I believe the Volvo is the next generation design, no transmision or mechanical brakes, except for parking.
The Pious design is is so out of date now, good at the time but things have moved on. Toyota and Honda just don’t get it.

These types of BEVs are part of the grand plan to move away from oil, where the electric to charge them can be generated from Coal to Solar and moved around on High Voltage Direct Current super grids. The day will come when you won’t be able to buy a direct drive ICE car. Just think of the Volt as the begining of the Paradym shift in car design and stop worrying about how many miles to the gallon, its the electric range that matters.

http://www.econvergence.net/electroacc.htm
This generator allows you to hook up a good bicycle that you are comfortable on, and generate about 320 watts (200 average, 320 if you are in shape)
Figure 3 hours of pedaling for 1 kWh.

So, 24 hours of hard pedaling to charge the Volt for one 40 mile ride (without worrying, for now, about an inverter that allows you to step up the voltage to 120 v, etc) – it gives a good sense of how much energy we command with electrical outlets and gasoline.

I remember a scene in the movie “Soylent Green” with Charlton Heston riding a bike to power his apartment for the day…

It is a new-technology car, but one that is deemed important enough to the nation that it is given a $7,500 tax break.
And GM has not said it is $40K – there is still more than a year left before pricing is announced, and they have already hinted that a big part of that $40K possible price is the warranty to cover the batteries for 10 years/150,000 miles. If another year+ of battery testing convinces GM that the batteries are solid and will easily last 10 years/150K-miles, they might lower the price.

If GM prices at $37K, then with the tax break, the Volt will be $29.5. For the first 10,000 (first year of production).
That $7.5K tax break is for the first 250,000 cars (but includes the Tesla, etc) – so, for production of 10,000, then 60,000 Volts (the second year) and 60,000 more Volts (the third year, 2013), it’s possible the first 3 years of Volt production will get a $7.5K tax break.

By the 3rd year, maybe GM will get the price down to $32K (they hope to use energy saving parts on the Chevy Cruze and other models, so economies of scale kick in faster: energy saving radios, headlights, wipers, airconditioners, blinkers, heaters, etc – helping the fuel economy of their other models in a win/win situation).

At $32K, with the tax break that is $24.5K.

$24,500.
That is not a “luxury car”, that is the future of automobiles.

And by 2014, who knows how cheap li-ion batteries will be, and how cheap the warranty for 10 years/150K miles will be priced.
And the Volt might have an aluminum-foam-alloy chassis by then, or carbon-fiber-epoxy parts, making it 1000 pounds lighter… who knows. Gasoline might be $5/gallon. They might ramp up production to 200,000 units/year, and sign long term contracts with battery companies to get 16kWh 200 pound batteries at $2000 each for another 1 million batteries (a nice $2 billion contract for some company; well, the cells, since GM builds the battery modules).

3 years of fairly low production numbers with subsidized prices will open the doors to a new family of low cost, 21st century cars.

’size of the tank’ ? Are you worried about the extra 7 pounds of each gallon of gasoline ?

I think the only reason the Volt mpg numbers won’t be in the 60’s for city and highway is because of the weight (the Volt is about 600 pounds more than a Prius) and the performance (150 hp is 16 hp more than the Prius, so the electric motor could use extra energy from the battery, which will require the generator to run a bit more).

The Toyota Camry Hybrid has a 147 hp gas engine (2.4 liter 4-cylinder), it delivers 192 hp peak with the electric motor added to the mix, and it still manages to get 33 mpg highway.

And you estimate 38 to 39 mpg for the Volt ?
I think you are way off, and don’t know what serial hybrids are capable of.

The Volt charging units are very robust and designed to withstand even a complete dunk in a bucket of water. As well, there is a flashlight at the tip for finding the receptacle on the car even in the dark.

http://gm-volt.com/2009/08/20/charging-the-chevy-volt/

I think charging the volt for 8 hours at 8 amps shouldn’t be too much for a workplace outlet – as long as you can park close enough to an office window, and bring your own heavy duty power cord.

Having the employer put in the 240V 16 amp charging stations is a lot more problematic, agreed.