Power-Driven for a $41,000 Charge

If you’re looking for a car that runs on electricity alone for 40 miles, then uses gasoline to keep your electric charge going, and comes pretty much loaded, you’ll have to come up with about $33,500.

That’s with the tax credit you’ll get for buying such a car.

Chevrolet announced the price of its much-anticipated Volt, the first of which will roll off the assembly lines late this year, would start at $41,000, and opened the car to orders in markets in Michigan, California, New York and Washington, D.C. this afternoon. With the maximum government tax credit for the car of up to $7,500, a Volt could set you back $33,500. Or, the company says, you could lease a Volt for $2,500 up front and $350 a month for 36 months.

The price of a Volt is $8,220 more than its all-electric competitor, the Nissan Leaf, also due out this year. The Leaf will cost $25,280 when you take the tax credit into account.

But, like the Leaf, the Volt has plenty of buyers. Nissan has already received in the Leaf from buyers than it can build this year. It’s already making its way into the key rental fleet market, with Enterprise announcing that it would buy 500 Leafs beginning in January.

And the Volt is in the same boat, said John Hughes, Volt marketing manager.

“This is the real thing and we’re real serious about it,” Hughes said. “We’ve done our homework.”

General Motors plans to build about 10,000 Volts this year, and another 30,000 next year.

“We already know we have more interest than we can build in the first year,” Hughes said.

And, he added, there’s really no comparison between the Volt and other hybrids or electric cars. That’s because his company’s vehicle can run about 40 miles on an electric charge alone. After that, a small gasoline engine kicks in and powers the battery so the car can keep on going. General Motors has touted the Volt as a car that will get more than 300 miles per gallon of gasoline.

The car is also loaded with extras such as heated seats, a mobile application that allows you to turn it on and heat or cool it from the grid while it’s still plugged in, or choose a time to charge it during off-peak electric hours, making charging cheaper.

Compared to an all-electric car like the Leaf, or even Tesla Motors pricey roadster, the difference comes down to how far you can drive the car. The Leaf has a charge of about 100 miles before you need to recharge the battery.

A Volt, because of the gasoline engine, can drive indefinitely.

“The things that we’re doing with the Volt are tremendously advanced and no one else is doing it,” Hughes said. “We’ve got the range confidence and we’ve got the ability to be your primary vehicle. We’re not doing this just to create a niche.”

But the Volt and the Leaf are, indeed, the first players from major auto companies in what is likely to be a very crowded niche in the next couple of years.

Tesla Motors, of course, already has been selling its roadster for a couple of years, and is planning to build an electric sedan in the next couple of years. It also plans to partner with the world’s largest automaker, Toyota, to build electric cars in the future at Tesla’s Northern California factory.

Volkswagen plans to roll out an electric Audi in 2012 and an electric Volkswagen in 2013. Ford is rolling out an electric version of its Focus next year.

But, Joel Ewanick, vice president of U.S. marketing for General Motors, in a release said, “No other automaker offers an electrically driven vehicle that can be your everyday driver, to take you wherever, whenever. The Volt will be packed with premium content and innovation.”

So let the war for the wallets of those ready to tap the grid to do their driving really begin.

---

Kent Bernhard Jr. is News Editor of Portfolio.com