Chevy Volt

[Tames D]

Cool; I thought the Volt was an all-electric.

To be honest, I also thought it was an all-electric until I started looking into it.

 

[Steve]

Excellent post Steve. Yes, I thought the volt looks like a bigger car than the prius. That suprises me. What is a TDI? A diesel vehicle? How is that on the environment? Sorry for all the questions.

The volt has a bar that goes down the middle. It will only seat four. There is no "hump" for someone to sit on in the back.

TDI is a turbo diesel. They run clean, and perform very well. The thing about a diesel is that you will kill it early and get terrible performance if all you do are short drives. However, it shines on the freeway.

Conversely, electric or plug in hybrids don't like the added resistance that 60+mph presents, but the regenerative braking and lower speeds make the ev shine in the stop and go of city driving. If all you do is freeway driving, you'll never recoup the extra cost of the plugin option. Both the cmax and the Prius have models with and without the plugin option.

Lest anyone think I hate the volt, it has the advantage of good looks, a sporty interior, and a longer, "all electric" range.

There are other cars in the mix, too. Ford offers a focus ev, which is all electric and a strong competitor to the Nissan leaf.


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[Rich Parsons]

If you're targeting taking the car to college -- be sure to consider the practical issue of charging stations. There're not real common in my area, and I've actually had to run a few people out of business parking lots where they could find a plug to use the on-board charging system. Which, as I understand it, is not quick...

Using 120 V charger plug that comes with the vehicle can take 8 to 12 hours to get full charge.

Using the 240 V charger (Special equipment installed at house or normal equipment for charging station) takes about 8 hours for full charge from low.

At 16, it's a concern, too. He SHOULD have enough range for school, etc... but having been a 16 year old kid myself once... it's amazing how many miles you can put on a car in a night without doing "anything." Not to mention if he gets a job delivering pizzas or the like. Or just is a normal 16 year old kid, and doesn't remember to plug it in. Do you want that call "Dad, my battery's dead and there's nowhere to charge it nearby."

The Volt, has the IC Engine so it has range of a normal vehicle. If one is looking at EV only then the range becomes a concern.

 

[Rich Parsons]

http://www.voltstats.net/


The Above site shows that 90 some percent of the miles being reported are EV Miles.

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/25/chevy-volt-crosses-400-million-ev-miles-today/

The site directly above this, shows that the Chevy Volt has over 4 million EV Miles since it was launched.