Best Car Models & All About Cars: 2012 Chevrolet Volt

2012 Chevrolet Volt

Now offered at selected Chevy dealers in all fifty states, the 2012 Chevrolet Volt vary-extended electrical car has become the favorite automotive whipping boy of politicians and commentators who don't like electrical cars, General Motors, and/or the Obama White House's support for plug-in vehicles.

And that's a shame, because the varied uproars--over Volt sales, a battery pack hearth in an exceedingly wrecked Volt 3 weeks once a crash test, and so forth--threaten to overshadow the actual fact that the Volt could be a remarkably sensible automotive that's fun to drive, economical, and a credit to its General Motors engineers and designers.

The 2012 Chevy Volt may be a compact five-door hatchback with four seats. However calling the Volt a compact car misses the point. It may be about the size of its compact sibling the 201one Chevy Cruze, however the plug-in Volt aims at a completely completely different market: early adopters, electrical-automotive enthusiasts, environmentalists, and people who like the thought of driving on grid electricity rather than gasoline made from imported oil.

The chunky styling is not to everybody's taste, with its narrow windows, high slabby sides, and very high cowl. We tend to've gotten used to it, and the car is definitely noticeable, if not essentially as iconic as the Toyota Prius hybrid. And it doesn't help that the silver grille is obviously pretend, its largely blank panel giving a simulation of the twin-gap Chevy front end.

Inside, wonderful graphics on the digital instrument cluster and the central display screen convey as a lot of or as little operating info as the driver chooses. Flashy abstract graphics for the door panels are an option. The front seats are comfy, though house within the rear is tight, and the controls are straightforward to understand. The dual-cockpit dash uses several controls recognizable from the Cruze, but in a a lot of upscale presentation.

However it's the Volt's unique powertrain, referred to as a series hybrid or a vary-extended electric vehicle, that's the key to its special status. The Chevy Volt plugs into wall current—either a commonplace 120-Volt household plug or, with a Level 2 charging station, a 240-Volt circuit like those used by electrical stoves—through a port within the left front fender to recharge its battery for 25 to fifty miles of all-electrical range.

The T-shaped lithium-ion battery pack is fastidiously packed into the wide tunnel between the seats and also the area under the rear seat, with the 11one-kilowatt (149-horsepower) electric drive motor up front driving the front wheels, and the range-extending 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine and its hooked up generator on high of that. It takes 7 to 10 hours to recharge a totally depleted pack using 110-Volt household current. With a 240-Volt Level a pair of charging station, typically installed in the owner's garage, it takes less than half that point.

Because a lot of than 3-quarters of U.S. vehicles travel 40 miles or less each day, Volts recharged every night may not use their vary-extending engines for weeks at a time. But when the battery is depleted, the range extender switches on—pretty much imperceptibly—to not power the wheels, however simply to turn a generator that produces a lot of electricity to stay the automobile in motion. (There’s one exception underneath that the engine adds power to that from the motor, however never mind—you’ll never grasp.)

That range extender fully eliminates "vary anxiety," which GM argues is that the key drawback of battery-electrical vehicles like the Nissan Leaf. The 2012 Volt is capable of taking occupants on those longer journeys, whether or not spontaneous or long-planned, with all the range of any alternative car--a lot of than 300 miles between battery and gas tank. Refill the 9-gallon tank, and it will knock off another three hundred miles, with the EPA rating its operation in vary-extending mode at 37 miles per gallon. No, that is not so good as the fifty-mpg Toyota Prius, but the Volt is smoother, faster, and more fun to drive than the ur-hybrid.

In electric mode, the EPA rates the 2012 Volt at 93 mpg-equivalent, using a calculation that appears at how way the car will travel on the amount of electricity with the same energy content together gallon of gasoline. That's just slightly but the Nissan Leaf's ninety nine MPGe, and considerably better than the sole different vary-extended electrical car available, the abundant heavier and a lot of luxurious 2012 Fisker Karma--that is rated at a relatively dismal fifty two MPGe.

Thus what sort of MPG a Volt delivers depends entirely on how much of its travels are done on battery power recharged from the grid versus burning gasoline. Some Volt homeowners who plug in religiously and travel short distances report effective mileage well over a hundred mpg--and a few have even complained that the Volt's software maxes out at "250+" mpg.

The 2012 Volt is a prime safety pick of the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, and received high ratings from each the IIHS and also the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Starting with cars built in February 2012, Chevy added reinforcements around the battery pack structure and changed the coolant filler for the pack to avoid the remote risk of pack fires in the days or weeks when a severe accident. However no Volts have experienced battery fires on the road, and whereas Chevy is providing a retrofit to owners of Volts engineered during 2010 and 2011, it's a voluntarily update, not a safety recall. The battery and electric systems are warrantied for eight years or a hundred,00zero miles, so much longer than most gasoline powertrains.

The cars engineered beginning February 2012 additionally have another modification if they're going to be sold in California: They're fitted with the additional emissions equipment that qualifies them as "enhanced advanced-technology partial-zero-emission vehicles," or e-AT-PZEVs, together with a longer ten-year/a hundred and fifty,000-mile warranty on the battery pack and alternative mechanicals.

That e-AT-PZEV standing qualifies their house owners for special inexperienced stickers that can enable them to travel solo in High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. However those enhanced Volts are sold only in California, and consumers in that state want to be aware that not all 2012 model Volts have the updates. If you're considering shopping for a 2012 Volt in California, create very certain you recognize which kind you're getting.

For 2012, Chevrolet knocked $1,0zerozero off the value of the Volt, meaning it currently starts at $39,995. However the navigation system is currently optional, joining polished chrome wheels and special paint colours as a number of the few options offered on this otherwise well-equipped car. Volt consumers are eligible for a $7,500 Federal income-tax credit for purchasing a plug-in car, along with a raft of other state, native, and corporate incentives.

That's still expensive for a automobile with less house for individuals and cargo than the 2012 Cruze, that starts at less than [*fr1] the price. But Volt buyers aren't comparing it to the Cruze. It competes with different plug-ins, that in 2012, embrace the Leaf, the Karma, a brand new Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid, the Coda Sedan (in California solely), and perhaps even the Mitsubishi 'i' minicar.

Instead, the 2012 Chevrolet Volt attracts patrons who may never before have thought-about shopping for a Chevrolet or GM product. Volt house owners are fierce and passionate advocates, and they are used to being stopped on the road and explaining the character of the car with two power sources.

Most necessary of all, the Volt could be a real automotive. It’s not a golf cart, or a science project, or some weird two-seat aero-blob. It's all the conveniences you’d expect in a very compact automotive, and some you wouldn’t. It’s fast, it rides well, it prices only pennies to run on electrical power, and it’s enormously sleek and quiet.

And, it's the best owner-satisfaction numbers of any car GM has ever designed.

2012 Chevrolet Volt Engine