The Associated Press reports today that GM will provide a 8 year, 100,000 mile warranty on the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid batteries.
The guarantee is better than warranties on GM's conventional car engines and transmissions, which are five years or 100,000 miles.
The rechargeable Volt is due in showrooms this November. The vehicle can travel 40 miles on battery power before a small gasoline engine takes over to generate power so the car can go longer distances. The Volt is expected to be priced around $35,000 but will probably cost less after federal tax credits.
The Volt will first go on sale at the end of this year in Texas, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, California and Washington, D.C. Then GM plans to produce 10,000 by the end of 2011 and an additional 30,000 in 2012.
Early on GM had pegged the cost of a 400-pound Volt battery at around $10,000, the most expensive single component in the car. Costs should drop as GM sells more Volts, and should be substantially lower after eight years
So basically after driving the car for about 10 years, you'll have maybe a $5,000 cost to replace the battery. That's not too bad really, especially when you consider that the life of gas cars is only about 10-15 years.
