The Volt project's often dismissed as a marketing stunt, a gimmick, too expensive for the segment, or a toy for wealthy eco-nuts. We withheld our judgment until we had the chance to do a test drive. Now, after driving a Volt-in-a-Chevy-Cruze-shell powertrain mule, we're prepared to declare it — much to the delight of the Volt's PR team, engineering crew and Bob Lutz — utterly unremarkable.

The Volt's unremarkable because it's exactly like driving any other appliance car on the road today, and that's the point. GM is trying very hard to make the Voltec system driving experience as familiar as anything before it and even at this early prototype mule level they've succeeded quite nicely. The Voltec system consists of a 1.4-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine driving a generator, an electric motor driving the wheels and a lithium ion battery pack in between the two to hold plug-in and regenerated power. This doesn't work like a Prius or an Insight, there's no transmission, the engine doesn't power the wheels; it's an EV that goes 40 miles and then it runs off the generator, and it works.

Our ride in the Volt was up to about 55 MPH on the grounds of GM's Warren Tech Center and the cars are, dare we say it, peppy. There are no whirs or whines or whistles like in a traditional EV, just silence, like the motor has stalled out and you're coasting along on momentum. There's no shifting going on as there are no gears to shift, just direct power, and unless you're paying attention you don't even notice. Stab the go-pedal and it responds happily, it's even got a little get-up and go. According to Lutz the current prototype accelerates from 0-to-60 MPH in around 8 seconds — that's about 2.0 seconds faster than a 2009 Toyota Prius and about 3.5 seconds faster than a Chevy Aveo. Not too shabby for an appliance if you ask us.

There are two drive modes, a normal highway type where you accelerate and coast normally, and a second drive mode which maximizes regenerative braking in city traffic. It feels like you're hitting the brakes but you aren't hitting the brakes. We had hoped the Volt would give us a back-rub and deliver a milkshake, but it's just a car, even bridging on the pedestrian, the bland, the appliance. But this is again, the point, to make this huge paradigm shift and make it seem easy.

The Volt is coming, and from a powertrain perspective, it's pretty darn good. Lutz was adamant on that point saying "Volt is currently on time and we fully believe it will hit the market as expected." The Chief Engineer, Frank Weber, a rather intense German who has been extraordinarily cautious in the past about the program's hurdles, seems to be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Yesterday he remarked "There are no more large elephants in the room, only hundreds of small ones."

In June, GM will be completing the first full prototype vehicles, nearly 80 in total, which will look and feel and operate like real Volts. They'll have all the correct body panels, interior bits, and system calibrations and we'll be driving those eventually. At that point we'll be much more able to judge the complete vehicle. Until then, we're kind of hopeful the Volt might actually be fun to drive, along with being frugal at the pump.

As with any steady-state output, sometimes there will be surpluses. Those surpluses of electricity not used by the electric motor, as might occur during light loads, will be dumped into the battery so that energy isn't wasted. But recharging the battery is not the objective of running the engine. In addition to extra electricity from the engine/generator, energy reclaimed from regenerative braking will also be stored in the battery. Over an extended period of these surpluses being added to the battery, it's possible for the engine to switch off and the car to return to all-EV mode for an unspecified distance.

So, let's be clear here — contrary to the second set claims of GM PR on the Volt's engine — it can in fact recharge the batteries. You could almost say GM was for this claim before it was against it — and is now for it again. Stinkin' buncha flip-floppers.[Edmunds Inside Line]

"When the battery is depleted, a 1-liter, three-cylinder turbocharged engine spins at a constant speed, or revolutions per minute (rpm), to create electricity and replenish the battery."

Instead, we're now being told, via the press release from last week's production reveal:

"a gasoline/E85-powered engine generator seamlessly provides electricity to power the Volt's electric drive unit while simultaneously sustaining the charge of the battery."

So, after some portion of the initial 40 miles of all-electric driving depletes the battery, the engine will be used to "sustain charge" while powering the electric drive directly — and not to charge up the battery. Perplexed by this apparent change in course, we placed a call to Chevy spokesman Terry Rhadigan to find out more — and figure out why the Volt isn't just a regular hybrid?

According to Rhadigan,

"The reason it does that is because we want you to arrive with the batteries 'empty,' filling up on grid power costs about 1/6th of what it does with gas."

In this sustaining charge mode, the Volt never actively tries to recharge the battery. Energy from regenerative braking is dumped into the battery, but at stop lights the engine will actually power down, saving gas rather than recharging the battery as we'd always thought. We incorrectly assumed, after our conversation on the Volt using GPS to determine efficient charge capacity on the battery with "Maximum" Bob Lutz at the production Volt reveal, it would do just that.

So basically, the Volt's not a hybrid because it still only has one drivetrain, an electric one. The engine makes electricity to power the electric motor running the wheels as well as to "sustain" the batteries, but not to charge them up. It's still, we guess, an Range-Extended Electric Vehicle (REEV), as GM's always claimed.

We don't know how to feel about this news. Certainly, from an engineering perspective and total cost of operation, it does make sense. That 1.4-liter four-banger doesn't have the power to both motivate the quite-beefy Volt and recharge the battery pack, and it probably allows the on-board generator to take advantage of constant RPM efficiency tricks. But, it again tells us we must keep our guard up on the marketing spin here. There's no doubt the Volt has changed the way hybrids are developed already, but it may also change the ways they're sold to the public. [Edmunds Inside Line]

[GMI]

Combined with the planned GM 100th anniversary production skin reveal coming up ahead of the 2008 Woodward Dream Cruise, we're just about to the point of knowing all there is to know about the Volt.

Jalopnik Snap Judgement: This is the right way for GM to go with this program. The original Volt concept had a 1.0-liter turbocharged three-cylinder — little more than a snowmobile mill. The 1.4-liter will offer the reliability of a regular production engine but just as importantly, reduce the number of engine lines GM has to run. In fact, thanks to the news from those leaked UAW documents that the Volt would be built in GM's Hamtramck plant and the Cruze will be built in the Lordstown, OH plant — they'll only need one engine build location near the two — like the expected Flint engine plant.

With your average engine costing about a billion bucks to develop and put to production, and the weight and packaging between the two engines being about the same, this one is practically a no-brainer. Now, if only they'd turbocharge it for a Volt SS! Yeah, 'cause that'd be cool. Actually, no it wouldn't be.

[via Automobile Mag]

How much lower? That's a silly question to ask considering how GM seems to keep mixing the messages themselves. An $18,000 price point difference makes for a mighty different business case though, especially considering gas will only be available with live organ exchange by 2010. [Translated from German: FAZ.net]