Posts Tagged ‘chevy volt’

The Chevy Volt, GM’s extended-range electric vehicle, is set to hit the pavement in select cities in the next six months. You can reserve your own Volt online, but what if you want to see and feel it in person first?

The Chevy Volt will be on tour this fall, with several stops across the country for you to get up close and personal with the car that GM promises will revolutionize the way we drive.

The “Volt Unplugged” tour includes a fleet of six Chevy Volts that will be available for test drives. You will also have a chance to meet with a team of engineers, designers, and others who will be on hand to share details on the Volt’s technology and story.

So which cities are on the tour?

• Oct. 9 and 10 – Seattle
• Oct. 13 and 14 – San Francisco
• Oct. 16 – 18 – Los Angeles
• Oct. 20 – San Diego
• Oct. 22 and 23 – San Antonio
• Oct. 24 and 25 – Houston
• Oct. 28 and 29 – Miami
• Oct. 30 – Orlando
• Oct. 29 and 30 – Washington, D.C.
• Nov. 1 – Raleigh, N.C.
• Nov. 5 – 7 – New York City
• Nov. 18 – 20 – Chicago

Don’t worry if your city or state is not included on this tour or on the first wave of production vehicles this fall. The Volt will first be sold in California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, and Washington DC and General Motors plans to sell the Volt nationwide 12-18 months later.

You can register for your own test drive on ChevroletVoltage. Just be sure to come back and let us and other Honksters know how you liked the car!

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Miss Electric, Ph.D., loves driving clean, green machines. Follow her at MissElectric.com.

General Motors today released pricing details for the hotly-anticipated Chevrolet Volt. The extended-range electric vehicle will go on sale with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $40,280 (before $720 destination charge). A federal tax incentive of $7,500 drops the price to $32,780.

The Volt comes well-equipped with a standard navigation system, Bluetooth hands-free phone system, Bose premium audio, and 5 years of complimentary OnStar coverage. The only options will be chrome wheels, three premium paint colors, a rear park assist feature, and heated leather seats.

But how does the Volt stack up against the Nissan Leaf, its closest rival in the zero emissions race?

Nissan made waves earlier this year when they announced that the all-electric Leaf would be priced at $32,780. Factor in the $7,500 federal tax incentive and the effective price plummets to a very reasonable $25,280, which Nissan points out is comparable to a well-equipped Toyota Prius hybrid.

Compare the Leaf to the Volt, however, and you’ll find that the Chevy commands a stunning $7,500 price premium over the Nissan.

GM’s new vice president of US marketing, Joel Ewanick is quick to point out that the Volt has something the all-electric Nissan doesn’t: an onboard generator that runs on gasoline and that can keep the car moving for an additional 300 miles after the initial 40-mile all-electric range is depleted. ”No other automaker offers an electrically driven vehicle that can be your everyday driver, to take you wherever, whenever.”

And while the Leaf’s driving range of 70-120 miles may not make it as road-trip-worthy as the Volt, the Leaf is eligible for an additional $5,000 state tax incentive for California residents. This expands the Nissan’s price advantage to $12,500 in what is sure to be a critical sales market for electrically-driven cars.

Consumers will ultimately decide if range anxiety – their fear of running out of electricity before they can find a charging station – is worth the extra $7,500 to $12,500. As some EV enthusiasts have already pointed out, the price difference would cover a lot of rental cars for those times when 70-120 miles just isn’t enough.

Were you one of the first in line for the iPhone? Are you drooling all over your glossy new iPad? Do you have to have the latest and greatest gadgets before anyone else?

If so, I have good news for you because automakers will soon be releasing next-gen technology that will transform the way we drive.

It’s part of a coming wave of new cars that will (finally!) offer options beyond the dinosaur internal combustion technology that’s been around for the past 100 years.

Like many new technologies, however, these future cars will only be available on a limited basis at first.  Field trials of the all-electric Mini E and hydrogen fuel cell Honda FCX Clarity, for example, were limited to Southern California and the New York metropolitan region last year.

These prototype test cars were leased to early adopters for a specified time and then returned to the manufacturers for continued analysis.  Ideally, these trials are intended to help Mini and Honda create even better production cars for the rest of us to enjoy.

Three new cars, the Nissan Leaf, the Chevy Volt, and the Ford Focus Electric, are slated for production in the next year. In addition to cutting-edge technology under the hood, these cars will feature advanced dashboard, navigation, and wireless communication technology that you will not find in standard gas-guzzling machines. They will also come with their own SmartPhone applications for maximizing energy use and minimizing charge costs. For example, this video gives you a taste of the Chevy Volt Wireless App.

How do you get a “car of the future”? This time it won’t be just Californians and New Yorkers who get to show off their new toys: early adopters in several other regions across the country can look forward to getting in on the electric drive action.

Those regions include:

- Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, TN (for the Nissan Leaf)

- Los Angeles, CA (for the Chevy Volt and Ford Focus Electric)

- San Jose and San Francisco, CA (for the Chevy Volt and Ford Focus Electric)

- San Diego, CA (for the Nissan Leaf)

- New York, NY (for the Ford Focus Electric)

- Austin, TX (for the Ford Focus Electric)

- Phoenix and Tucson, AZ (for the Nissan Leaf)

- Portland, Eugene, and Corvallis, OR (for the Nissan Leaf)

- Seattle, WA (for the Nissan Leaf)

- Detroit, MI (for the Ford Focus Electric)

Early adopters in these regions can expect significant city and state purchase incentives (in addition to the well-publicized $7,500 federal tax credit). In many regions, these folks can also qualify to get a free charger installed in their home for juicing their new electrically-driven wheels. Officials in these cities are working with manufacturers to establish a new public charging infrastructure, as well.

But what is it like to be an early adopter for these future cars? How does one join this energy evolution? In the next few weeks, I hope to interview some first-movers in the electric car field for our Honk readers. Stay tuned for an inside perspective from those who are on the front line of next-gen mobility…

Dr. Shannon Arvizu is a clean-tech strategist and educator. You can read more at MissElectric.com

The Gulf oil spill is the largest in United States history and it’s far from over. 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of crude are still gushing from the ruptured Macondo wellhead each day, threatening marine life, coastal habitats, and fishing and tourism jobs from Texas to Florida.

Oil pools in a marsh along the Mississippi River (Photo: NY Times)

By the numbers, this is a catastrophe of the highest order.

Number of lives claimed in the initial explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig?  Eleven.  Number of gallons that have already leaked into the Gulf?  18.6 million to 29.5 millon.  Total estimated cost to plug the leak and repair all the damage? $30 billion and counting.

Here’s another number that may upset you: two.

Two is the number of options you have if you want to buy a new car that is not powered by oil.  Not ten or twenty or thirty.  Just two.

Of the 300-plus highway-capable vehicles on sale today, only the Tesla Roadster and Honda Civic GX can be purchased by a regular consumer from a regular dealership and then driven around without burning any gasoline or diesel.  And sadly, both of those models come with strings attached.

The Tesla Roadster is an all-electric sports car and the poster child for a growing zero emissions movement.  Avoiding oil-slicked marshes doesn’t come cheap or easy, though.  The Roadster costs over $100,000 and can only be found in a handful of cities around the world.  If you really want an electric vehicle but don’t have a mortgage-sized budget, you’re going to have to wait a few more months until the Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt start production.

Your other option for sticking it to Big Oil is the Civic GX, a version of Honda’s ever-popular compact car that runs on compressed natural gas.  In addition to being oil-free, natural gas burns much cleaner than gasoline, allowing Honda to boast that the Civic GX is the cleanest internal combustion vehicle ever tested by the US Environmental Protection Agency.  Like the Tesla Roadster, however, the Civic GX is only available in select markets.  You’ll need to be in California, New York, Utah, or Oklahoma to pick one up.

If you want to get more extreme, you could convert your old car to run on fry oil from McDonald’s.  You could also become a commercial fleet operator and drive a CNG-powered taxi or truck.  Or you could take acting lessons, become a Hollywood celebrity, and then pull some strings to get a high-profile ride in an experimental test car, like the Honda FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell vehicle that Jamie Lee Curtis is cruising around in these days.

Point is, there are precious few options available if you want to shake your own personal oil addiction.  And even if you do manage to stop burning gasoline or diesel in your automobile, it’s still hard to escape Big Oil and the fossil fuel paradigm.  The natural gas that powers your Civic GX comes from an energy company, like BP.  And unless you’ve hooked up your California-bound Tesla to a windmill or solar array, you’re still loosely connected via the power grid.

Like BP’s ongoing oil spill, the lack of options here is frustrating.

Earlier this afternoon, Nissan began taking reservations for the upcoming 2011 Nissan Leaf, due in showrooms in December of this year.  Nissan hopes to fill 25,000 “pre-orders” in the next few months, practically assuring itself a successful launch.  As of this week, they had 115,000 people signed up to receive exclusive information about the car, including special invitations to order the vehicle prior to public launch.  And while Nissan is somewhat hush-hush today about the general responses they’ve received today, it seems that Twitter is showcasing that excitement with dozens of people tweeting their reservations. View the latest Nissan Leaf tweets here

Not wanting to be left out, I decided to reserve my very own 2011 Nissan Leaf.  And while I’m not totally sure it’s a car I want to buy in December, I wanted to “feel” what it would be like to *maybe* get one.  I was a little (very little) excited to get the email inviting me to drop $99 and my name for a place in line to buy one.   The invite was was supposed to arrive between 1pm-6pm eastern.  My email didn’t arrive until 5:30pm est, so I must have been on the bottom of the barrel, dirt bag list. Maybe they do a lottery again for who gets to buy and when.  Good old back of the line.  The email looked like this…  oooooh, I have a place in history.

I clicked on “Reserve Now” to see what was on the next page.  Nissan asked me a bunch of irrelevant survey questions, then presented me with a form to fill out.  I entered my name, ID, password, address, etc.  Next came the the “qualifying questions” :

Pick a Color – Ummmm, silver.

How Far Do I Drive? Well we know this is a qualifier.   Better say it’s 50 or less or I won’t make the cut.  I drive 20 miles so it’s the truth

What Type of Driving? Okay, keep it mild or they won’t let me go nuts on the car.   I’m a short commuter.

Where will the car be parked? This is a big qualifier.  I better say my own garage (which is true) so I can get my own charging station.  I bet this one places where on the order list you go.  Shouldn’t they ask “what type of set up will you have in December 2010?”  The car delivery is a ways off, so why not ask what people will have.

Qualified   We’re a good fit. While the questions were pretty intuitive, it’s good that they made sure their early adopters had the right set up and expectations going in.  Okay, now I have to fork over $99.  I can get my cash back any time.

Ahhh…. my official confirmation number (I changed it in photoshop) .  We are now standing in line for our Leaf….  Now, I don’t get the vehicle for 7 months+.  I’m not even sure I really want it by then.  Seems to me the Chevy Volt is much more up my alley.  Frankly, it’s far better looking and I have comfort in knowing that GM has a longer standing history in electric vehicle (EV) technology.  To me, the Leaf is homely and not very cool.  After a few years, I may just be the fool who’s driving around in a tin electric tin can with junk range, while all my friends are whizzing by in Teslas and Fiskers.  Hmmm….  My wife and I will decide what to do as launch gets closer, but for now, I’m happy to be in line.  I need to go to Chevroletvoltage.com and see if I can reserve one those bad boys.