Main Street Rides

The Motor Trend Car of the Year Award is one of the most prestigious awards that a car can receive and one that many automotive manufacturers love to advertise when one of their cars have won.  Motor Trend has been awarding the car of the year since the 1940’s and has awarded everything from a Ford Taurus to a Nissan GT-R.  For 2011, 21 cars contended for the COTY award.  You might think that there are a lot more than 21 cars cruising around our streets and you’d be right.  To be a contestant in the COTY tests, a car needs to meet certain criteria. So do vehicles that compete in similar Motor Trend tests like Sport Utility of the Year and Truck of the Year.  To be a COTY contender a car needs to be “all new” or “substantially upgraded.” If the car is the same as it was last year or just barely different it won’t be considered.

For 2011 the Motor Trend COTY award goes to the Chevrolet Volt, a car that is quite possibly one of the most controversial and important cars to go into production this decade.  The last COTY with as much hype as the Volt was the 2004 Toyota Prius and in all honesty, it doesn’t hold a candle to the Volt.  For all intents and purposes the Volt and Prius are competitors, the Prius is a hybrid and a very good one at that.  The Volt on the other hand is something new.  It almost defines a new segment of the industry because of the way it works.  Like the Prius the Chevrolet Volt has both an electric motor and an internal combustion engine, so it’s a hybrid right?  Technically it is, but first and foremost the Volt is designed to be an electric car.

Like Nissan’s Leaf, the Volt will run solely off of its battery reserves and propel itself via its electric motor only.  When there isn’t enough juice in the batteries left to do what you require, such as an extended road trip or aggressive driving, will the gas engine light up and provide power.  The Volts electric motor produces 149-horsepower.  When the batteries have reached their limit for the charge, its 84-horse 1.4L internal combustion engine will take over.  Unlike other hybrids the Volts engine only kicks on when it’s absolutely necessary.  The beauty of the Volt is that it’s both a hybrid and an EV, which is pretty revolutionary.  Depending on your driving habits you may never use the 1.4L engine that sits under the hood.  That could cause problems with moving parts seizing up and gas getting stale.  GM thought of that, however, and one of the Volt’s many sophisticated systems is designed to make sure none of those things happen.  Just in case you never take your Volt on a trip longer than its battery range will allow, the Volt will periodically run the engine to make sure the engine stays well lubricated and that you’ll use up a tank of gas, only 9.3 gallons, over a years time.

When charging your Volt at home you can just plug it into any old wall socket with the standard 110-volt portable recharger that sits in the trunk.  A 220-volt charger can also be installed in your garage and it will cut charge time from 11 hours down to 4.  Motor Trends COTY test covers six sets of criteria: engineering excellence, advancement in design, efficiency, safety, value, and performance of intended function.  The Volt needed to excel in all of these areas in order for it to take home the Car of the Year Award.  Motor Trend COTY judges were quoted to saying things like “I expected a science fair experiment.  But this is a moonshot.”  Clearly there was a lot of nervous anticipation with the Volt since it would either be just another hybrid on the market or something groundbreaking.  Fortunately for GM, the Volt, so far, has set a new standard for the world when it comes to building an eco-friendly car that drives like a car.  Many hybrid and electric cars suffer from feeling like electric vehicles first and cars second with poor ride quality, ergonomics, and of course range of travel.  The Volt drives like a normal car, 0-60 performance is similar to that of any other compact car on the market, it seats five and while fuel economy figures have not been established Motor Trend testers were able to achieve 127 mpg over a 299-mile test that covered a mixture of freeway and city driving.

For 2011 the Chevrolet Volt has taken home the Motor Trend golden calipers and set a new standard for hybrid and electric vehicles.  It’s the first vehicle to be both a fully electric car, a hybrid, and a gas powered car. It all depends on what you need the Volt to be.  The bottom line is that the Volt is extremely advance, and despite its lofty $41,000 price tag, it’s also very practical.  The price of the Volt will come down as the technology finds its way into other GM products of course and the Volt is also eligible for a $7,500 tax credit that would bring the price down considerably.  Love it or hate it, the Volt is an example of what the future holds for the automotive industry and it’s looking bright.

Related articles

• Will Toyota’s new Prius unplug Chevrolet Volt sales? (content.usatoday.com)
• Living With A Chevrolet Volt (forbes.com)
• Video: Latest Chevy Volt ads remind us that this car swings both ways (autoblog.com)