Chevrolet Springo Electric Car: Coming Soon (To China Only)Chevrolet Springo Electric Car: Coming Soon (To China Only)

No, Springo isn’t a new scratch-off game.
It’s apparently the name of a new Chevrolet battery electric vehicle, though we’ll never see it in North America.
The Chevy Springo electric car will go on sale in China (and possibly other countries) at roughly the same time that the U.S. gets limited numbers of the 2013 Chevrolet Spark EV, a “compliance car” that Chevy is selling only to meet California zero-emission vehicle requirements.
The news from China (and some spy photos too) comes courtesy of autos.ifeng.com (via Indian Autos Blog), which notes that “Springo” is the new model name for what had been known until now as the Chevrolet Sail EV.
The Chevrolet Springo will be officially unveiled at the Guangzhou Auto Show, which opens November 23rd.
The Sail is a China-only model produced by Shanghai GM, a 50-50 joint venture between General Motors and SAIC, its Chinese partner company.
The all-electric Sail was first confirmed by GM China more than two years ago, and the company showed a prototype electric Sail in December 2010.
GM signed an official production agreement with SAIC to build the car, which will be sold by both companies, in September 2011.
The new Chevrolet Springo has a 22-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack that powers a 65-kilowatt (87-hp) electric motor driving the front wheels with maximum torque of 162 lb-ft.
Its maximum speed is quoted at 80 mph (130 km/h), perhaps adequate for congested Chinese cities, with a total range given as up to 93 miles (150 km).
The new electric Springo has unique wheel designs, a streamlined body, and some fancy graphics along the doors–which GM said has been “inspired by leaves”–compared to the standard gasoline version of the Sail.
The blanked-off silver “grille” panel clearly owes a design debt to that used on the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car.
While the Springo / electric Sail will never be offered in North America, it’s good to know GM is sharing a common design language among a globally growing group of plug-in Chevrolet models
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