Technology Blog

When the Chevy Volt concept first materialized a few years back, there were a lot of questions surrounding America's first mass-market electric car. While answers to most of those questions dribbled out over the last few years, GM remained mum on one critical aspect: price. But today it's official: the Chevy Volt will cost $41,000 before a $7,500 federal tax credit, and the cars will arrive in driveways later this year. Only 600 dealerships in Chevy's "launch markets" - California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan and Washington, D.C. - will start taking orders for the Volt today, thought the first cars won't roll off the lot until November. But that hasn't stopped the GM PR machine from swinging into action, calling this a "historic day." We'll see. The Volt has competition arriving later this year in the form of Nissan's Leaf, a full-blown EV that gets 100 miles to the charge and costs just $25,280 after the tax credit, compared with $33,500 for the Volt. But Volt has its selling points.