Chevrolet Volt

The all-new Chevrolet Volt is now upon us, and it appears to be a very competent car. Thanks to its clever drivetrain, it has all the benefits of a pure electric vehicle with hardly any of the negative aspects, and the critics all agree that it’s a rather well sorted piece of kit.

However, it’s worth pointing out that, unless your daily routine welcomes it with open arms, more conventional cars are the better bet for the time being.

Interior

The Volt is a car that looks to the future, so it’s rather apt that the Chevy’s interior has a science fiction-esque look, with the main units being display on digital screens, and the centre console housing a vast array of touch buttons. The rest, though, is just as you’d expect from a mainstream car.

Practicality is fairly decent for a car of this size, with good leg and headroom for the driver and passengers, and the clever ‘T-Shape’ battery layout means the boot is a healthy 300 litres in size. That said, the Volt is strictly a four-seater, and taller passengers may be wanting for headroom in the back.

Quite a few critics also commented on some disappointing materials when you look beyond the aesthetic galore of the cabin design, though overall fit and finish appears to be good enough.

Driving

Although it’s got an internal combustion engine on board, the Volt instead runs off an electric motor, so even when the 1.4 petrol engine kicks in to recharge the batteries, the Chevrolet is an EV, and thus drives like one for most of the time – all the torque is available from the moment you press the accelerator pedal, which is of noticeable use in built up areas and stop/start traffic, and even when the engine does fire up, the sound deadening means it’s still incredibly quiet inside unless you bury the throttle into the front foot well.

However, the reports suggest that there are quite a few things that the critics aren’t so keen on – although it belies its 1,700kg curb weight very well, it still requires a bit of heft to get the Volt around tighter corners. Other niggles seem to be the compromised visibility fore and aft, courtesy of the thick pillars, and some thought the ride, though settled at speed, got a bit bumpy on rougher roads.

Value for money

As we mentioned earlier, there is an engine, but it isn’t actually connected to the driven wheels. Instead, there’s an electric motor that provides the Volt with the oomph it needs to get up and go.

In electric mode, the furthest Chevrolet says it can go is 50 miles before the petrol motor kicks in to charge the batteries, which in turn gives the Volt another 300 or so miles to play with until you have to fill the petrol tank up or charge the car up through a standard plug socket.

The official stats also suggest that the Volt won’t cost much to run, though that’s dependent on your daily mileage and if you can keep the car running in EV mode for long enough (even Chevrolet admits the 235mpg and 27g/km of CO2 the Volt scored in the official tests will take a lot of effort to match in the real world).

Still, at least it’s exempt from road tax and the London congestion charge, and has an incredibly low company car tax rating of just 5%.

Value for money

The Chevrolet Volt does pack a lot of pioneering tech underneath that aerodynamically efficient skin, and as a result does cost quite a lot of money – even with the £5,000 grant from the Government, the list price is still the thick end of thirty grand, and more conventional, similarly sized rivals are noticeably cheaper.

That said, the road tax for the Volt is free, and there aren’t any options to deal with either. Standard equipment levels are fairly generous and Chevrolet is confident in the technology, the Volt comes with an three year warranty, and a 8 year battery warranty, which should help bump up the car’s residual values a bit, should you come to sell it on during that time.

Worth noting

Under the skin, the Chevrolet Volt is identical to the Vauxhall Ampera. However, the Vauxhall is a tiny bit more expensive to buy than the Chevrolet, and doesn’t come with goodies such as leather seats as standard fit either, so unless you prefer the looks of one over the other, the Chevrolet is the marginally more cost-friendly choice of the two.

Conclusion

We won’t lie and say the Volt is the car that renders the conventional petrol and diesel crowd obsolete, because it isn’t. Though it’s undoubtedly a very well sorted car, the Chevrolet is still a very expensive piece of kit, and unless your daily and annual mileage is low enough, we reckon an efficient diesel car will be more viable in the long run.

That said, it’s the most convincing electric car that we’ve seen so far, and the addition of a petrol engine means the ‘range anxiety’ notion that plagues other EVs isn’t an issue for most of the time. The Volt also drives and behaves like a ‘normal’ car, so there’s not much to be intimidated about by the revolutionary Chevy.

We’d still recommend its cheaper and more ‘common’ rivals if you cover long distances for most of the time, but if you drive in built-up areas (especially ones that have charging stations for electric cars) or don’t cover that many miles, we wouldn’t criticise you for taking the plunge and ordering a Chevrolet Volt.