![]() ![]() Electric range in really cold weather-15 to 20 degrees F.-declined from 40 to about 25 miles, resulting in more gas being burned in local driving. And the battery running down the middle of the car limited rear seat passengers to two. With the driver's seat slid all the way back, as I drove it, rear knee room was minimal. On virtually its last day in my possession, it hauled most of Callie's possessions to her college dorm room. It hauled firewood and huge bags of trash for the dump. With its hatchback and fold-down rear seats, the Volt easily swallowed my XL-sized mountain bike without removing the front wheel. The best range I ever got, hypermiling on a hot day, was 54 miles. That's 3-5 cents per mile-again, about half the per-mile cost of a Prius.Translated into electric range, I typically got 40 miles in the summer and 25 miles in the dead of winter (15-20 degrees), with proportional range at in-between temperatures. On electricity, efficiency varied from about 4 miles/kWh in the summer to 2.5 m/kWh in the winter. That's more than twice as good as the Prius. My lifetime efficency figure says it all: 106 mpg. At speed on the Interstate, the Volt feels like a real luxury car. The electric motor's uncanny quiet and smoothness are matched by the Volt's plush ride. It's the best regen-adjusting system I've driven on any electric car. But for highway cruising, put it in D for an ICE-car feel. I loved the aggressive regenerative braking with the drive lever in L. But in Sport mode, the Volt feels very spritely off the line in normal driving. It's the only full-performance range-extended electric car with no compromises. This is what sets the Volt apart from all other electric cars. Utica, Cape Cod, and Balitomore in the winter are all now within range of the Model S.ĪLSO SEE: 2011 Chevy Volt Owner Takes on the Electric Range ChallengeĪnd on a recent trip to Montreal-still beyond round-trip Supercharger range-I discovered the joys of Plugshare, the community of e-car owners who make their charging stations available to anyone passing by who needs electrons.įor me, the Volt had served its purpose, and served it very well indeed. Realizing this, the leasing company kept lowering its price to buy, eventually getting down to $19,000.īut with my daughter gone to college and a handful of new Superchargers sprouting in the Northeast, my Volt had lost its two primary roles: as teen-age transporter, and Tesla back-up. Figure in the tax credit of $7,500, and the fact that Chevy had in the meantime lowered the Volt's base MSRP to $35,000, and I could buy a brand new 2014 Volt for a net $27,500. Having expressly avoided owning a Chevy-or any American car, for that matter-for all my car-owning life, I wasn't expecting much.Ģ011 Chevrolet Volt, before lease return, Hudson Valley, NY, Aug 2014 īut the economics of e-cars made that price way too high. Growing more and more frustrated with Nissan, I stopped by the Chevy dealer for a perfunctory test drive. And every day I was driving by a local Chevy dealer with a Volt sitting right out front. How much longer would I have to wait for my Leaf? A month? Six months? A year? No word from Nissan. To get me through the interim period, I also put down a $99 deposit on a Nissan Leaf.īut by December 2010, when the Leaf and Volt both hit the showrooms, I was getting more and more annoyed by a total lack of communication from Nissan about when the Leaf would be available in New York state, where I lived.ĪLSO SEE: 2014 BMW i3 REx Vs Chevy Volt: Range-Extended Electric Cars Compared I'd already put down my $5,000 deposit on the Model S, but delivery was three or four years away. 2011 Chevrolet Volt and 2013 Tesla Model S īack in the Dark Ages of electric cars-2009-I had dismissed the Volt as not a "real" e-car, compromised by its gasoline-powered range-extending engine.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |