Here it is the much anticipated Chevy Volt. The Chevy Volt is an electric car with a 4 cylinder motor that is only responsible for charging the battery. With this new design, General Motors has created an new type of plug-in hybrid car now know as an extended range electric vehicle (EREV). General Motors did extensive research on the commuting habits of the average American. Their results showed that most Americans drive about 30 miles a day. With that number in mind, GM designed the car to travel 40 miles on a single charge. That means that for most people, they will never have to rely on the internal generator to charge the battery. Instead, they can plug it in a standard wall socket and charge the battery for the next day. That means zero emissions for most people and a charging cost of pennies a day.

But what happens if you want to drive more than 40 miles? This is the true beauty of this car; the internal generator will kick in and keep the battery charged as you drive. Since the generator does not actually drive the wheels, it can run at an optimal speed for maximum efficiency. The estimated fuel economy of the generator while charging is about 50 MPG. The estimated range of the Volt on a tank of gas is around 300 miles.

So imagine you take a trip that is a total of 200 miles; subtract the initial 40 miles of battery usage and that leaves you with 160 miles with the generator running. At 50 MPG you will burn 3.2 gallons of gas. Now divide 200 by 3.2 and you get an average fuel rating of  62.5 MPG. Not too bad. If you made a shorter trip of 90 miles then you will burn 1 gallon of gas and get an average of 90 MPG. But the coolness of this vehicle doesn't stop there. Suppose you don't want to buy gas, no problem, this is an E-flex motor that will run on E85 ethanol, regular gas, or I believe biodiesel as well.

There is another interesting car that I will write about later, but I am partial to this one due to it's technical sophistication.

 - Thomas Paine 2

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