Forgotten Idea: Saturn Flextreme The Each day Drive

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Saturn Flextreme Idea

Forgotten Concepts, Forgotten Concepts

That is an installment in a sequence of posts trying again on present vehicles that we really feel deserved just a little extra consideration than they obtained. When you have a suggestion for a Forgotten Idea matter, please shoot us a line or depart a remark under.

Saturn Flextreme

First Proven: 2008 Detroit Auto Present

Description: Plug-in hybrid compact automobile

Gross sales Pitch: “Flextreme reveals that unconventional pondering may end up in nice vehicles.”

Extra Forgotten Ideas

Saturn Flextreme

Particulars:

First seen on the 2008 Detroit Auto Present, the Saturn Flextreme Idea was a digital clone of the Opel Flextreme Idea which had been unveiled on the 2007 Frankfort Auto Present just a few weeks earlier. The Flextreme idea was a 4-door compact automobile that includes a plug-in serial-hybrid drivetrain just like that launched within the Chevrolet Volt Idea launched on the Detroit Present a 12 months earlier.

In contrast to the Volt Idea, which featured a small gasoline engine, the Flextreme was powered by a tiny 1.3-liter diesel. When totally charged, the Flextreme was claimed to journey as much as 34 miles on electrical energy alone, after which the diesel engine took over. Saturn claimed a mixed electrical/diesel vary of 444 miles.

The Flextreme featured center-opening facet doorways which, when opened collectively, created a usefully giant passage to the automobile’s inside. As an alternative of a rear hatch, the Flextreme integrated a pair of gullwing-style doorways positioned on the automobile’s rear bodyside.

For city explorers, a pair of Segway Private Transporters have been saved underneath the car’s cargo space and could possibly be accessed from exterior of the automobile. No phrase on if the Segway batteries have been charged whereas in storage underneath the automobile.

Forgotten Idea: Briggs & Stratton Hybrid

Saturn Flextreme

CG Says:

The Chevrolet Volt Idea was unveiled to a lot fanfare again in 2007, however the hoopla could have come largely from the motoring press, which appeared to grasp the E-Flex plug-in hybrid system higher than most people.

When the manufacturing Volt arrived for 2011, public response was lukewarm at finest, as Normal Motors handled public and media skepticism, particularly that from Fox Information. For that reason, Volt variants just like the Opel and Saturn Flextreme by no means matured into full manufacturing fashions. Sadly, the E-Flex idea—which is fluctuate very like Nissan’s e-Energy system—by no means noticed life past the Volt, except you rely the short-lived, and extraordinarily uncommon, Cadillac ELR.

Take a look at Drive: 2014 Cadillac ELR