Chevy Taking Orders for the Volt – Pricing Announced

[OmarKareem]

The long-awaited and much-hyped Chevy Volt electric car is finally on Chevy’s purchase orders. Dealers in “select” markets are beginning to take orders for the electric car. This means if you’re close to one of Chevy’s listed dealers (the list can be found here [.doc]), you can head over to your trusted salesman and put in your order

The Chevy Volt is called an “Extended-Range” electric car, meaning it’s a hybrid made the way they should have been made in the first place. It runs about 40 electric-only miles on a full charge (slightly higher than the average daily commute.) Once the batteries are drained, the gasoline-powered engine kicks in to recharge the batteries (not drive the wheels,) to extend the car’s drivable range another 300 miles or so. It’s a smart system – most people don’t do much more than 40 miles for “A to B” driving anyway, but when they do, they’ll have a regular gasoline engine to back them up. That’s the problem with fully electric cars right now – they couldn’t be your primary car due to a limited range and the fear of running out of juice too early with no place to charge up

Pricing for the 2011 Chevy Volt comes in at $41,000 base price, with a federal tax credit of up to $7500, for a net starting price of $33,500. If you’d rather lease, Chevy will get you into one starting at $350/month. That pricing gets you 5 years of OnStar and a (surprisingly good) eight-year, 100,000 miles warranty on the batteries. Good luck trying to sell it after 8 years, though

Deliveries are going to start at the end of this year. Check out the Chevy Volt website for more info and to ask any questions about the car