The great leap forward in technology that is the Chevy Volt

Little-Acorn

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Before you start getting too upset at paying $40,000 for a car with 40-mile range and cramped seating, you can at least be proud of being on the cutting edge of high technology.

Or can you?

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http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/14/1...ts-same-40-miles-to-the-charge-as-chevy-volt/

115-year-old electric car gets same 40 miles to the charge as Chevy Volt

By Chris Bedford - The Daily Caller
Published: 12:14 PM 10/14/2011 | Updated: 2:05 PM 10/14/2011

Meet the Roberts electric car. Built in 1896, it gets a solid 40 miles to the charge — exactly the mileage Chevrolet advertises for the Volt — the much-touted $31,645 (after govt subsidy) electric car General Motors CEO Dan Akerson called “not a step forward, but a leap forward.”

The executives at Chevrolet can rest easy for now. Since the Roberts was constructed in an age before Henry Ford’s mass production, the 115-year-old electric car is one of a kind.

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But don’t let the car’s 115 years let you think it isn’t tough: It’s present-day owner, who prefers not to be named, told The Daily Caller it still runs like a charm, and has even completed the roughly 60-mile London to Brighton Vintage Car Race.

If you didn’t know there are electric cars as old as the Roberts, you aren’t alone. Prior to today’s battle of electric v. gas, there was another battle: Electric v. gas v. steam. This contest was fought in the market place, and history shows gas gave electric and steam an even more thorough whooping than Coca-Cola gave Moxie.

But while the Roberts electric car clearly lacked GPS, power steering and, yes, air bags, the distance it could achieve on a charge, when compared with its modern equivalent, provides a telling example of the slow pace of the electric car.

Driven by a tiller instead of a wheel, the Roberts car was built seven years before the Wright brothers’ first flight, 12 years before the Ford Model T, 16 years before Chevrolet was founded and 114 years before the first Chevy Volt was delivered to a customer.

As the New York Times reported September 5, “For General Motors and the Obama administration, the new Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid represents the automotive future, the culmination of decades of high-tech research financed partly with federal dollars.”

Like “green technology’s” most powerful proponent, President Barack Obama, the 1896 Roberts was made in Chicago. Obama, who supports the $7,500 tax credit for the Volt, is not fazed by its 40-mile electric limit — he only drove the car 10 feet.
 
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Actually, the author probably would have done better to write about the Nissan Leaf, which is all-electric like the Roberts, though with a poorer view.

The Volt has both electric and gasoline motors. You can go about 40 miles on the electric, whereupon the gas engine starts up and you drive with that, sort of like a Toyota Corolla but with poorer gas mileage from then on.

And the Volt at least has a heater, which neither the Roberts nor the Nissan Leaf do. :D
 
you drive that, I will drive the volt this winter...lets see who is more happy. Being that I almost never drive 40 miles in a day, I don't have much issue with that limit. I can get to work and back for 2 days at least, and all the other places I go are not that far of a drive.

But I know its hard for cave men to accept new things, shocked you don't fear your computer...those things that 40 years ago took up whole buildings...and now fit in your pocket with 10 times the power....But fear the tech!
 
you drive that, I will drive the volt this winter...lets see who is more happy. Being that I almost never drive 40 miles in a day, I don't have much issue with that limit. I can get to work and back for 2 days at least, and all the other places I go are not that far of a drive.

But I know its hard for cave men to accept new things, shocked you don't fear your computer...those things that 40 years ago took up whole buildings...and now fit in your pocket with 10 times the power....But fear the tech!

You drive less than 40 miles a day? Are all the places you want to go near by? Where do you live? Is it a big city?

I drive 250 miles every weekend and about 3-50 miles a day depending on after works activities. I could never make it on a volt. And the bus doesnt go to many of the places I do and almost never at the time I need it.
 
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