Production photos of Chevy Volt show big changes from concept car

— -- The production version of the Chevrolet Volt electric car is a small four-door sedan that bears no resemblance to the low, sleek, two-door sports coupe that Chevy exhibited on the 2007 auto-show circuit to drum up interest in the vehicle and boost General Motors' image as leaning green.

Official GM photos of the car were posted accidentally by Wieck Media, a clearinghouse for automakers' pictures, for just 12 minutes Monday. But that was long enough for them to be downloaded and published by thecarconnection.com and other online sites. The pictures were quickly "put back in the vault" as soon as GM noticed, according to Chevy spokesman Terry Rhadigan.

GM had been telegraphing that the real car's styling would be different because the show car, despite its sleek appearance, was an aerodynamic disaster that would have used too much power just plowing through the air. Despite the automaker's hints, the radical change — to a four-door sedan resembling an Asian economy car — is unexpected.

Though the production Volt looks nothing like the show car, it retains the concept version's lithium-ion battery pack, which is supposed to take it up to 40 miles on a charge.

The battery pack can take up to 10 hours to recharge plugged into an ordinary 115-volt home outlet, less time if it's plugged into a 230-volt outlet. That's the type electric clothes dryers use.

Volt carries a small internal-combustion engine to recharge the batteries if the driver isn't near an outlet for a plug-in recharge. But the gasoline engine is not set up to power the car directly, so Volt can't be considered a hybrid.

Latest guesses at its price have been around $35,000, and Rhadigan says, "It won't be below that, and it could be higher. But it's two years out, and we know we have to get it to a (reasonable) price point. It's still a Chevrolet."

Production is to begin November 2010 and the car should be in showrooms late in 2010 or early 2011.

GM hopes to sell 60,000 a year once production is running full steam.