After years in development, an almost equal amount of time being previewed in commercials and auto show exhibits and a too-gradual rollout, the Chevrolet Volt has taken on almost mythic proportions. It’s been revered as a symbol of General Motors’ resurgence after emerging from bankruptcy – a shining example of what the restructured company could accomplish.  With production ramping up and 50-state availability at hand, we were finally able to get our hands on the four-door hatchback for a proper week-long test drive to see for ourselves whether this so-called “extended range electric vehicle” could possibly live up to the hype.  For the benefit of the uninitiated, the Volt is not quite a pure electric car and not quite a plug-in gas/electric hybrid. Its primary source of propulsion is an electric drive unit that generates the equivalent of 150 horsepower. Since an electric motor’s peak power comes on all at once, the car feels quicker than that rating might suggest. What’s more, the electric drive unit precludes the need for a conventional multi-gear manual transmission; to that end the Volt’s transmission comes with only a single forward gear.  Unlike a pure electric car, however, there’s no fear of becoming stranded once the Volt’s rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack runs down. Instead, a 1.4-liter gasoline engine automatically engages to run a generator that, in turn, powers the electric drive system. At speeds over 70 mph the gas engine adds a bit of power on its own to augment the generator. At that point the car’s range is limited only by the amount of fuel that’s in the tank. With a fully charged battery and a full tank of gas, Chevy says the Volt can travel an estimated 379 miles before refueling.  Based on EPA testing, Volt owners can expect an average battery range of 35 miles, which is sufficient for modest daily commutes and weekend shopping excursions. However, that distance depends largely on factors such as vehicle speed, number of passengers, ambient temperature and use of accessories like heating and air conditioning. Living in the heart of a big city, with temperate early-fall weather and our longest regular excursion being an 11 mile round trip taking the kids to school on weekday mornings, we figured we could easily avoid running the Volt on gasoline altogether.  Our tester was delivered with around 10 miles of battery range remaining and we decided to take an extended ride to see how it fared switching over to gasoline-sourced power. It’s whisper quiet when running in full-electric mode, with tire noise being about the only aural cue that the car is in motion. We did notice some buzzing when coming to a stop that our local General Motors rep attributed to the car’s regenerative braking system, which recovers energy that would otherwise be lost through deceleration and stopping and sends it back to the Volt’s battery (though not in enough volume to maintain a charge beyond its effective range).  Acceleration is sufficiently brisk. It reaches highway speeds with authority and can easily outpace most cars of its size, even though it’s hauling around the added weight of two separate powertrains. The Volt is especially eager when switched into its “sport” mode, which affords livelier throttle response that we assume must exact a slight penalty in battery range and/or fuel economy. (A “mountain” mode helps maximize performance through hilly environments, but we’ll just have to take Chevy’s word on that feature.)  After running for around 42 miles on its last charge the Volt switched over to gas-assisted-electric operation, and the transition was seamless. We detected no difference in acceleration whatsoever, with the main difference being the muted sound of its four-cylinder gasoline engine that was literally running in the background. As it’s main job is to run a generator and not to actually put power to the pavement, there were times when the gas engine was running out of sync with the car’s actual speed, which we found to be a bit disconcerting.  With our initial test run concluded we pulled the Volt into our garage, removed the charging unit from the trunk and proceeded to plug the car into our home’s circuit for charging, which the dashboard-mounted display said would take about eight hours using 120-volt current.  Unfortunately, the Volt’s charger determined our garage’s electrical service was lacking – the flashing red lights indicated the circuit wasn’t sufficiently grounded – and, acting prudently, it wouldn’t send a charge to the car.
We got a charge out of parking the Chevy Volt in our garage for a week, but unfortunately we couldn’t say the same thing for the car.