Details coming at 2015 Detroit auto show
We’re still not exactly sure what its range will be, what it will look like or how much it will cost, but we are slowly learning more about the upcoming 2016 Chevrolet Volt hybrid. It’s not getting a downsized engine, for one. Efficiency will go up, though General Motors won’t release the figures for a few months. And more of its parts will be built right here in the United States, for what that’s worth.
According to GM, the 2016 Volt will trade the current car’s 1.4-liter inline-four for a slightly larger 1.5-liter inline four; previously, we’d heard that a downsized three-cylinder was under consideration. GM insists on calling the direct-injection engine a “range extender,” but we suspect it’ll operate in much the same manner as the gasoline-burner in the current Volt -- which is to say, it will actively drive the rear wheels when the battery is drained.
Whatever you consider it, the range extender/engine/electric motor hybrid system will be “approximately 5 to 12 percent” more efficient and roughly 100 pounds lighter than the present setup. We’re not sure exactly how that translates to real-world performance, given the complexities of calculating the fuel economy of plug-in hybrids, but that could mean a rating of 63 to 67 mpg-e combined composite, compared to the present 60 mpg-e combined composite. GM promises to make it all clear in the coming months.
It doesn't feel like the Chevrolet Volt has been on sale all that long, but GM is getting ready to take the wraps off an all-new version of the car at the Detroit Auto Show just a few months from ...
There’s no word on whether electric-only range will increase from the present 38 miles to the 60-mile figure bandied about last year. But acceleration is a stated 20 percent better.
Like the 1.4-liter Ecotec gasoline engine now used in the Volt, the new 1.5-liter inline-four will be built at GM’s Flint Engine Operations facility -- after the first year of production in Mexico, that is. The electric motor/transmission unit, currently made in Mexico, will be built in Warren, Mich., not too far from GM’s Tech Center. The electric motors themselves will be built in the United States -- an Automotive News report claims Hitachi is the supplier -- while the car’s battery cells will come from Holland, Mich.-based LG Chem. They’ll be assembled into Volt-read battery packs in Brownstown, Mich.
Final assembly will remain at GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center, where the Cadillac ELR is also built. All in all, according to GM, roughly 70 percent of the upcoming Volt’s parts will be made in the United States or Canada within the first year of production.
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