if, in fact, the Volt looks like a Saturn, Michael Simcoe, G.M.’s exterior design chief, replied: “We like to say that it looks like a Volt. The design is different from the show car mostly because of the need for greater aerodynamics to get the 40-mile battery range. All the exterior surfaces are the result of more than 500 hours experience in the G.M. wind tunnel.”

The concept version of the Volt was a more adventurous design than the production car that was unveiled on Tuesday. (Stan Honda/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

The car doesn’t look exceptionally slippery, but Mr. Simcoe said the Volt will be one of the most aerodynamic vehicles G.M. has ever built.

The Volt, Mr. Simcoe said, does maintain some of the early design features, including taillamp graphics, a clear rear panel and a prominent rear wing. “The Volt will be a big change in how we power automobiles, so it has to make a strong statement,” he said.

Also making a statement is the higher-than-usual central tunnel that flows from the front console to the rear seat, making the Volt a four- rather than five-seater. The tunnel houses the car’s T-shaped battery pack.

Despite looming deadlines (the car is planned to go on sale in 2010 as a 2011 model), much about the Volt is still to be determined. Two teams, LG Chem/CPI and A123/Continental, have been in contention to be the car’s lithium-ion battery supplier. G.M.’s vice chairman, Robert A. Lutz, has told reporters that the company already decided which one gets the contract, but isn’t ready to announce the winner yet.

The 1.4-liter gas engine, which is part of G.M.’s new Family Zero group of small-displacement 4-cylinder engines, is connected to a 53-kilowatt generator to keep the batteries topped off. The electric drive unit produces the equivalent of 150 horsepower, with what Mr. Cesiel described as “the same launch characteristics as a 200-horsepower V-6 sedan.”

The car will have a 40-mile range on batteries alone (G.M. says it’s on target to deliver that) and a top speed of 100 miles per hour. The company said the Volt will cost less than two cents a mile to drive on battery power.

No pricing was announced, but according to this recent article, although G.M. “initially hinted at a $30,000 starting price, executives have recently suggested that the Volt might end up in the mid- to high-$40,000 range.”

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/the-volt-unveiled-slippery-and-nearly-set/