Chevy's Volt mules have moved to Cruze mode; Lutz drives one

Last spring, when General Motors starting track testing its first E-Flex powertrain "mule" prototypes, the cars were based on previous-generation Chevrolet Malibu body shells, the Mali-Volts. The engineering team has now moved on to the next generation of its development cars. The latest batch of testers are now using Chevy Cruze bodies, which is appropriate since both the Cruze and Volt share the same Global Compact Architecture (that is the next-gen Delta platform). In many respects, Volt is a Cruze with the ER-EV powertrain and different styling. I spoke with Denise Grey and Tony Posawatz of GM in Los Angeles the other day about progress and there are a number of E-Flex Cruzes now running at Milford. Some of these vehicles will be heading North soon to do cold weather development. In the meantime Bob Lutz has had a chance to drive Cruze based car and talks about it at the Fastlane blog.

[Source: GM FastLane]