Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

I'm actually most concerned about the lifetime of the batteries. From what I've read, the batteries top out at 8 years, and presumably degrade before that. As the $20k Chevy Cruze is the same chassis as the Volt, I guess the batteries come out at ~$15k. That's a huge amount of money to renew use of your $40k car after 8 years (unless you see that $15k as some sort of investment in the environment).<p>The Volt design could/should succeed. But not with battery tech where it is. Those batteries need to do 10--12 years.

I want to love electric cars, but I see two big issues: (1) if they go mass market, all that electricity will still have to be generated somewhere. Coal? Nuclear? (2) The batteries need rare-earth minerals, which are brought to market through environmentally-degrading open pit mining. Furthermore, at this point, most rare-earths are available almost exclusively from China.

The $7500 tax credit is getting gamed by some dealers who resell the car to other dealers and take the credit for themselves. I don't know how widespread this is, but it's the kind of thing that makes my blood boil: <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43243050/ns/business-autos/t/some-volt-dealers-take-tax-credit-themselves/" rel="nofollow">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43243050/ns/business-autos/t/som...</a>

Can someone explain to me, why, exactly, this should be better than a hybrid design?<p>A hybrid design can use a comparatively tiny combustion engine together with an electric motor, which saves fuel consumption and does not need to be plugged in ever.<p>The Volt needs both a full-fledged combustion engine and a full-fledged electric engine <i>and</i> needs to be plugged in after each drive. That sounds basically like combining the disadvantages of electric motors and combustion engines in one car. Why would anyone want that? (And electricity is not exactly free, either)

Even better:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omafiets" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omafiets</a>

In the future, everything is gamified.<p>Actually, you know who really needs to gamify things? Banks.

I've always thought the Volt sounded way over-engineered. Why bother with a fancy hybrid engine rather than concentrating on making a lightweight, affordable all-electric car? The simple approach is always going to win. Zenncars.com was taking this approach but I'm not sure of their progress.

The US should invest in high speed rails, better inner city transportation systems, and encouraging people to use bicycles . Electric cars aren't the solution.

What's the environmental impact of making the batteries?

I've said before and I'll say again: Electric cars will not gain widespread acceptance until you can travel the equivalent of a tank of gas on one charge. Tesla motors is close, but you need at least 300 and closer to 400 miles per charge.

I'd like to see the reviewers electricity bill.

Coal-Burning cars (er.. electric) are the future!