Sep 9 2008Production Model Photos Of The Chevy Volt

FIRST!!!!!!!!!

headlights remind me of an Acura. second?

True #2 true

Why do auto makers always change concept cars into crap...seriously 2001 means 2 years to revamp factory lines. Stop share chasis parts. We want new looks!

This went from an interesting concept with some sexy style to a prius knock-off that's almost completely useless in the real world. GO GM!

looks like a rebadged prius. gag........just when GM was about to actually do something cool, they go a f#@k it up like this. figures.

GW- I vote Mr. Mustache - the other guy seems likely to bust a "Hostel" on my white ass.

What is it with American cars and having to make the body so disproportionate - it looks like a tanning booth with small windows strapped on top.
"Visibilty? Who needs it?"

That's like false advertising or somethin'. The car looks completely different, sort of like a Prius now. I was following the concept of this car and I'm pretty freaking disappointed in the overall look of the production model. When is Detroit going to make a kick ass looking hybrid?

I actually like the body style, even though it did seem to "borrow" some ideas from other cars.

And I'm willing to bet that "Mr. Mustache" already has a Santa suit tucked away somewhere for that "special occasion."

"Mr. Creepy Stare," looks like he won't take no for an answer though.

I'll have to go with "Mr. 'Stache."

Ok, I'm going with the dude with no moustache. Why? hear me out:

I sit in his lap.

He gets a boner.

What do I want for Christmas? A lawsuit.

Also GM sucks.

You guys need to stop complaining it's obvious with the color that this is the model that women are suposed to be interested in, and the concept is still a go for men. or at least that would make tons of sense..........nevermind, i tried.

Who want's a mustashe ride? Oh I do I do

It's a hybrid, of course it's going to be ugly.

@11 - I'm a woman... this it sucky. You tried, you failed...
Now go sit on Mr. Creepy Stare's lap. Merry Christmas

The thing that disturbs me is that for the last couple years of research and design on this car, they kept having "thermal emissions". I watched a news show about how car companies are going green, and the mustached guy was on. He was asked about the exploding battery packs and all he could do was refer to them as "Thermal Emission".
The last car that was well known for "Thermal Emissions" was the Ford Pinto, and most should know how well that one went down in the history books. In f***ing flames!

complain all you want on how it looks, but if you're taking into consideration gas prices...would you rather rock a geo metro or that thing?

...plus i hear they're real nice for sneaking up on a motherf***er all quiet like.

GM screwed up. They'd better have some good PR spin as this car looks NOTHING like the concept that got everyone's attention. Bait and switch? WTF were they thinking?

I'd be VERY surprised if they did use lithium ion batteries. If Honda and Toyota aren't using them (the hybrid leaders for 10+ years) then I would run away from this car. I think they'll use the regular nickel metal hydride batteries - proven and cheap.

Overall, this car is a let down.

The concept looks way cooler. The production looks like a Chevy redesign of the Prius. Which is alright, but less cooler. And being cool isn't always that important in life. On the other hand, it can be very important in life. And life is alright depending on what car you drive. But the car you drive better not be a smelter. Because he who smelt it, dealt it.

the aerodynamics to gain the mpg they wanted tend to move to the cheese wedge design that the prius has. the baby camaro look was great but this is eh. its in transformers 2 also. lol @ toyota no one notices that the new tundra or whatever looks like the dodge rams. its sick that mpg is the main buying point for people. im only in my 20s and i miss the days of powerful cars

So who gets to keep the concept one? I'm guessing the guy with the fivehead.

@12 nice super troopers reference......Hey, let's pop some Viagras and issue tickets with raging, mega-huge boners.

i would definitely rather sit on Mustachio's lap rather than that guy that looks like a 50yr old version of Beeker from the muppets.

A pair of bikini babes, and no-one would have even noticed how shit the car looked...

alright, so meant Beaker. geez, just tie me up and shoot me why dont you. geeez, why dont you just spank me all over. yea, now squeeze that. oh man, oh geez.

The concept version is pretty sweet, but why does the production model look like yet another awkward prius-type hybrid? They're shooting themselves in the foot if they expect that to sell -- DESIGN FAIL!

zero emissions eh? doesn't the majority of electricity in north america still come from coal?

What happened to the sweet muscle car look?!?!?!?!

This is massively disappointing.

it kinda makes you wonder... why would they let such retarded looking people stand next to it for press shots... and then it occurred to me.. to make the car look cooler by comparison..

good job tards.. you almost had me..

GM: "No one wants an electric car, Congressmen, really - we've asked. What? People were interested in that car we showed? Shit! Alright, get 'Mario and Luigi 'down in accounting to f*** it... I mean "redesign it for small-town Amuricans" Tell them to make it look like a bar of soap, and put that shitty fuzzy fabric on the inside- the stuff that I can never get my chocolate McShake out of when I spill it."

Fake!

It's a complete photoshop job. The shadows are all wrong.

I bet they got all these pictures off a DVD of Never Back Down, and the internet, and, You know what they say about the internet.

Watcha say meow?

Meow!

And I too am in my 20s and my dream car is a '71 Barracuda or a '72 Charger. Those are REAL cars...Cars made out of steel where brick walls ran in fear, the racing scene from "Bullet" raced in your head, and you could hear them from blocks away.
Is the gas mileage great or even good with those cars? No; but you could, if you were so inclined, have a threesome in the backseat. And that, my friends, is the American way.

Bring back the muscle cars!!!!!!

P.S. This looks like a Prius which means it says "iiiiiiiiiiiiii'mmmmmmmmmgay" as it goes down the street. Especially if it's powder blue with a chihuahua in the front seat and Christmas decals on the rear window.
Viva la muscle cars!

So what's gonna happen w/ the big shiny GM building in Detroit now once this glorified Malibu makes them go bankrupt? Michigans biggest Chuck-E-Cheese?

Here's what they were thinking - they changed the design because the cool-looking one was completely un-aerodynamic. Wind tunnel testing mandated a more streamlined look to reduce drag and improve gas mileage.

@Tim
I think you are under the misconception that we actually really wanted to know why it now looks gay, we would much rather bitch about it. Isn't that what the internets are for?

i would totally buy this car. i want an electric car, and/or a hybrid.

Can concept cars translate to production cars? Yes - see Nissan's 350Z - virtually identical. I don't hate this new design, I'm just not in love with it. For a car that's meant to make a statement, this one falls kinda flat. It's like a first-gen Prius (the one that looked like an Echo).

The aerodynamic statement is BS. Cars like the 350Z have a 0 drag co-efficient. Look at some of the exotics - 0 drag as well. This was destroyed by the penny-pinching accountants and play-it-safe uninspired executives who have been running American car companies into the ground.

But then maybe the 50 billion dollar communist bailout for these rich f'ers will change the way they do business. Probably not. I don't know about you, but my rapidly dwindling middle class bank account cannot support the weight of these socialist bailouts.

The article says 'different than'.

Should say 'different from'.

Undermines the car, the company, and electricity.

They probably didn't redesign it because of aerodynamics, most likely it's because of things like safety regulations, and the actual need to fit two bloody engines in the car.

As this is going to be a standard production town car, they are probably trying to get it to be very safe in accidents. Stuff like tall, round noses are usually better for pedestrian safety, etc. They are probably going to market this towards people who would buy a Prius (ie. trendy suburban moms), so stuff like good crash test results are high on their list.

On the other hand, gas-electric hybrids aren't even that great for mpg, because of all the extra weight that having two engines and massive batteries (Imagine putting a VW Polo engine into a Dodge Ram pickup). If you want high mpg, just buy a normal hatchback. Although the fact that it has a hybrid gas-ethanol engine as well makes this a bit more interesting then the Prius.

Jesus that is one f*** ugly car.

Why do GM buyers have to wait two model years to drive what Toyota buyers are driving right now?

Hey GM -- want to know why people aren't buying American? Why should we, when you're getting all your design ideas from Japan, and years late at that? If you really want to turn things around, start by producing something that looks just a little different, for once. Then, try rolling out 'new' cars the same decade as the demand peaks.

Back to the CAD tablets, guys -- you could still make the 2020 model year if you hurry!

By the way, 38, the car undermines the company and the concept. The concept of the electric car will never catch on with the public until car makers quit insisting that electric cars must be dorky econoboxes that don't dare venture on to a freeway and have to be recharged overnight after a simple milk run. Yes, I have seen Priuses on the freeway, but they are not there in all-electric mode. If a Prius driver got curious about what would happen if he or she switched off the engine on the freeway, the result would be a pile-up.

At least GM is claiming the Dolt will be able to recharge the batteries as it drives -- that's something new (at this point), but I won't hold my breath waiting to see if that feature makes it into production since it requires an engine -- might not be 'green' enough, don't ya know. If GM runs true to form, the engine will be a $5,000 'option'. Care to guess what the top speed and range will be without it? They might as well make wheels optional.

Chevy's First stab at an Electric. That's False What about the EV1 an Electric car that Chevy produced an worked so good they made it illegal to personally own one and crushed the last 85. This car was was made over ten years ago why don't they bring it back and really show there trying.

@42: I was just about to remind people of that... everyone should watch "who killed the electric car".

@37: Your aerodynamic statement is BS. It's impossible for a vehicle to have a 0 drag coefficient. Most cars are between 0.28 to 0.34, and exotic cars don't always have the best drag coefficients (they're usually worse than a lot of cars; despite being more aerodynamic, since they such a small frontal area, the drag coefficient gets skewed).

Shoot it. Shoot it dead.

PEWPEWPEW

The production model goes form 0 to Homo in .000004576 seconds.

thats a Civic and a Mazda 3 combined together

Does Mr. Weird stare kinda look like a navigator from dune?

Either that or some queer cartoon character I can't quite place.

@41 It's not what a Prius offers now. This is an electric car with a back up gasoline-powered generator.

Electric cars today are hindered by consumer bias, not manufacturers. You think they don't know you and Smoking Girl want honking hot rods? Economy and efficiency obviously go hand in hand - if they could make an electric car that belches like an illiterate redneck and takes up the whole road - lest anyone question the driver's sexuality - they would. Now, personally, I look on the greater part of this ecological movement as just a big wank, but the price of oil will climb ever higher whether it's blackening the skies or not. Sooner or later people are just going to have to get used having their threesomes in the bedroom.

@48 - agreed

no matter how it looks,the snozzberries taste like snozzberries

Can't you people see?!?! GM want's you to hate the car! They don't want to produce electric cars! They want us to stay dependent on oil.

Just take a gander at "who killed the electric car".

By the way SG, my sister had a Cuda. It would burn a gallon of gas just starting. Of course it was the dreamy exhaust smelling leaded gas. Maybe that's what's wrong with me....

How amazingly craptastic. Way to take a sweet ride and dumbifiy it

GM should have called Samsung for a couple product models. Crimminy!

I wonder what the Volt would look like painted orange with gullwing doors, blacked-out windows, and a buttload of glue-on ground effect plastic.

Damn. That is one ugly mo-fo. Though the Volt is much, much different than the Prius. The Prius is what's called a "parallel hybrid" which means that it can run totally on the electric motor or totally on the gas engine – the engine actually puts power to the wheels when driving, so there is a constant switch between electric power and gas power. Which is why it has such little power, you have to put more weight onto an engine than you otherwise should.

The volt on the other hand is a "serial hybrid" which means it always runs off the electric motor and just has a very small gas engine that efficiently charges the batteries. Serial hybrids are more efficient and more advanced that the parallel types, plus you can put in a more powerful electric motor. Lot of electric rally cars are serial hybrids and they easily keep up with their gas powered brethren. So while the Volt is butt-ass ugly, it is a step above the Prius in technology.

my cousin works at a toyota dealership and a guy brought in his prius cause it was having problems with the battery system. it was just outside of warranty so it was gonna cost him $8000 to replace! the guy basically said f*** you,
keep the car im not gonna pay for it anymore. he basically made them repo it.
just thought i would let everyone know, you might save money on gas but a battery repair will more that make up for that savings!

The concept model is f***ing horrendous. It looks like a chrysler that someone very large sat on top of.

The production model isn't exactly appealing either, much more feminine. But I'd take it over the steaming pile of ugly above it any day. As long as the fuel stats are the same, what's the difference? If you said, "an ugly ass car versus a slightly less ugly ass car.", then you are correct.

When it gets people around for their commute without a drop of gasoline, it will be beautiful, no matter the front end, paint color, or fugly bumper stickers.

@48: what I don't understand is why someone just doesn't make a sexy electric car that will appeal to rednecks...it seems like it could be done rather easily.

The car is already having EPA issues, according to CNET.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10037173-48.html

They didn't feel the astronomical number of 100mpg was fair, so they tested it with the engine running through the whole trial and it slinked down to 48 mpg. 48 mpg? I guess the real number is somewhere in between?

You have to wonder what a car like this would rate on any driver poll, like the kind that make up the "fun" scores at http://www.carfunfootprint.com -- I couldn't see myself "pimping" this ride with ease (but then, is the Prius any easier to pimp...hmmm). But then there's also the mpg issue, which begs the question: who is this car FOR?

Oh, and I'd take the bottom guy as Santa, he kinda looks like my uncle.

@58: I think when GM says 100 mpg they are saying:

If you leave the house with 1 gallon of gas in the tank you can drive 100 miles.

40 on the battery, then 48 more when it starts using the gas engine. So 88 plus the standard manufactures mpg add on, puts you at 100 mpg.

It seems like this car wont be out for another three years and people are already shitting on it...kind of makes it impossible for GM to win. Or even try something different without a thousand people bitching about it.

it's "whose"

not "who's"

but seriously. i want a car that makes me look hot, not like a dumpy soccer mom.

To the real decision makers of the Volt concept car, get down to busine$$, use the concept car design for production, and make this 100% EV. I don't want the gov't to use our tax $'s to bail out your @$$.

The Volt Concept looks f**ing awesome!! And the new one does NOT!