Chevrolet Volt review

by David Finlay (2 December 2011)

When the Volt goes on sale in the UK in 2012 it will be an unusual Chevrolet in many ways, not the least being that it's American (all the ones available here at the moment being rebadged Korean Daewoos). Much more significantly - and like the Vauxhall Ampera, which is to all intents and purposes the same thing - it's an electric car with a "range-extender" petrol engine which only indirectly provides power.

This leads to all sorts of questions along the lines of "how much of a green car can this be if it burns fossil fuel?" Yes, the design involves a lot of compromise, but with the present limitations of range in battery-only vehicles it may be the best that can be achieved.

The engine is essentially a very old one, having been introduced in more primitive form in the Vauxhall Nova back in the early 1980s, though as found in the Volt it's the evolved version used in the Corsa. It's automatically switched on only when it has to be, so when the battery pack is fully charged it does little more than act as ballast.

How long remains like that depends on how quickly you drain the battery, and that of course depends on how you drive the car. An electric-only range of as much as 60 miles has been mentioned, though conditions would have to be very favourable for that to be a realistic figure. 30 miles is a safer estimate.

Once the battery has run out of juice, the engine is fired up, but it never drives the car. (Clarification: Okay, it sometimes drives the car. According to Chevrolet, there's a Mountain Mode, "which effectively drops a planetary gear into place to maintain efficiency under extreme load, ie if climbing a steep hill, as it uses less fuel that way than it would take to sustain the battery". But you have to engage it manually.) In normal conditions the engine acts as a rather complicated generator. Apart from a very slight increase in decibels (though the engine noise is extremely well insulated and you're not really aware of it unless you accelerate hard) it makes no difference to the driving experience. The Volt continues to feel like an all-electric car.

This means, among other things, that whether the engine is on or off you get very sturdy acceleration as soon as your floor the accelerator pedal. The Volt isn't an especially fast car, but it responds almost immediately to a call to action.

How economical it is depends to a much greater extent than usual on the way it's used. If you only ever use it for commuting, and you live less than 15 miles from work, you might never need the Volt's engine at all, and it's possible that it could have the same petrol in the tank when  you sell it as it did on the day you bought it. Your fuel cost would be zero, your electricity cost for a week perhaps less than you would spend on dinner for two.

But that would apply if you spent less on a smaller electric car. The point about the Volt is that you can, if mood or circumstances dictate, drive it the length of the country - spending money on petrol, certainly, but not spending it on a second car with the required range for a long-ish journey.

On the subject of money, the Volt has been priced at £33,545 in the UK, though at the time of writing the Government will subsidise this by £5000, bringing the cost down to £28,545. And if we're going to take electric cars at all seriously we have to ask whether the Volt makes sense as a £28,545 car regardless of its running costs.

Well, it's certainly a premium model. The interior design is generally very attractive, the ride is - I'm quoting from a note I wrote down excitedly in a lay-by during this test - "absolutely excellent", the steering action is lovely, both pedals have a very nice action and the cornering ability, while nowhere near sports car levels, is entirely to the purpose. This is a very good, very comfortable, very relaxing car to drive.

I'm not a big fan of the white plastic centre console. For me, it gives the Volt a sense of otherness which I think the designers ought to have gone to some lengths to avoid. And the buttons on it (to control the radio, air-conditioning and what not) aren't buttons but touch-sensitive pads, yet they have to be pressed at least as hard as real buttons would. That's missing the point, isn't it?

Passenger room is excellent in the front but very limited in the rear. Being over six feet tall, I needed at least another three inches of headroom, and it would be impossible for me to get my legs and feet comfortable if I were sitting behind someone of the same height. The Volt could easily carry four adults if their average height was, say, five foot eight, but that's not saying much for a car of this overall size.

Like other super-green cars such as the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius hybrids, the Volt has a gently sloping rear window and a second window which drops vertically (and has no wiper and attracts road dirt) along with very thick C pillars. No doubt this all helps reduce aerodynamic drag, but it plays hell with your chances of seeing where you're going in reverse. The load sill is also very high, which won't help when you're trying to get luggage in there.

So the Volt is not without its problems, and I can see why some people find the battery-plus-range-extender idea unsatisfactory in theory, though it does make a lot of sense in principle. But I did enjoy my time behind the wheel, and if you're prepared to include the Volt in the same category as fully-electric cars, it's undoubtedly my favourite so far.

• Chevrolet Reviews
• More Road Tests