"They’re reserving a lot of this real estate for future developments so that they can easily put more components on here if they want to."

I've a 1/2 empty, 1/2 full view of this.

Maybe the Volt was built for "more," i.e. more features, more range, more finesse, etc., but the final product was less than ideal due to cost, reliability, serviceability, etc., hence removal of those features in the production model.

What doesn't make sense to me is the fact that 2007/8 technology (around that timeframe when Volt was being R&D) was used and "reserved" for future advancement, specifically on electronic components? With the pace of technology, that's kind of absurd. It's like thinking that technology will stay the way it is during development, without considering drastic changes.

From the very beginning of its development GM has always stated that the Volt would be very adaptable and upgradable. The revelation after this tear down only confirms what GM has been saying all along. GM also stated that they would not sell the Volt at a loss and that every car would pay for itself which explains the high price. A quick review of the pricing announced from other electric manufacturers shows us also that GM was not "over charging" with respect to price, as the prices of similar models have been at or well above the price of the Volt. If GM can continue to get a steady stream of sales in the US and Europe especially, they have said that the 2nd generation would almost certainly cost less and perhaps have longer electric range. We must also remember that GM has also said that E-REV is also easy adaptable to Diesel and to Hydrogen Fuel Cell. I think Volt in the long run will absolutely be the game changer that many have predicted, sooner if gasoline prices spike again.

@theflew,

If you are talking about OLD technology inside a ICE vehicle, then yes.

We're dealing with electronics here. If your logic is correct, then we should be seeing larger and larger computers. Is that true? From all I know, an iPad is much much better in performance, much much smaller in size, and much much lighter in weight than one of those top-of-the-line PC (Mac or Windows) from just 3-4 years ago.

More importantly, a logic board design can, and most likely will, become obsolete (not even deprecated) in 3-4 years time. Look at RAM development, connector bus development, or even CPU chip development.

Hardware engineering is very difficult to be reused from a timing standpoint. Once a new technology is out, all manufacturers will start building new ones since there will be no profit to keep building the now "old" technology. You may be confused with reuse here in software engineering. That can be done since programming languages have a much longer lifespan than hardware. One (company or person) can still make a lot of money for knowing old programming languages such as C (e.g. Apple), but you don't see any manufacturer building the world's fastest, lightest and best 68030 architecture or Pentinum technology any more...

Now, I'm speaking purely from a computer engineering standpoint, which I know. Maybe the senior engineer who was reverse engineering the vehicle was speaking from a mechanical engineering pov, or that of an electronic engineer.