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 WHY GM MATTERS?

   In 1996 GM built the first fully factory built electric car named the EV-1.This vehicle was mainly only available to customers on the West Coast and it could only be leased for 3 years or 50,000 miles with no option to buy. The EV1 was discontinued after 1999, with all examples subsequently removed from the roads in 2003 by General Motors and crushed, except for a select few for educational purposes or museum pieces. The car's discontinuation remains controversial.

  Then in late 2005 GM was thinking about building another electric vehicle but did not want the same disaster as the EV-1. So the company pulled together about a dozen people from various parts of the company to get started part time. The goal for each engineer was “Try to find a way to displace petroleum, oh, boy, engineers can solve those problems. So all the engineers came up with the idea to build an electric car that can run on just on electricity for up to 40 miles. Why 40 miles? Because 78% of Americans drive less then 40 miles a day. To avoid making drivers worry about dead batteries, the team decided to add a small gasoline engine. This engine could never really power the vehicle, it is there to recharge the battery and thus extend the range of the vehicle past 300 miles. This new vehicle is going to be called The Volt and is scheduled to be launched in November 2010. Gm has put a European in charge of the Volt launch because Europeans in general are ahead of the American in attempting to adapt to a world in which energy costs are high and there are constraints of space, money and resources. Fuel is 9 dollars per gallon in Europe so they understand how important it is to build this car.

   In closing this car will have the potential to be almost what the Ford Model T did to America. It helped revolutionize this country. GM has designed  the Volt to comply with all crash regulations around the world and it will be available in right and left hand drive, it’ll go to China, Latin America, Europe and everywhere. Prices are expected to start at $40,000 but just imagine the savings on not having to be a slave to the fuel pump and helping the world cut there dependency on foreign oil companies.

 

 

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