This week, Phil Colley from our team is in Yuma, AZ with the Chevrolet Volt engineers, as they put the car through its paces with a series of hot-weather tests at GM’s Desert Proving Grounds, where temperatures are right around 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep up with all the action in real time at http://twitter.com/chevyvolt and http://chevrolet.posterous.com/. There will also be some recaps and video right here on VoltAge later this week.
Hot-weather testing is just one of a litany of tests being performed by our engineering team as part of the Volt’s development. The Volt has already undergone a series of weather-related testing at both ends of the temperature extreme and we've chronicled many of those in video, including cold-weather testing in Kapuskasing, Canada where we started the Volt up in freezing temperatures. Here in Detroit, we also did a cold-weather door slam test in our lab, where we slammed the Volt's doors thousands of times in freezing temperatures.
We also put the Volt under hot lights at 95 degrees Celsius to make sure the parts wouldn’t warp or melt in the hot sun.
These are just a few of the temperature tests we conduct on our vehicles to make sure they perform well in all conditions. Check out our temperature testing videos below and be on the lookout for more from Yuma in the days to come.
Doug Wernert from the Volt team here. Glad to hear your enthusiasm. The proving grounds is actually closed to the public (it's on Army property), but we'll have some more photos and a wrap-up video coming later this week.