GM has now confirmed, late in the game, that the Volt can, in some situations, use the ICE to power the wheels. This came to light after Motor Trend was allowed to test the car for three long drives and discovered:
Interesting article about the Volt. This distinction between gas, electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and all the marketing hype is going to be fun to watch. Beware of equivalent mpg claims too.
I look forward to the car rental places letting us test drive these cars.
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GM has now confirmed, late in the game, that the Volt can, in some situations, use the ICE to power the wheels. This came to light after Motor Trend was allowed to test the car for three long drives and discovered:
Interesting article about the Volt. This distinction between gas, electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and all the marketing hype is going to be fun to watch. Beware of equivalent mpg claims too.
I look forward to the car rental places letting us test drive these cars.
Humm... interesting to know but I'm not sure what to think (I had to read the article to remind me that ICE stands for the internal combustion engine). Perhaps they did keep it secret due to patent issues as they suggest.
Earlier on GM said to expect about 50MPG when the batteries die out and the ICE was running to recharge the batteries. I wonder if this number will go down now that we know the ICE can directly drive the wheels as well?
I guess what most disturbs me is the miles you get on pure electric. About a year ago, GM claimed 60 miles, as I recall. Then it went down to 40. And now that article says it's closer to 33... almost a 50% reduction.
33 is still good for many commuters. But that's going to cut it very close for many commutes. At least the Volt does have the gas engine as a back-up, unlike the pure electric cars like the Leaf (though the Leaf is probably in the 50-100 mile range). But you pay an extra $10-15K or so to get that back-up.
