Chevrolet Volt update: On sale this year, targeting 50 mpg

In a wide-ranging conference call, General Motors engineers working on the Chevrolet Volt revealed some of the challenges facing electric cars. At the same time, they emphasized that development of the Volt has met all the milestone deadlines on its development timeline. They said the car will arrive in dealerships as planned at the end of this year.

But like the Volt's main competitor, the all-electric Nissan Leaf, it will be sold only in select areas at first. For the Volt, that includes Michigan, California, and Washington, D.C., according to Rob Peterson, GM manger of electric vehicle communications.

Since we last checked in on the Volt in January, the car has been undergoing cold weather testing in Kapuskasing, Ont., Canada, snow driving testing in Raco, Mich., and high altitude and mountain grade testing in Summit County Colorado. GM shared several lessons engineers have learned in this testing that may apply more widely to electric cars:

• Perhaps the most interesting is the effect that cold weather has on range. Andrew Farah, chief engineer on the Volt, gave a general estimate of a 20 percent reduction in range. But that number doesn't tell the whole story. As we learned from Toyota last year, heating the cabin in cold weather takes as much energy as driving the car's wheels. That's a huge mental shift from having free heat from a gas engine. (The heat from a gas engine is otherwise wasted energy.) But it's also partly because electric cars use significantly less energy for driving.
• With its water-cooled battery pack, the Volt will draw power when it's plugged in to keep the battery pack at optimal temperatures to maximize its electric driving range. Left unplugged in very cold temperatures, for example when parked at an airport in winter for several days, the range will drop dramatically. As long as the Volt has gasoline in the tank, though, that won't leave you stranded.
• GM revealed that unlike nickel-metal hydride batteries, which can mostly be recycled, there is very little recyclable material in lithium batteries. Consequently, GM is working on finding other end-of-life solutions for lithium batteries. One example the company cited was selling the batteries to cell-phone service providers to power cell-phone towers.
• GM is no longer claiming the Volt will get 230 mpg. Farah admitted that number was based on ongoing negotiations with the EPA over how to rate the fuel efficiency of plug-in (or "range extended") hybrids such as the Volt. Now the company says it is targeting 50 mpg, and a remaining range of 300 miles on gasoline once the Volt's batteries are depleted. Farah said engineers are getting very close to that mileage in testing. But the company is still closely guarding the capacity of the Volt's gas tank.
• Farah expects the Volt to meet all EPA emissions certifications, but says GM is still discussing with the agency, and with the Society of Automotive Engineers, how the fuel economy will be printed on the new-car window sticker.
• Farah also said the company is still working on adapting software for cold-weather starting, battery management while climbing hills, and snow traction.

Yesterday, GM also announced it is doubling the size of its battery testing lab in Warren, Mich., to develop cheaper batteries for the next-generation Volt.

While the prototypes we saw in Michigan were rough, fit and finish work is now being done in GM's Hamtramck, Mich., assembly plant, which has now produced 30 Volt prototypes.

We can't vouch for GM's mileage claims at this point, but we have had an opportunity to drive the Volt twice and found the car pleasant, punchy, and quiet. We can't wait to buy one of our own to test and see if this new vehicle technology lives up to its claims.