Photo: Holden / GM
The Holden Volt is no longer ready for the Australian market, it’s here. Sporting a price tag of $59,990 AUD, it is about $8,500 AUD more expensive than its only real rival on the market, the very appreciated Nissan Leaf, which has a price tag of $51,500 AUD. Servicing will cost $185 AUD for the first four services (within first 3 years or 60,000 km), and the battery pack has a warranty of 8 years or 160,000 km.
There are very few details that set it apart from its American counterpart - the Opel / Vauxhall Ampera, for instance, has very different styling, as well as some minor technical alterations to better suit its markets. However, this is by no means a bad thing, as the Chevy Volt has already proved itself on the US market, but then again, so has the Ampera in Europe.
The car’s drivetrain suffers no modifications, and it features the same 83 hp 1.4-liter petrol motor to top up the batteries if the owner is too busy to charge, or the car’s maximum all-electric range of 87 km is exceeded. It will be interesting to see if Australian buyers will take a liking to the Volt to the same extent as buyers in other markets.
In an effort to justify the high price tag, GM is packing the Volt with pretty much any kind of automotive-related technology they could get their hands on, from forward collision alert sensors and lane departure warning to a high-tech capacitive touch screen screen for the infotainment and sat-nav systems, iPod integration, USB connectivity, Bluetooth and 30GB-worth of onboard storage.
The list of standard features is very hefty and includes cruise control, climate control, traction control, stability control - pretty much all the control you really need, as well as 17-inch alloys, LED DRLs, all-round parking sensors, six-speaker Bose sound system, to name but a few (this is not a figure of speech - these are genuinely just a few of its standard features).
The car’s drivetrain suffers no modifications, and it features the same 83 hp 1.4-liter petrol motor to top up the batteries if the owner is too busy to charge, or the car’s maximum all-electric range of 87 km is exceeded. It will be interesting to see if Australian buyers will take a liking to the Volt to the same extent as buyers in other markets.
In an effort to justify the high price tag, GM is packing the Volt with pretty much any kind of automotive-related technology they could get their hands on, from forward collision alert sensors and lane departure warning to a high-tech capacitive touch screen screen for the infotainment and sat-nav systems, iPod integration, USB connectivity, Bluetooth and 30GB-worth of onboard storage.
The list of standard features is very hefty and includes cruise control, climate control, traction control, stability control - pretty much all the control you really need, as well as 17-inch alloys, LED DRLs, all-round parking sensors, six-speaker Bose sound system, to name but a few (this is not a figure of speech - these are genuinely just a few of its standard features).
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