First Truly, Seriously Real Volt Prototype Leaves The Shop

The first of many production-intent test cars arrives ahead of schedule

By Seth Fletcher Posted 06.25.2009 at 4:54 pm 5 Comments

The 2011 Chevrolet Volt General Motors

This shiny little black car is the first real Chevy Volt—the first of many hand-built but bona-fide production-intent prototypes that will roll out of GM’s pre-production workshop in the coming weeks. This car is the next big step in the production process after the testing of the Volt “mules”—test cars with a Chevy Cruze body and a Volt powertrain. (We drove one of the mules last month; see our full review here.)

Chief engineer Andrew Farah drove the car around the company’s Warren, Michigan Tech Centery and wrote about it on the GM Fastlane blog (there’s also video). GM says they’re more than a week ahead of schedule getting these prototypes on the road, and that soon they’ll be building 10 of them a week, getting 80 on the road by October. The point of these cars is to spend the next year driving and tweaking them, adjusting fit and finish, reducing noise and vibration (they contain damping to kill the hefty amount of road noise that seeped into the cabins of the earlier mule cars), and so on.

Until we have a chance to drive one, we’ll only make this observation about the car: Black is a very good color for this first, sure to be much-publicized Volt. It obscures the weird black strip between the side windows and the door panels, and looks smart and sophisticated. Nice choice, Volt team.

Previous Article: Test Drive: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO

Next Article: Dean Kamen-Designed Electric Scooter Concept Can Run on Anything Flammable

Want to keep track of the latest concept cars, automotive innovations, and more? Subscribe to Popular Science today, for less than $1 per issue!

5 Comments

Link to this comment

bdhoro87

06/27/09 at 9:39 am

Well they need to come up with SOMETHING new and better if they expect people to buy cars from a bankrupt company.
I know how to save the company, lets just screw all our old employees and suppliers, and then change up production to make cars that people might actually want.
Hey good effort though, maybe the volt will be released to the public before Tata gets here.

Link to this comment

mqlla

06/27/09 at 4:58 pm

the seeeeeeeeeeet

http://www.aglik.com/vb/

Link to this comment

Snotbucket

07/05/09 at 7:42 pm

affordable? or just anouther over priced chevy

Link to this comment

QuietStormX

07/20/09 at 7:52 am

I love GM! Can't wait until I can buy one. I hope they build a sporty one like the prototype that looked sharp.

Popular Tags

Cars on Popular Science

All Tags All Photos All Videos

Cars

+ More Photo Galleries

July 2013: The Future Of Flight

The incredible innovations, like drone swarms and perpetual flight, bringing aviation into the world of tomorrow. Plus: today's greatest sci-fi writers predict the future, the science behind the summer's biggest blockbusters, a Doctor Who-themed DIY 'bot, the organs you can do without, and much more.