Like Tesla, Volvo was keen to convey a sense of progress on its battery-electric car, in this case the C30 Electric. We've seen this car before, but never like this. In December the company conducted an offset frontal 40-mph crash test of the car and decided to show off the result as its main event here at the Detroit auto show.
It turns out that converting existing vehicles to battery-electric is not as straightforward as it appears. You'd expect the removal of a large, non-crushable item like a conventional engine and transmission to improve the crash performance. This is true, but conventional powertrains also serve to evenly distribute the crash energy to the main bulkhead, where the forces can be dissipated in a controlled fashion. The C30 Electric also weighs more than a conventional C30, further complicating its crashworthiness situation, and so it received a beefed-up front structure to compensate.
The result is that the C30 Electric is said to provide the same level of crashworthiness as a normal C30. Below you can see (in green) the 660-pound hammer-shaped lithium-ion battery pack that apparently was not compromised in this test. That's a big twinkie, especially since the C30 Electric's range is pegged at between 75 and 95 miles.
Don't expect to see C30 Electrics en masse initially. Volvo plans to release a demo fleet into the U.S. later this year.
zeniff says:
07:44 PM, 01/12/11
Yawn.