[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by RLHMARINES

James, I've been intrigued with the Chevy Volt PHEV ever since it came out, especially the last generation, but I just stumbled onto the last gen Chevy Malibu Hybrid and how it relates to the Volt hybrid drive system. I remember that you had a Volt but I don't remember what gen you had and I know you retired from GM in product engineer/management arena so I value your opinion and I wanted your input about the similarities and differences of the two hybrid systems. I'm looking for an EV/Hybrid for my 40 mile round trip commute and this would help me maybe get into a nicer EV before I retire in a few years.

We had a 1st Gen Volt (2012) and replaced it with a 2nd gen Volt (2017). Whether you’re talking a HEV or an EV the electric motor and drive unit are pretty similar, possibly the same. I would expect for an EV the electric motor would have higher output. The team that developed the Volt motor and drive system also did the motors and drive units for the Malibu Hybrid, so the hardware is sound. I don’t know much about the application engineering on the Malibu Hybrid. I assume it’s a pretty good integration. I suspect that if the vehicle was too heavy for the hybrid system I would have heard a ton of negative reviews by now but I have not. I don’t recall ever driving one but I did get to drive a Saturn Vue with an earlier version of the same system in it. That vehicle was never released because of Saturn getting nuked in the bankruptcy. I remember that I was really impressed with the integration on that vehicle. So seven years later a more refined system in a more refined vehicle should have been a pretty solid package.