Winners announced at Detroit Auto Show 2011

The Volt takes home the prize for Car of the Year.
Photo Credit Tannen Maury/EPA.

The winner of the North American car of the year were announced at the Detroit Auto Show on Monday.

The Chevrolet Volt won the award, beating out the Nissan Leaf and the Hyundai Sonota to win.

Chevrolet's electric car has been in the works for many years, and now that it's arrived, people are starting to see the genius of it. It is an electric car, but it has been able to do something other electric cars haven't.



Electric cars are notorious for not being able to drive too far, so they have been relegated to "daily commuter cars." In other words, the cars people use to get to and from work every day. The Volt, however, has managed to solve this problem. On a single charge you get around 55 kilometres (35 miles). That should cover most people for their daily drives, but what if someone needs to drive 400 kilometres for a weekend ski trip? Well that's where the true genius comes in.

When the Volt runs out of battery power, a gasoline-powered generator kicks in and gives it an extra 550 kilometres (340 miles). So you can get there and most of the way back too.

As for some specs it has 150 horsepower, but also cranks out 273lb ft of torque. And that is instant torque because it is an electric car.

Thats not all the Volt has to offer either.

It is equipped with a ton of marvellous gadgetry such as two LCD screens that give you all the information about the car, like how much longer you can go before you need a charge. You also get a five-year subscription to OnStar, Bose speakers, iPod connectivity, Bluetooth, and a hard drive that can record 20 minutes of live radio which you can then listen to at your leisure. In fact the list of what is standard is pretty extensive.

It's not a cheap car but that is to be expected with all the technology it has. It costs around $32, 000 Canadian, which is Chevy's most expensive car aside from the Corvette. That said it is a very clever piece of machinery, and has already won many awards.

The Chevrolet Volt from the front. Photo credit chevrolet.com.

It looks good too. The design has changed since the first draft to become less boxy. It looks especially good from the front as the headlights seem to have a sort of menace to them.

When you take all the things this car brings to the table and add them together, it's not that hard to see why the Volt won the Detroit Auto Show's car of the year award.