Electric Car Experiences - Volt

Thief

New Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2013
Messages
16
Reaction score
0
Location
Toronto
Country
Canada
shafferb0b1 said:
For any electric car geeks out there, so far the Volt has average 111 "miles per gallon". Trips of 40-50 miles are all electric, gas generator doesn't kick in until the batteries are done in. In all for today's trip of about 45 miles, I used 9.1 Kwh of battery power. Electricity here costs 12cents per Kwh, so that 45 miles cost me about $1.08, which if you were to compare to gasoline at around 4 bucks per gallon, equates out to about 170 "miles per gallon" in actual cost. I find that quite acceptable. :D

Personally, I don't think I'd buy an electric only car unless it had 400 - 500km (250 - 300mi) of range with easily swappable batteries so I don't have to wait several hours for a recharge. I do like the idea of a range extended electric but find cars like that boring. Though I do thank people like you who care for the environment enough that I get to keep driving my gas guzzler that averages 16mpg. :D
 
Re: My DVR-207 experiences

Thief said:
shafferb0b1 said:
For any electric car geeks out there, so far the Volt has average 111 "miles per gallon". Trips of 40-50 miles are all electric, gas generator doesn't kick in until the batteries are done in. In all for today's trip of about 45 miles, I used 9.1 Kwh of battery power. Electricity here costs 12cents per Kwh, so that 45 miles cost me about $1.08, which if you were to compare to gasoline at around 4 bucks per gallon, equates out to about 170 "miles per gallon" in actual cost. I find that quite acceptable. :D

Personally, I don't think I'd buy an electric only car unless it had 400 - 500km (250 - 300mi) of range with easily swappable batteries so I don't have to wait several hours for a recharge. I do like the idea of a range extended electric but find cars like that boring. Though I do thank people like you who care for the environment enough that I get to keep driving my gas guzzler that averages 16mpg. :D

OK, so it's a bit boring in normal mode, extremely quiet though, great stereo/bluetooth/ipod/iphone connections and OnStar so that your car has it's own little phone number, isn't that just preshus! On the other hand, you can put it into Sport mode, which basically takes the cap off of how much juice the batteries can expell at one time, and the torque of that electric motor really snaps your neck back. "Sport" doesn't do ****e for cornering of course or handling, or a ton of other things. My electric company out here in the boonies supplies my electicity totally from solar, so really in the 1300 miles I've drive the car so far, I've only used about 17 gallons of gas. I'll take that as a trade off anytime. But I agree, electric's aren't there yet, but I'm an "early adopter of damn near everything", and I'm much more pleased than I though I would be. Very comfortable car, good solid ride, best made GM thing I've owned. But you're right, it ain't perfect, but it gets closer to what actually is a useable plug-in electric than anything else. Even when I take a longer trip in it where I'm on the gas generator the whole time, it still gets about 45-47 Mpg, which ain't bad for a 4400 pound car. Too damn expensive for lots of folks, but they've got one heck of a leasing plan to try and get a bunch of 'em out there.
 
Re: My DVR-207 experiences

shafferb0b1 said:
Thief said:
shafferb0b1 said:
For any electric car geeks out there, so far the Volt has average 111 "miles per gallon". Trips of 40-50 miles are all electric, gas generator doesn't kick in until the batteries are done in. In all for today's trip of about 45 miles, I used 9.1 Kwh of battery power. Electricity here costs 12cents per Kwh, so that 45 miles cost me about $1.08, which if you were to compare to gasoline at around 4 bucks per gallon, equates out to about 170 "miles per gallon" in actual cost. I find that quite acceptable. :D

Personally, I don't think I'd buy an electric only car unless it had 400 - 500km (250 - 300mi) of range with easily swappable batteries so I don't have to wait several hours for a recharge. I do like the idea of a range extended electric but find cars like that boring. Though I do thank people like you who care for the environment enough that I get to keep driving my gas guzzler that averages 16mpg. :D

OK, so it's a bit boring in normal mode, extremely quiet though, great stereo/bluetooth/ipod/iphone connections and OnStar so that your car has it's own little phone number, isn't that just preshus! On the other hand, you can put it into Sport mode, which basically takes the cap off of how much juice the batteries can expell at one time, and the torque of that electric motor really snaps your neck back. "Sport" doesn't do ****e for cornering of course or handling, or a ton of other things. My electric company out here in the boonies supplies my electicity totally from solar, so really in the 1300 miles I've drive the car so far, I've only used about 17 gallons of gas. I'll take that as a trade off anytime. But I agree, electric's aren't there yet, but I'm an "early adopter of damn near everything", and I'm much more pleased than I though I would be. Very comfortable car, good solid ride, best made GM thing I've owned. But you're right, it ain't perfect, but it gets closer to what actually is a useable plug-in electric than anything else. Even when I take a longer trip in it where I'm on the gas generator the whole time, it still gets about 45-47 Mpg, which ain't bad for a 4400 pound car. Too damn expensive for lots of folks, but they've got one heck of a leasing plan to try and get a bunch of 'em out there.

I'm an early adopter of some things, and definitely a proponent of better technology in cars, provided it doesn't hamper performance and feel. But if and when Google comes out with an autonomous car, I'll probably be one of the first ones to buy. I wouldn't be able to resist a self-driving car when it comes time for roadtrips and commuting. I can definitely appreciate good fuel economy since I usually take a 800 mile (round trip) journey every 6 weeks or so, but I have a second car that does the roadtripping duties. The only problem I have with electrics though, is that they really don't sound like anything, and I like hearing a burbling gas engine.
 
Re: My DVR-207 experiences

shafferb0b1 said:
Thief said:
shafferb0b1 said:
For any electric car geeks out there, so far the Volt has average 111 "miles per gallon". Trips of 40-50 miles are all electric, gas generator doesn't kick in until the batteries are done in. In all for today's trip of about 45 miles, I used 9.1 Kwh of battery power. Electricity here costs 12cents per Kwh, so that 45 miles cost me about $1.08, which if you were to compare to gasoline at around 4 bucks per gallon, equates out to about 170 "miles per gallon" in actual cost. I find that quite acceptable. :D

Wow, I'm impressed. My neighbor has a Volt, and he gets 25, maybe 30 miles on all electric. And that's not using his AC, or any of the accessories.
He has solar panels, and he charges up with those, so it really isn't costing him anything to "gas up".
 
I've had a Volt since October of 2011, and I absolutely love the car.

I'm retired, so I don't have a daily commute, and I don't take long trips, so I've put just under 10,000 miles on the car in the 1 1/2 years that I've had it. In that 10,000 miles, I've burned 7.7 gallons of gas on the back-up gasoline engine. The few times I've run out the battery, I went 40, 45, 49, 50 (twice) and 54 miles on battery power. With recharging, I've gone 120 pure-electric miles in one day.

Driving the Volt is a zen-like experience. It is silent and responsive, with 273 pound-feet of torque available a zero rpm. 0 to 30 mph is just over 3 seconds, and it can reach 100 mph on battery power. There is no shifting, so there are no pauses for the gas engine to shift up or down during gear changes, and no wait for the gas engine to build up rpm and torque - just smooth uninterrupted power.

Consumer Reports magazine says that it has the highest owner satisfaction rating of any car they've reported on - higher even than the Chevy Corvette or Porsche 911.
 
Driving the Volt is a Zen-like experience. It's amazing driving without any voice.Anyhow thanks for some good and interesting sharing.
 
Back
Top