Chevy Volt

 
The Chevy Volt was a concept car that was first introduced around the year 2006 but was not put on the assembly lines until recently. The original concept for the Volt was to make a fully electric car that could handle the average person's daily commute (roughly 40 miles). The idea of Chevy making a full electric car was great but it didn't quite go as planned. Originally the Volt was designed to look like a futuristic muscle car (above image), but I guess Chevy decided that it would give people the wrong impression. After all, we wouldn't want people to think electric cars are cool or fast or anything, then people might stop driving gas guzzling trucks and SUV's and further fattening the car/petrol company's wallets.

Instead of the sleek and attractive design shown in the concept, the final product came out looking more like a Prius than a muscle car. The "all electric" idea talked about in the concept was scraped and a small petrol engine was added to the car to supplement the power supply. The power of the car is also lacking. There are three modes in which include Normal, Sport, and Mountain and even with the car in sport mode and wet asphalt it proved to be very difficult for me to make it break traction. Perhaps the biggest problem with the Volt is in its push button start. I have personally witnessed someone forget to power down before getting out, and several hours later, it was still on - despite the fact that the key was not in it. One part of the original concept that did meet the expectations of the designers it the battery range, which is exactly 40 miles on a full charge. Even though the car is not all that I hoped for, and Chevy changes the car almost completely since the concept was born, it is still a step in the right direction - one that I think all car companies should be making.