Chevy Volt hits the streets
Pre-production electric car from GM gets first test drive
GM may be bankrupt but that hasn't stopped the ailing automaker from test-driving its Volt electric car ahead of schedule this week.
Engineers took the plug-in electric hybrid for a brief spin around Chevrolet's Technical Centre campus in Warren, Michigan.
On his blog, Chief Engineer Andrew Farah described the ride as 'exhilarating'.
Battery only driving
The Volt only uses its 4-cylinder petrol engine to power a 16kWh electric battery, which is expected to have a range of about 40 miles. GM will now ramp up the manufacture of pre-production vehicles.
Farah says, "We're producing a few Volts per week now, but we'll quickly ramp up to 10 per week and will have approximately 80 pre-production vehicles built by October."
"After driving the Volt yesterday, I'm increasingly confident we're on target to deliver," he added, referring to the Volt's expected retail launch sometime next year.
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GM missed on the latest auto industry bail-out this week, when Ford, Nissan and Tesla Motors were given access to nearly $8 billion in federal loans to develop new vehicles.
Ford's $5.9 billion will go towards improving fuel efficiency in many of its existing models, Nissan will spends its $1.6 billion on building electric cars and batteries, while Tesla's $465 million loan will help bring its Volt competitor, the Model S sedan, to market.