JUL 27

The unusual electric car concept that we started following a few years ago is now close to arriving at auto dealerships as the 2011 Chevy Volt. And today, Chevrolet announced the manufacturer's suggested retail price for the Volt will be $41,000. With the full $7,500 federal tax credit, the price comes down to $33,500, and even lower with additional state incentives.

Nissan has tried to position itself as the competitor to GM with its all-electric Leaf, and that is playing out in a number of ways. While the list price of the Volt is several thousand dollars more than the Nissan Leaf, both vehicles will be available for lease at almost identical cost: $350/month for the Volt or $349/month for the Leaf.

Furthermore, on the same day that GM announced the pricing for the Volt, Nissan fired back with an announcement that it, too, would offer a warranty similar to the eight year, 100,000 mile warranty GM has announced for the Volt's battery systems.

The initial markets selected by each company are also interesting to compare: Nissan plans to roll out the Leaf in Texas and Hawaii in January of 2011, then in North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Alabama and Washington, D.C., in April 2011 and eventually nationwide by the end of that year. None of these are particularly cold-weather states. The Volt will initially be available in California, New York, Washington, D.C., Texas, Michigan, Connecticut and New Jersey in late 2010, and will be expanded into nationwide availability (as well as to Canada) in the following 12 - 18 months.

This will be interesting to follow as both companies (as well both existing manufacturers and new startups with other electric vehicles and hybrids) push the industry further along in developing alternatives to simple internal combustion drive vehicles.

Comments (4)

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written by Mieko, July 27, 2010

Nissan Leaf is launching in August for: Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington. September for Hawaii and Texas.

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It's still a big battery to drag around...
written by mkass, July 28, 2010

There's another electric car option that hasn't been explored in the media as much: hydrogen fuel-cell technology. Oddly enough, GM has an amazing vehicle in that arena, too: http://organicconnectmag.com/w...led-chevy/

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production engineer
written by J Hamilton, August 04, 2010

This is great news....but as we buy electric vehicles we have to remember that as of Electric Power Monthly's July 2010 report on energy production states.... we are producing 68.7% of our electricity by burning fossil fuel, 20.3% Nuclear and only 11% by renewable resources. I live in Southwest Colorado where heavy metals from the huge coal fired generators near here in NM and AZ are polluting our lakes and streams to the point where we can't eat some of our native fish. Also we need to take into consideration how will the manufacturing footprints of these electric vehicles offset their benefit. Hopefully the owners of EV's will charge their cars responsively otherwise it could make our impact on our planet worse.

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Electricity Comes From Any Source
written by Brandon Rice, August 05, 2010

I'm tired of hearing people say that "most of our electricity comes from burning coal". This may be true now, but since electricity will always be electricity, an upgrade to power generation will automatically upgrade the future millions of electric vehicles. Upgrades with the flip of a breaker. Now that is the pinnacle of efficiency.

Electricity is a neutral power delivery mechanism. We will end up turning hydrogen into electricity to drive the car any way. Why not just deal in electricity in the first place to make the battery and electric drive trains into robust industries. Then we can add hydrogen once the electric infrastructure is in place. Then we can add the ultra-capacitor revolution before or after the hydrogen infrastructure and replace all those dirty, slow charging batteries with instant charging, clean capacitor packs. The future is electricity and it can come from any source.

The Volt will make its own electricity and will appeal to anyone that wants to drive their car on a trip or vacation. Since its power generator is secondary to the electric drive train it can be swapped out for other fuel sources. How about the Volt Diesel, the Volt Veggie, the Volt Flex Fuel, the Volt Hydrogen, or the Volt Flux Capacitor. I can imagine the Volt becoming the most heavily modded car by ethusiasts. Good luck Leaf.

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