GM Teases Us With Sneak-Peeks Of The Volt

For all the hype surrounding the Chevrolet Volt and General Motors’ willingness to share every detail of its development no matter how minute, we still don’t know what the car will look like. We’ve caught glimpses of early prototypes and everyone’s seen that wind tunnel shot, but photos of a production model have been as elusive as Thomas Pynchon.

GM still isn’t letting the cat out of the bag, but it’s quietly released some sneak-peek shots by at the GMnext blog, where director of design Bob Boniface talks about the car’s styling and the role aerodynamics play in making it so efficient.

“In the end,” he writes, “we believe the vehicle is both aesthetically pleasing and extremely efficient.”

The two images — one of the front quarter and another of the rear deck — reveal a car that’s much sleeker than the concept model GM unveiled at the Detroit auto show in 2007. That car, pictured below, performed so badly in the wind tunnel that “Maximum Bob” Lutz said it would have done better whether they’d driven it in backward.

That sent Boniface and his crew at the E-Flex Design Studio back to the drawing board. They came up with a car that has a

drag co-efficient Lutz told us is “in the mid-twos.” That’s on par with the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight but not as slick as the EV1. Boniface says maximizing aerodynamic efficiency is key to making the Volt work.

“By minimizing aero drag, we can maximize the range of the battery,” he writes. “So,
it shouldn’t come as any surprise that my exterior design team spent
countless hours in the wind tunnel with our aerodynamicist to refine
the Volt’s exterior. We believe that was moment well spent - when you’re
trying to extend gas-free driving of the vehicle, you’ll take all the
efficiency you can get.”

Photos by General Motors.

Here’s a shot of the rear deck:

A look inside the design studio and clay mock ups of the car:

A shot of what appears to be the engine GM’s using as the “range extender”:

And here’s a shot of the concept GM unveiled at the Detroit auto show:

Original post by Chuck Squatriglia

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