Photo: Chevrolet
The Chevrolet Volt is an excellent car, in concept, at least, as engineers have had to cut corners to make the car accessible to a wide audience. Apparently, the car’s 1.4-liter petrol engine range extender was never the first choice for engineers, but GM being GM, they decided that the Aveo / Sonic / Kallos engine which was cheap and readily available was adequate for the job it needed to do - and it is, but it could have been much better.
Thankfully for the Volt’s future appeal, it looks like the 1.4-liter engine will be dropped in favor of a much more modern turbocharged unit. Speculation ranges as far as the 2.0-liter unit currently powering the Buick Verano and the Opel/Vauxhall Astra OPC/VXR, an engine which has power outputs ranging from 220 to 276 hp. However, this seems a bit far fetched, as such an engine would be overkill for the kind of car the Volt is.
Despite not knowing exactly what engine will be used, and we suspect that the 2.0-liter turbo rumors are false, it is clear that along with the 1.4-liter engine, the 149 hp electric motor will also have to be replaced with something else. Maybe the future has a whole range of Volt-derived cars in store for us, as Toyota’s ‘Prius Family’ is doing extremely well, GM being GM, they’ll want a piece of that action, even if they scrapped their own ‘green’ car, the EV1 and gave the Japanese at least a 10 year head start.
Despite not knowing exactly what engine will be used, and we suspect that the 2.0-liter turbo rumors are false, it is clear that along with the 1.4-liter engine, the 149 hp electric motor will also have to be replaced with something else. Maybe the future has a whole range of Volt-derived cars in store for us, as Toyota’s ‘Prius Family’ is doing extremely well, GM being GM, they’ll want a piece of that action, even if they scrapped their own ‘green’ car, the EV1 and gave the Japanese at least a 10 year head start.
Story via insideevs.com
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