Toyota Volta Concept Hybrid

Ok, I’ve never been one for sports cars. A minivan or a family sedan has always been more my speed, but the Toyota Volta is something else entirely.

Just the look of it is amazing, and it should be. For the design aspects Toyota partnered with Italdesign-Giugiaro . . . and it certainly lives up to Italdesign’s reputation. The body is low and sleek, with a vaguely futuristic feel to the design, without being techy.

The inside is just as amazing. This concept car is designed to seat three - not the two and one configuration sometimes seen in sports cars, but three seats in a row, each capable of being individually adjusted for leg room and comfort. There is a single, smaller seat in the rear that can fit a child, or infant car seat. Now, as unusual as the 3+1 set up is, the controls are even more unique. The steering wheel and pedals are ‘drive-by-wire’ as Toyota calls it, meaning they can slide across the dash so the Volta can be driven from any of the front seats.

Of course, this is a Toyota hybrid, and Toyota has a reputation to live up to. Which it does, amazingly. The gas motor, set behind the rear axel, powers two electric motors, one per axel. The combination results in 408 horsepower, and 0-60 in 4 seconds, and the placement of an electric motor for each axel gives all the benefits of all-wheel drive. The fuel economy isn’t anything to laugh at either. A solid 30 miles per gallon gives a range of around 435 miles.

In the end, though, a sports car isn’t about the gas mileage, or a fancy seating arrangement. It’s about design, attitude, and power. Toyota, with little experience and no reputation for sports cars, has managed to deliver all three. Four and a half years after the Volta was unveiled at the Geneva Auto show, the competition is still markedly absent.

Unfortunately, so is the Volta. Toyota has give no indication that it intends to move the Volta into production any time soon, if ever. We can only hope that even if Toyota won’t ever build it, some auto maker will respond to the challenge Toyota has laid down as a new bench mark of what is possible, and introduce another sports car with the vision, innovation and attitudinal arrogance of the Volta.