![]() Inside, the four seats are well-bolstered but low to the floor, meaning occupants sit deep inside the car and peer out through the narrow windows. The tailgate is almost horizontal and, like that of the Toyota Prius hybrid whose proportions it somewhat echoes, has a pair of windows: one long but almost horizontal, the other small but vertical to increase rearward visibility. The shape of the 2015 Chevrolet Volt remains the same: It's a squat, slab-sided five-door hatchback with a high tail and relatively small side windows. Often dealers make no effort to help them along. And if those buyers have never met an actual Volt owner, they may also not understand why those owners would be so astoundingly passionate about it. And GM's marketing staff have struggled to explain it to the many potential buyers simply don't "get" the Volt. These factors-daily distance, driving cycle, what's electric and what's not-have all contributed to continuing confusion over the Volt and how it works. It does, however, have the highest owner satisfaction ratings of any car in the history of General Motors-which indicates promise for the future as battery costs fall and GM launches a second-generation model. Still, at $35,000, the Volt remains expensive for a compact car with only four seats. GM says that Volt owners cover about two-thirds of all of their miles and fully 80 percent of their commute travel on grid electricity used to charge the battery. Moreover, sales are heavily regional-largely in states and areas with electric-car incentives, including California-and the Volt remains a rarity in other regions. By way of comparison, Chevy sells almost that many Cruze compact sedans each month. than any other plug-in car-though the Nissan Leaf is catching up fast-that amounts only to about 23,000 cars in each of the last two years. While more Volts have been sold in the U.S. ![]() But unlike plug-in hybrids from Ford, Honda, Hyundai, and Toyota, the Volt never switches on its engine to assist the electric motor while there's still energy remaining in the battery-which makes for a much nicer driving experience for that first 35 or so miles. cars, meaning a Volt used for commuting may not switch on its gasoline engine for weeks at a time. That distance covers the daily travel for four-fifths of all U.S. It's a compact five-door hatchback with four seats that offers 35 to 40 miles of all-electric range. It hasn't changed much since then it remains the sole plug-in electric car from General Motors that's built in high volumes. And that potentially makes the outgoing 2015 Volt an attractive proposition, given the discounts likely to be used to sell down the remaining inventory.Īlong with the battery-electric Nissan Leaf, the Chevy Volt pioneered the market for modern plug-in volume cars back in December 2010. The 2015 Chevrolet Volt has now officially entered lame-duck territory, with specifications, trim levels, and even prices announced for its all-new 2016 successor-which will go on sale in the autumn of this year. ![]()
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