........................

 

The Volt is a winner IMO.

Seems many of you guys arent fully clear on how it works. When plugged in...for .40-.50c you will top off the batteries...which will get you 40 miles. Once you go approx 40 miles the battery pack should be around 30% charge and the car will go into Charge Sustianing Mode. that will kick in the ICE which will run a generator. the generator's primary duty is to power the electric motor that runs the car...and secondary duty to repower the batteries to a certain level of charge when demand is low (such as highway driving). In Charge Sustain Mode the car gets between 50-60 mpg.

So to calculate your costs for your typical week you need to factor in both modes VS the total miles.
Just run the numbers for your own situation.

For me and my daily route...driving 50 miles round trip 5 days a week...it would be pretty sweet.
1st 40 miles for roughly .50c for electric and the last 10 miles @ 50 mpg with gas at $2.59 divide by 5 since 10 mile per day at 50 mpg = ~.52c

$So thats :
$1.02 per day
$5.10 a week
$20.40 a month
$244.80 a year.
The above figures are for both the gas cost and electricity cost.

Compared to my vette that gets a pretty good 23 mpg on my daily commute and using the same regular gas at $2.59 (even though I use premium):

$5.56 per day
28.25 per week
$113.00 a month
$1356 per year

Pretty substantial!

This would also calculate to ~ 250 mpg


IMO the Volt is far ahead of the leaf. the leaf is all electric with only a 100 mile range. So the leaf will strictly be a commuter car. So you will have to have a second car if you plan to drive more than 100 miles in a day. The volt will do both. first 40 on electric....and then as far as you want on gas. One car for two missions.

 

I think the argument here isn't if it can do 50-60mpg with the generator running. I think the price tag is too expensive. If you buy a car that is equivalent in features for lets say, 17k vs the 40k price tag, how long will it take to offset the price with the savings from fuel?

 

^ Ding Ding Ding!!! we have a winner

 

Factoring in the cost at $32500 ($40k-$7500 for thre govt) you should easily see a return on your money during the life of the car assuming your comparison car was similair to the size and capabilty of the Volt such as Accord or Camry.

Savings would be roughly $750-$1200 a year depending on your daily routes and initial cost difference of $5000-$10000 depending on the model.

And this is making the calculations at the relatively cheap cheap price of gas. if it goes into the $4+ gallon range again you would almost certainly recoup the cost and then some.

And of course you would be using 1/10 the gas of those cars. A tank of gas could last you long enough in many curcumstances that you may need to put some Sta-Bil gas stabilizer in it. So for me you would have to factor in the lessesned dependance on oil. I particularly like that idea.

Of course all this is just based on projections. if the car comes out and melts down or has major issues or some unforseen twist it wont matter. But I think Checy has struck on a happy medium of capability. Now they just need to get cost down into the range of a comparable car.

 

I don't think the Volt would be a full size car like a Camry or Accord. I think its more in the Civic/ Corolla range. Even using your figures of 17k for a Civic and 32500 for the Volt, the difference is 15,500. Lets say you would save 1200 a year on fuel (Giving the benefit of doubt to the Volt). The 15,500 / 1200 year = 12.91 years to break even.

Not putting the car down but really there's too many variables. We don't really know how the market will react. For all we know, the supply won't be able to keep up with the demand. That may eventually drive the price of production down.

 

plus, goodluck with the first year of any model, especially the first year of this type of vehicle and then coming from GM....yeah, maintenance is lurking

 

Even if it was 12 years to break even....you would have consumed 1/10th of the gasoline/oil as the corrola/civic. That would factor in to my purchase. Then you have to think about what the price of fuel may be in 8 years

Even if the first year Volt is a break even deal...or even slight loss in its first year....it stands to reason that subsequent models will benifit from refinment. a few generations of Volt later it could be 60 miles on a charge, 65 mpg in CSM and cost 27k.

I think the numbers they are throwing around right now for the first gen Volt are pretty competitive. The Toyota prius sold fairly well and thats a much bigger loss than the projected numbers for the Volt.

 

While I understanding the concept of "230 mpg" is because you need to factor in the time the electric motor is running and not consuming any gas, but I just think it silly.

MPG of gas is unlimited when driving less than 40 miles.
However if you drive the car to get the total range on one tank on fuel, you might only get 50MPG.

Why can't the EPA come up with a better system.. since often you use the MPG to get the total range of the car. Average MPG x #of Gallon = Total Range.

With the volt.. the 230 MPG x 10 gallon gas tank = 2300 miles range on a tank of gas. Not.

Maybe I failed basic math.. but I thought the EPA can come up with a better system.

 

In uncertain times like these, the environmental concerns takes a back seat while the initial cost and potential savings will take the wheel to drive the success of a car like the Volt. I'm sure there will be people that buy this car because its "good for the environment" but will that be enough to make this car profitable for GM? Us Americans are hooked on the instant gratification in the products we buy, especially if we are paying a premium on it. No one wants to wait 8+ years to feel like they just started saving money over buying a conventional vehicle.