Calling a rose by another name would never make it a Chevy Volt. I never liked it from day one. I wrote several items here pointing out the impracticality of building a $40,000 car to compete with a $20,000 car that offers more amenities and better performance. Putting a lawn mower engine in tandem with a ton of batteries to produce an average fuel economy less than fifteen miles per gallon better than a typical econo-box is not going to attract people with an IQ higher than the temperature of luke-warm soup.
But here is a more detailed and less emotional analysis than mine:
Volt One Year Later
Forcing tax dollars to subsidize a product which nobody wants except a few hundred enviro-whackos and a megalomaniac President is eventually going to attract attention.
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If it walks, flies, and quacks like a duck - it's probably a duck.
Also, if something smells like a turd, that's enough for me not to try the squish and taste test.
As a lark, #1 son test drove a Volt at the FTW-AAS last weekend. GM had four cars in their test stable (he'd wanted to drive the Z-71 pickup, but it was static display only) - Volt, Cruze, Traverse, Equinox. I drove the Equinox and found it to be satisfactory.
As for the Volt, having only one in rotation, the sales dork (SD)explained that the test drive would be under gas power. Oh, yeah, because they'd already exhausted (pun sorta intended) its battery charge.
SD explained that the battery will never charge above 80% of capacity, nor discharge below 20% - in order to prolong its life (using 60% of your battery - how's that efficiency grab ya?), and that the gas engine powers the electric motors (similar to a diesel-electric locomotive), but does not charge the batteries (full hookup charge, with a dedicated 20A circuit runs 8 hours), nor is it directly linked to the drive mechanicals (this last is contradicted by the Wiki - I don't know which is correct). He also said the fuel economy is 37 mpg in gas mode.
While the car was not unpleasant to drive (son was cautioned not to exceed 15 mph on the .1 mile test loop - woohoo!), it surely begs the question: Why not just buy a car with fuel economy in the 30s and save about $20K.
Using the Math (against the advice of beauty contestants), one determines that $20K of gas @ $3.50/gal @ 30 mpg would equate to over 171K miles - about 6 years or more of driving in North Texas. Saving six years of interest carry on $20K, or the opportunity cost if paying cash, is another nice benefit.
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