Chevy Volt

[woody6725]

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/01/07/detroit-auto-show-its-here-gms-plug-in-hybrid-is-the-chevy-v

[Lvtrucks2000]

First they got rid of the Cavalier and come out with the Isuzu Cobalt, Then they redisigned the Silverado and made it look like crap, now they are just makeing spawns of crap! I am suprised the Camaro looks good. i forget to mention the change of the S-10 to the Craparodo! :frustrate

[daryl]

As ugly as it is, if it was cheap enough I would probably get one to save on gas. Then get a gas guzzler as a project and weekend truck (full size silverado or something like that). Economy and "powerful and cool" have never gone together and this defintley proves that.

[Dimemaster]

"Eeeeewww, Daddy, I like that!" Yesenia.
"Pfffffftttttt." Martika.

It looks too Chrysler for my taste.

Have you seen what happens to a lithium-ion battery when the containment membrane ruptures and air gets to the chemicals inside? KAA-BOOM! I saw li-on powered model airplane hit a tree. The flames and smoke were a nice scale touch.

[TheNumberOneStunna]

:frustrate Me no likey......

It looks too Chrysler
Agree 100%.

[Lvtrucks2000]

The other problem is a lot of our green friends want to go with Battery powered cars so the air will get better. I guess they forget that when the batteries do not recycle as well as you think. what do you do with the chemicals inside that battery after it is used up. Not to mention 12 of them just for one car?

[RaccoonJoe]

I'm liking the idea behind the car....it's just that the battery tech. isn't able to keep up yet. For me, 100 miles daily is routine...I'd love to be able to do that on just 1 gallon of fuel. However, until the technology catches up enough that these cars will run 200K+miles, without *major* work...............sorry, i'm not buying into it just yet.

On a side note.....has anyone ever tried to work on one of these beasts?? or even a "normal" hybrid (prius or such)?? They are nearly impossible to work on, difficult to get parts for, and you'll spend almost as much in repairs as you do for MSRP on the damn car!! Not my idea of a good investment......

[hotS10girl]

If we had decent public transportation in this country we wouldn't have to be forced to even consider fugly lumps of poo like the Volt. I want us (Americans) to have access to a 500KPH train like Japan has.

[97v8s10]

Definatly ugly.

[steve]

If we had decent public transportation in this country we wouldn't have to be forced to even consider fugly lumps of poo like the Volt. I want us (Americans) to have access to a 500KPH train like Japan has.

America as a whole could never have the public transportation as Japan or the European countries. The US is way too large and rural for that to be a realistic possibility. Sure the urban centers could do it, but that would not be enough to make a real difference. Simply the US was not designed to have a national effective mass transit system. That’s why we need cars like that. Think of it this way. The more people that buy those cars, the more gas there will be for our gas loving trucks. :D

[D-Caf]

You want a cool ass electric car then check out this:

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php

To bad it costs so damn much (around 100k nicely loaded). Anyways that's a pretty cool car, but it's a pure sports car, no trunk space, though great of the commute :D .

As for public transportation, well it could work, but we're wedded to our automobiles. I live in the DC area where we have a great metro (subway) system, but people still insist on driving 45mintues to an hour in traffic vs a 45 minute commute with walking and metro. I take the metro to work (as does my wife) and we fill our gas tanks once every 2-3 months (mostly from weekend fun and shopping trips). Love it, save so much in gas money and lets me have fun with my truck with out concern for MPG.

We have some fast trains on the east coast between DC and NY, but they are far from the speeds of Europe and Japan. I'd love to have a 1.5 hour train trip to NY vs the 4 hour car drive for a day in the Big City, but it's still a 3+ hour train ride, even on the faster trains.

We're not willing to invest in public transit that could work, since we are to worried about patches to the present road work to keep it limping along. We love our cars (and I understand that to a point) and aren't willing to relinquish that total freedom (yeah, great freedom sitting in a traffic jam...) for the slight inconvenience of working around a train schedule.

Sorry, I rant...

Anyways, I like the idea of the electric car, and hope Chevy put that and a few other models (like a Truck/SUV with the same system) out for us in the future. But, that thing is pretty ugly as it stands now.

[hotS10girl]

America as a whole could never have the public transportation as Japan or the European countries. The US is way too large and rural for that to be a realistic possibility. Sure the urban centers could do it, but that would not be enough to make a real difference. Simply the US was not designed to have a national effective mass transit system. That’s why we need cars like that. Think of it this way. The more people that buy those cars, the more gas there will be for our gas loving trucks. :D


I live in an "urban center" and I would be diggin' it. I would use public transport if it weren't so slow, but we don't even have trains or trolley cars here(buses only.) I see your point though about the US being too large for a cross country bullet train

[S10Northwest]

It looks too Chrysler for my taste. ^5's Dimemaster

[steve]

You want a cool ass electric car then check out this:

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php

To bad it costs so damn much (around 100k nicely loaded). Anyways that's a pretty cool car, but it's a pure sports car, no trunk space, though great of the commute :D .

As for public transportation, well it could work, but we're wedded to our automobiles. I live in the DC area where we have a great metro (subway) system, but people still insist on driving 45mintues to an hour in traffic vs a 45 minute commute with walking and metro. I take the metro to work (as does my wife) and we fill our gas tanks once every 2-3 months (mostly from weekend fun and shopping trips). Love it, save so much in gas money and lets me have fun with my truck with out concern for MPG.

We have some fast trains on the east coast between DC and NY, but they are far from the speeds of Europe and Japan. I'd love to have a 1.5 hour train trip to NY vs the 4 hour car drive for a day in the Big City, but it's still a 3+ hour train ride, even on the faster trains.

We're not willing to invest in public transit that could work, since we are to worried about patches to the present road work to keep it limping along. We love our cars (and I understand that to a point) and aren't willing to relinquish that total freedom (yeah, great freedom sitting in a traffic jam...) for the slight inconvenience of working around a train schedule.

Sorry, I rant...

Anyways, I like the idea of the electric car, and hope Chevy put that and a few other models (like a Truck/SUV with the same system) out for us in the future. But, that thing is pretty ugly as it stands now.

Your outlook would be different if you did not live in a city.

[D-Caf]

Your outlook would be different if you did not live in a city.

Oh, I doubt it. I have lived out in the suburbs and actually drove 5 mintues to a train station and took that into the city. I had about an hour and half commute but I could read or play video games or sleep during most of that time so it wasn't to bad. Wa much less aggravating than driving in traffic. Still alot of people would rather have spent a little over an hour doing nothing but sitting in slow moving traffic than take the longer train ride.

Now would public transit work well for more rural areas or suburbs with out a large strong central city? Nope, and I wouldn't propose it for those areas (and those areas don't have the stop and go traffic as well). But I do think that highspeed trains could work very well if they were real highspeed trains and resonably priced tickets. Even for cross country.

There are a lot of people who won't or can't fly, but would like to be able to travel. Like I already said, east coast travel from major city to another would be nice. But if they could say put a train from NY to Chicago that only took 6 hours or a NY to LA train that could be done in less than say 24 hours (overnight trip) I would be much more inclinded to take that vs flying as trains are a LOT more comfortable for me than a plane (I'm tall, and can not sleep or really rest on a plane).

Regardless of that, it can be seen in the city (even those with good public transit) that people love the freedom they get with a car, even if that freedom isn't as free as they think (freedome to leave whenever you want and sit in traffic ;-) ). The majority of people would rather sit in traffic in their cars than have to rely on the schedule of a train. That's just how it is, and unless something forces them to make a change (think gas prices that hit $5/gallon or higher, or traffic that adds 1 hour to every 30 minutes of your normal commute), I don't see it changing.

It's not that public transit and highspeed trains can't work in the US, it just we don't want them right now. Their are plenty of very rural areas in Europe that you must have a car to get from place to place, yet they still have very functional public transit.

[bigomondis104]

with hybrids the resale value isnt any good. no one wants to buy a used hybrid

[steve]

D-Caf it sure would be great to have them working through out the US, but I don't see it happening. I think you under estimating how huge the US is and how astronomical it would be to have a truly effective high-speed mass transit. It will probably work pretty well for the more popular train routes (ex. Boston to NY) but it would cost way too much to have it replace normal trains or even take over most of the load. Maybe some day.

[D-Caf]

D-Caf it sure would be great to have them working through out the US, but I don't see it happening. I think you under estimating how huge the US is and how astronomical it would be to have a truly effective high-speed mass transit. It will probably work pretty well for the more popular train routes (ex. Boston to NY) but it would cost way too much to have it replace normal trains or even take over most of the load. Maybe some day.


Oh I agree, right now, it's not viable nation wide, mostly cause, we aren't used to it. It would have to be one of those things where it was built on faith in that after say 5-10 years of loosing money, people will have finally caught on some and started putting it to use. Unfortunetly projects like that just don't go over to well here in the US, we tend to not plan on that far in advanced (I'm not trying to slight my country or anything, just a reality).

I do think we need them on the upper east coast, and possibly in California. With the number of big cities and disparate denser popluation areas, they've got a good chance of success as people realize it's a lot easier than dealing with the cramped space on plains yet about the same amount of total travel time (if you include dealing with airport security, baggage check, etc..).

Anyways, yeah, cross country train isn't going to happen soon, but I do think that given a chance in the long run a truelly highspeed train route coast to coast would work out very well. It would have to be a 250+ mph high speed train though, so that in a 16 hour train ride you could go from D.C, through NY, Chicago, St. Louis, Austin, Phoenix, LA, ending in San Francisco. That would give a 30 minute stop in each city for unloading and loading new passengers.

I know I'm dreaming, we are not really a Train country (which is strange given we were such big users of the train in our countries earlier history).

[steve]

Oh I agree, right now, it's not viable nation wide, mostly cause, we aren't used to it. It would have to be one of those things where it was built on faith in that after say 5-10 years of loosing money, people will have finally caught on some and started putting it to use. Unfortunetly projects like that just don't go over to well here in the US, we tend to not plan on that far in advanced (I'm not trying to slight my country or anything, just a reality).

I do think we need them on the upper east coast, and possibly in California. With the number of big cities and disparate denser popluation areas, they've got a good chance of success as people realize it's a lot easier than dealing with the cramped space on plains yet about the same amount of total travel time (if you include dealing with airport security, baggage check, etc..).

Anyways, yeah, cross country train isn't going to happen soon, but I do think that given a chance in the long run a truelly highspeed train route coast to coast would work out very well. It would have to be a 250+ mph high speed train though, so that in a 16 hour train ride you could go from D.C, through NY, Chicago, St. Louis, Austin, Phoenix, LA, ending in San Francisco. That would give a 30 minute stop in each city for unloading and loading new passengers.

I know I'm dreaming, we are not really a Train country (which is strange given we were such big users of the train in our countries earlier history).



We just need flying cars. Where are the Jetsons when we need them.

[bonecrushins10]

its not that ugly , looks like they were trying 2 mimick the phatoms look , i like it

[titiwaka]

Honestly, I'd buy a Volt. I'd save so much money on gas.

[HU5K3Y]

Why can’t anyone build a hybrid or electric that doesn’t look it. All the designs they have look like crap. The professional auto experts always call them new and radical designs while I think that its someone who let a computer and artist draw a car and want it to look pretty and aero instead of automotive enthusiast who want to give it an attitude. They want it to look so different while in fact it seems that you can tell the fuel economy by looks. Look at the Prius. Without knowing anything about it most people would say it looks fuel efficient, cause it looks stupid. Today its hard enough to find anything that has power, even harder to find something with style. I’m young but I get so jealous when I hear my dad talking about when he got his GTO and the other muscle cars of the day. Today the muscle cars don’t have muscle, the heavy-duty trucks are just heavy, and the idea of style is making an aerodynamic piece of plastic and fiberglass that is fuel efficient. Its kinda sad but out of all the new cars and trucks that Chevy makes, hell let’s say all that the manufactures make, how many look and perform better that previous generations. I don’t get the new fad in the auto industry but I would much rather drive some thing that sucks gas and hauls ass and looks good doing it than a car or truck that is fuel efficient but doesn’t have any style or taste.