Who resurrected the electric car?

General Motors unveils new prototype

Accused in an acclaimed documentary of deliberately mishandling its first electric vehicle effort a decade ago, General Motors has returned to the fray with a new approach.

The Chevrolet Volt, as unveiled at the Detroit motor show, is a four-passenger family car that can run for 40 miles on its lithium-ion battery alone, after six hours’ home charging. But it also has a one-litre internal combustion engine (there are both bio-diesel and ethanol variants), which can be used to top up the battery on the go, extending its range to as much as 640 miles.

Paul Clarke of www.green-car-guide.com reckons this makes it more of a next-generation hybrid than an out-and-out electric car. And, he points out, Toyota’s new Prius will be with us well before any likely launch date for a fully fledged production model of the Volt.

But GM’s vice chairman Bob Lutz believes the Volt does a good job of tackling electric motoring’s traditional downsides. “It addresses the range problem and has room for passengers and their stuff. You can climb a hill or turn on the air-conditioning and not worry about it.”

The jury’s still out on the practicalities of the battery, weighing in at 181 kilograms and not expected to be ready for production until 2012. Even the much smaller lithium-ion batteries used in laptops can still be problematic, as Sony found when customers’ laptops caught fire. Interestingly, another version of the Volt prototype uses a hydrogen fuel cell instead - though the waiting time for buyers of that might be even longer. - Esther Maughan McLachlan

11 March 2007

Esther Maughan McLachlan