Chevrolet Volt I - intro

**Haven't posted anything in a while but seem to have had a lot stuff on my hard drive in a nearly finished state for months and months; making and effort to catch up in the next few weeks. The Volt piece is so big I've chopped it up into separate posts to make it a little easier to digest**

This will not be a comparison of the concept and production Volt. The concept was not a particularly successful exercise; certainly not worth emulating - with it's boxy, cartoonish proportions that were never production feasible. It was hardly showered with praise upon it's debut, so the storm of controversy must have been doubly surprising to GM: isn't it enough that it's a major breakthrough – both in technology and culture – for them without having to be a roadgoing concept car as well? The Chevy Volt is an important car for many and various reasons, but the styling isn't one of them (and that works quite well anyway) though GM did make a rod for it's own back by promising to keep faithful to a frankly ugly concept car. This has caused a flurry of comment from sad fanboys on the internet who think that having a blog and an opinion actually mean that their views are somehow important....

...er, *cough*

Anyway - after years of kicking & screaming (whilst Toyota & Honda quietly got on with) GM is the first of the troubled big three to seriously pursue the next wave of drivetrain technology, and has done so with a vengeance. Without hailing the Volt is some kind of latter day Model T, it does represent a fundamental shift in the American motoring landscape – a change that could have only been effected by one of the native brands. Given that the EV1 appeared 12 years ago and was a limited scale pure EV (rather than a hybrid), one has to wonder at the pool of knowledge that GM had to draw upon – making the Volt's development time even more remarkable.

If we ignore the radical drivetrain, this is a bread-and-butter 4 door saloon - so why should it look like concept car any more than any other 4 door saloon? I haven't seen much criticism of the new Cruze for failing to be gorgeous and the 'controversy' surrounding the Volt's styling is irritating on a number of levels.

First, a statement was made that the production item would stay as faithful to the concept as possible. Whilst I have the greatest of respect for Mr Lutz might I suggest that this was, in retrospect, a mistake? It set an expectation that could not realistically be delivered – and many chose to take that statement at face value rather than heed the evidence of their own eyes (see Volt concept analysis). Given the scale and nature of the difference between the concept & production items, it can be inferred that production Volt was at a very early stage when the concept was shown, otherwise it would have been better stage managed – look at the development paths of the Ford Iosis through to Mondeo III and Opel GTC Geneva to Astra 3 door as more typical examples of how this should work. When you dial in the fact that even with today's reduced lead times, developing any vehicle in this timescale would be a challenge, never mind one that is not only a radical change of direction for the company concerned - but a mass market first for anyone, the idea that it would be drop dead gorgeous or faithful to the concept looks increasingly naive. The fact that some of the mainstream motoring press chimed in with this view was particularly disappointing; they should know better.

Second, there seems to be a lack of recognition of what stage the LEV market is at. We are used to the idea of the car as mature product, since not long after Harley Earl established the Art and Colour department in 1927, but (for the moment at least) the alternative drive technology is a USP that aces the usual factors such as style, safety or performance. To draw a parallel with the mobile phone, we're somewhere in the early-to-mid nineties: the 2G network had been launched in 1991 but the infrastructure was patchy; whilst still rare, phones were no longer the reserve of stockbrokers but still a long way from general acceptance. At that point what it looked like, how it felt in the hand, how easy the interfaces were to navigate were irrelevant – as long it worked and was affordable, it's utility alone was enough to sell it. It wasn't until the cusp of the millenium that interchangeable covers - one of the earliest expressions of fashion in mobile phones – started to appear. The mobile phone was becoming a mature product, i.e. it's core functionality could be assumed, and thus other factors start to become more important as market differentiators: useability, style, status, additional features (today it's got to the point where the issue for those serving in the armed forces is finding a phone that doesn't have a camera.)

Look at the G-Wiz: an ugly death trap with an interior that makes a cardboard box look luxurious, on sale for the price of a proper car: who can honestly argue that Reva would have sold a single example were it not an EV? OK, hybrids are a little further along the curve, but developing a mass market hybrid intended as an everyday vehicle is a still a big deal, and in the case of the Volt the prospect of potentially petrol free motoring is what will sell the car more than – and possibly in spite of – anything else. Producing such a vehicle that not only meets the actual (80% of Americans travel less than 40 miles a day), but the perceived needs of the user was always going to be a challenge. Although most of the required technologies have progressed enormously in the last decade there are still great limitations, and these dictated that efficiency was king (and will remain so until the energy density of batteries significantly increases) when developing the Volt. As far as aesthetics goes this means aerodynamics.

Third – how many of those most vocal in their criticism were ever likely to actually buy one? However good or bad it is (or looks), it's not likely to be at the top of any petrolheads shopping list: this is car as appliance. Newsflash: enthusiasts are a minority – look at the sales chart: it does not read like a petrolheads wishlist. Hard though that seems to be for some to grasp, there are people out there for whom a car is a mode of transport and nothing more. If they have any sense, GM will ignore the embittered ranting of individuals who were never likely to be customers anyway.

Finally, the Honda Insight II is - externally at least - pretty much a clone of the Prius; yet I have yet to see a word of criticism on this regard. In fact, of the purpose built hybrids the Volt is the looker of the bunch; this is particularly impressive when you consider that the Volt's major dimensions are all within a couple of inches of the Prius. If car companies are going to be hounded into big efficiency gains in the short term, get used to convergence: there are few optimum aerodynamic solutions (BTW, when private cars have further reduced the 10% of the overall emissions they're actually responsible for, will they finally go after the main offenders?)

Ultimately, that what is shaping up to be an impressive achievement is being overshadowed by a criticism that it fails to match unrealistic expectations in one particular aspect is really quite objectionable.