General Motors says the electric Chevy Volt will get 230 miles a gallon in city driving, calling it a “game-changer,” the WSJ reports.
The comments came as GM unveiled some of its new products this morning; the Volt is GM’s big bet on new drive technology to create more fuel-efficient cars, even though its $40,000 pricetag is seen as an obstacle.
At GM’s Fast Lane blog, Volt co-creator Jon Lauckner said GM was confident it would have a triple-digit combined mileage rating from the Environmental Protection Agency, which measures these things. Mr. Lauckner said “These preliminary numbers are based on Volt development testing with our pre-production vehicles and the draft federal fuel economy methodology developed by EPA for [extended-range electric vehicles] like the Volt.”
But what about the Volt’s much-vaunted 40-mile range? The EPA estimates—25 kilowatt-hours per 100 miles of driving—work out to an actual range of only 32 miles for the Volt. Mr. Lauckner said the EPA’s new mileage methodology reduces laboratory results to simulate things like driving with the air on, but that “we are still confident that we will deliver 40 miles of autonomous electric range” on the official tests.
UPDATE: Daniel Indiviglio at The Atlantic crunches the numbers on the Volt’s payback versus a regular, cheaper fuel-efficient car: You’d need to drive it 158,000 miles to break even. Without a spike in gasoline prices, “the argument for purchasing a Volt will remain based more on environmental ethics than economics,” he concludes.
Obviously, the environment is ultimately more important than bank accounts. Contributors to the WSJ think everything is about money, but we are trying to save life on the planet here, and any electric car is a huge step in the right direction. If people care about the planet they live on they will be looking into buying electric cars, and the cars will get cheaper as time goes on. In a couple of years, they should be affordable enough for regular people like us to buy. Automakers need incentives to keep making them and keep making them less expensive. The Volt will cost around $40,000 and be for sale at the end of 2010.
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