Review: Chevy Volt

[Tuna]

Well, the wife was out of town on a business trip for 5 days, so I got to drive the Chevy Volt while she was gone and I drove it a lot - Sorry Vette and VWagon. Wife told me to drive it and put some miles on it before the lease runs out.

Okay, the Volt ain't a Vette or a VWagon for that matter, but it's a good car to take to work every day. The "expected range" value displayed on the dash on activation kept going up nearly every day. When I started driving it last week, it showed a 35 mile range. Yesterday morning it showed 39. After driving it to work and the airport and back, it said I drove 41.9 miles on the charge - did not need the gas engine. I think my wife drives it harder than I do. Then again, I rarely drive it so it's always a novelty when I do.

The "glass" cockpit takes some getting used to and the climate control is "different" to say the least. It's comfortable and surprisingly "sporty" when pushed. I only used the gas engine one day while driving it. That was Saturday and I did a little running around that went over the battery range.

When I say I used the gas engine, that doesn't mean that the gas engine was actually "driving" the car because it isn't really hooked to the wheels like a hybrid car. In the Volt, the electric motor does all the driving and the gas engine just runs a generator that electrifies the car when the batteries discharge to a preset amount.

It's supposed to be capable of 100 MPH all on battery and electric motor but I haven't had it that fast - yet. I know it will do 85 and it's still accelerating at that speed, so 100 seems like a good bet.

Plugging it in at night and unplugging it in the morning takes 30 seconds or so each day. That's a lot less time than gassing up the VWagon or Vette each week - especially the VWagon.

The Volt is showing 26,000 miles now and the life cycle gas used is right at 115 gallons. That's over 28 months or about 49 gallons of gas a year. If we only drove it to work and stayed on battery all the time, gas usage would be much, much less but sometimes we drive more than 40 miles in a day and sometimes it's really cold here and the gas engines starts up to warm up the battery. Batteries hate being cold when you're using them.

The wife got the Volt back today and I had to drive one of the 500+HP cars to work. Choose the V Wagon. I'll drive the Vette tomorrow. It's nice to have a ton of power under my right foot and to stir the gears (Volt has only 1 gear).

 

[Bob Chadwick]

I test drove the Volt, among others, last year looking for a electric commuter car. I liked it but it needs some updating. In particular, the Ford Fusion is much more cutting edge (which you would expect since they just upgraded to the product line). When is the Volt due to come out with the next generation.

 

[Tuna]

When is the Volt due to come out with the next generation.

I keep hearing that Volt 2.0 will be out in 2016. That should also give the new Cadillac ELR an update also. We'll just have to wait and see.

The Fusion is a more recently updated vehicle, I'll give you that. There are differences in the drive train and how it works. The Fusion is more hybrid than EV. The Volt is always EV.

In EV mode, the Fusion provides a 70 HP electric motor for acceleration, etc. If you want to accelerate faster than that, you have to tell it to start the ICE and start burning gas and that couples the gas engine to the drive train.

At 188 HP with the gas engine compared to the 149 of the Volt's electric engine, it looks like a good performer but the torque is only 129 compared to the Volt's 273. The torque give the Volt a nice acceleration where the gas engine is running or not.

I like the looks of the ELR much better but the 70K + price scares me away.
One other point: If you keep waiting for the latest, greatest version of something, you'll never get one.

 

[catbert]

Our 2012 Volt just rolled over 54,000 miles with 2 oil changes as the only maintenance.. It's been the most trouble-free vehicle I've owned, and I've had more than 50. You can see that Bob Lutz personally rode herd over the development.