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This past Friday, I got the opportunity to get behind the wheel of a Chevy Volt. I've been excited about this car for a while now.
Volt is an electric car. As far as I know, it's the first practical, commercially viable electric car.
Nissan is coming out with their own attempt, the LEAF. That's fully electric, but it only has a 100 mile range, and needs up to 20 hours to recharge. I live about 50 miles from New York City. The LEAF would have trouble getting me there and back, and would be useless to me the next day (unless I drove it on a partial charge... but that's just delaying things). If I'm on a highway, I'd fully drain the LEAF's battery in less than two hours. It's just not practical.
So what's different about the Volt? It's driven by an electric motor, but it has a small gas generator to recharge the battery while you're driving. The first 40 miles or so (depending on how fast you go, whether you're going up steep hills, blasting the AC, etc.) are fully electric. Once the battery is drained, the gas engine kicks in. It doesn't directly drive the wheels, but rather recharges the battery. (If you're driving 70MPH or more - the car tops out at 100MPH - the gas engine kicks in to power a small supplementary motor to help you along.)
If you generally stay close to home - have a short commute, go on local errands, etc. - then you can go most days without using a drop of gas. The car recharges overnight (8-10 hours from any normal socket, 3-4 hours from a high voltage charging station - you can get one installed at home, and they'll eventually be popping up elsewhere) for about $1.50 a day, depending on local electric rates. That's half what you'd spend on a gallon of gas, which probably wouldn't even take you that far. Not to mention that there are no emissions (some are produced in making the electricity, of course - unless you're like me and buy clean power from something like Community Energy). And every gallon of gas that you don't buy is that much less incentive to go drilling for oil in ever more dangerous and remote places. And that much less political power for oil-rich countries.
One the gas engine kicks in, you get about 37 MPG (the official EPA estimate isn't out yet, but that's the semi-official figure from the Volt team). Not as good as the Toyota Prius, which gets something like 50MPG, but still better than most cars on the road. And the gas engine on the Prius comes on right away. Even if you're just looking at monetary costs, the Volt effectively gets 80MPG for the first 40 miles. Which means that if you drive less than 83 miles on a typical day, the Volt will use less fuel than the Prius.
To help extend the Volt's range, it's built with regenerative braking. When you slow down, some of the energy is recovered and transferred back to the battery. That, along with the fact that an electric engine doesn't have to idle, greatly increases the Volt's fuel efficiency in city or high traffic conditions.
With Volt's 9.3 gallon gas tank, you can drive at least 300 miles before you need to refuel. If you're somewhere with an outlet when you stop for the night, you can recharge the battery. If not, Volt will keep going on gas power, just like any other car.
In short, it's the missing link between the gas-powered cars of the last century and the cleaner cars of the future. It has an electric engine, but can use the existing gas infrastructure to greatly increase its range.
To sweeten the deal, Volt comes with some nice features. A Bose music system with a 30 gig hard drive, a large LCD touchscreen with plenty of information (in addition to the context-sensitive digital dashboard), 3 months of XM radio (with traffic and weather), 5 years of OnStar coverage, a voice-activated navigation system, remote access (through a web portal or a smartphone mobile app), and more - all standard. For a little extra, you can get a rear camera to help you park and/or heated leather seats.
The price tag is a little high, particularly for a compact car. It's $41k. But you get a federal tax credit of up to $7500 to offset that. And, of course, you're paying less for fuel, which will help you out over the long haul.
In fact, I ran the numbers assuming I'd drive 25 miles 6 days a week, 100 miles 1 day a week, and 200 miles once a year. In a regular car that gets about 25MPG, I'd use 528 gallons of gas per year. A Prius would cut that in half to 264 gallons. The Volt would use... 93 gallons. (Probably less, since I assumed 35MPG instead of 37 or more.)
Volt is made by Chevy, a US company. It's being built in the US with mostly US-made parts. Including the batteries. That's real money, real jobs, staying in this country because of the Volt.
Oh, and in case you're worried about the battery, it comes with an 8 year/100,000 mile warranty.
Of course, there are a few things I don't like about it. The trunk is small. 10.6 cubic feet of cargo space (about 5 x 2 x 1) between the back seats and the hatchback opening. The back seats do fold down, though, if you need more room (and don't have more than one or two passengers). Speaking of the back seats, there are only two of them - because the H-shaped battery runs down the middle of the car, there's no room for a middle seat. And it's tight back there. A little less legroom even than you'll find even in most cars these days (most of which seem to treat the back seat as almost an afterthought). I fit in the back seat, but I couldn't put my backpack on the floor in front of me.
Still, it drives smoothly. And quietly. So quietly that they added a pedestrian warning system. There's a little lever you can hit to emit a few short honks and blink the headlights to warn a pedestrian who might otherwise not hear you coming. (They worked with the Foundation for the Blind to help develop that system.)
The 149 motor does still have some kick to it, especially when you put the car in "Sport" mode. (There's also a "mountain" mode which saves up extra battery power, designed for when you're going through an area with a lot of steep hills.) And the brakes work very well, too.
The car's gear shift has four modes: Park, Reverse, Drive, and Low. The first two work as you'd expect. Drive smoothly and automatically adjusts the gear ratio as needed. Low works exactly the same as Drive in terms of motor power and gear ratio. The difference is that the regenerative braking system is more active. When you take your foot off the gas, it kicks in, slowing the car and recharging the battery at the same time. (The engineer with me on the test drive told me that his favorite way to drive the car is Sport mode and Low gear - feels most like a sports car that way.)
I mentioned the web portal. You can log in through any computer or smartphone to monitor the car's status and set the charging schedule. The car's computer can even help determine when to best charge the battery based on what time you want to start driving and when your local electric company charges off-peak rates. You can also find the car, remotely lock and unlock the doors, and remotely start the car (to warm it up before you get in).
That last part makes me a little nervous. I asked about security measures. There are passwords involved, of course. The phone has to be registered with OnStar before you can start using the mobile app. And OnStar has been around for several years now (8 or so, I think) without having been hacked (as I'd half expected would have happened by now, given how powerful a tool it can be), so they know something about security. Furthermore, even if someone steals your phone, guesses your password, and starts the engine, the car won't actually go unless the key fob is physically inside.
If you're interested in what the car looks like, I took a few pictures. Someone else posted some better ones. If you look closely, you can see that the front grille is actually closed - because an electric motor doesn't need air to work. It's streamlined, with a small lip on the back that acts like a mini-spoiler, reducing drag and thus improving fuel efficiency. You might also be able to see the small rings of bright blue LEDs near the headlights - they function as the car's daytime running lights.
All in all, I'm excited about the car. It's a real, meaningful step forward. And hey, I got a free t-shirt (and was offered free food, too) just for checking it out! :)
If you're interested, you can get more information at VoltAge, GM-Volt, and Chevy.
Volt is an electric car. As far as I know, it's the first practical, commercially viable electric car.
Nissan is coming out with their own attempt, the LEAF. That's fully electric, but it only has a 100 mile range, and needs up to 20 hours to recharge. I live about 50 miles from New York City. The LEAF would have trouble getting me there and back, and would be useless to me the next day (unless I drove it on a partial charge... but that's just delaying things). If I'm on a highway, I'd fully drain the LEAF's battery in less than two hours. It's just not practical.
So what's different about the Volt? It's driven by an electric motor, but it has a small gas generator to recharge the battery while you're driving. The first 40 miles or so (depending on how fast you go, whether you're going up steep hills, blasting the AC, etc.) are fully electric. Once the battery is drained, the gas engine kicks in. It doesn't directly drive the wheels, but rather recharges the battery. (If you're driving 70MPH or more - the car tops out at 100MPH - the gas engine kicks in to power a small supplementary motor to help you along.)
If you generally stay close to home - have a short commute, go on local errands, etc. - then you can go most days without using a drop of gas. The car recharges overnight (8-10 hours from any normal socket, 3-4 hours from a high voltage charging station - you can get one installed at home, and they'll eventually be popping up elsewhere) for about $1.50 a day, depending on local electric rates. That's half what you'd spend on a gallon of gas, which probably wouldn't even take you that far. Not to mention that there are no emissions (some are produced in making the electricity, of course - unless you're like me and buy clean power from something like Community Energy). And every gallon of gas that you don't buy is that much less incentive to go drilling for oil in ever more dangerous and remote places. And that much less political power for oil-rich countries.
One the gas engine kicks in, you get about 37 MPG (the official EPA estimate isn't out yet, but that's the semi-official figure from the Volt team). Not as good as the Toyota Prius, which gets something like 50MPG, but still better than most cars on the road. And the gas engine on the Prius comes on right away. Even if you're just looking at monetary costs, the Volt effectively gets 80MPG for the first 40 miles. Which means that if you drive less than 83 miles on a typical day, the Volt will use less fuel than the Prius.
To help extend the Volt's range, it's built with regenerative braking. When you slow down, some of the energy is recovered and transferred back to the battery. That, along with the fact that an electric engine doesn't have to idle, greatly increases the Volt's fuel efficiency in city or high traffic conditions.
With Volt's 9.3 gallon gas tank, you can drive at least 300 miles before you need to refuel. If you're somewhere with an outlet when you stop for the night, you can recharge the battery. If not, Volt will keep going on gas power, just like any other car.
In short, it's the missing link between the gas-powered cars of the last century and the cleaner cars of the future. It has an electric engine, but can use the existing gas infrastructure to greatly increase its range.
To sweeten the deal, Volt comes with some nice features. A Bose music system with a 30 gig hard drive, a large LCD touchscreen with plenty of information (in addition to the context-sensitive digital dashboard), 3 months of XM radio (with traffic and weather), 5 years of OnStar coverage, a voice-activated navigation system, remote access (through a web portal or a smartphone mobile app), and more - all standard. For a little extra, you can get a rear camera to help you park and/or heated leather seats.
The price tag is a little high, particularly for a compact car. It's $41k. But you get a federal tax credit of up to $7500 to offset that. And, of course, you're paying less for fuel, which will help you out over the long haul.
In fact, I ran the numbers assuming I'd drive 25 miles 6 days a week, 100 miles 1 day a week, and 200 miles once a year. In a regular car that gets about 25MPG, I'd use 528 gallons of gas per year. A Prius would cut that in half to 264 gallons. The Volt would use... 93 gallons. (Probably less, since I assumed 35MPG instead of 37 or more.)
Volt is made by Chevy, a US company. It's being built in the US with mostly US-made parts. Including the batteries. That's real money, real jobs, staying in this country because of the Volt.
Oh, and in case you're worried about the battery, it comes with an 8 year/100,000 mile warranty.
Of course, there are a few things I don't like about it. The trunk is small. 10.6 cubic feet of cargo space (about 5 x 2 x 1) between the back seats and the hatchback opening. The back seats do fold down, though, if you need more room (and don't have more than one or two passengers). Speaking of the back seats, there are only two of them - because the H-shaped battery runs down the middle of the car, there's no room for a middle seat. And it's tight back there. A little less legroom even than you'll find even in most cars these days (most of which seem to treat the back seat as almost an afterthought). I fit in the back seat, but I couldn't put my backpack on the floor in front of me.
Still, it drives smoothly. And quietly. So quietly that they added a pedestrian warning system. There's a little lever you can hit to emit a few short honks and blink the headlights to warn a pedestrian who might otherwise not hear you coming. (They worked with the Foundation for the Blind to help develop that system.)
The 149 motor does still have some kick to it, especially when you put the car in "Sport" mode. (There's also a "mountain" mode which saves up extra battery power, designed for when you're going through an area with a lot of steep hills.) And the brakes work very well, too.
The car's gear shift has four modes: Park, Reverse, Drive, and Low. The first two work as you'd expect. Drive smoothly and automatically adjusts the gear ratio as needed. Low works exactly the same as Drive in terms of motor power and gear ratio. The difference is that the regenerative braking system is more active. When you take your foot off the gas, it kicks in, slowing the car and recharging the battery at the same time. (The engineer with me on the test drive told me that his favorite way to drive the car is Sport mode and Low gear - feels most like a sports car that way.)
I mentioned the web portal. You can log in through any computer or smartphone to monitor the car's status and set the charging schedule. The car's computer can even help determine when to best charge the battery based on what time you want to start driving and when your local electric company charges off-peak rates. You can also find the car, remotely lock and unlock the doors, and remotely start the car (to warm it up before you get in).
That last part makes me a little nervous. I asked about security measures. There are passwords involved, of course. The phone has to be registered with OnStar before you can start using the mobile app. And OnStar has been around for several years now (8 or so, I think) without having been hacked (as I'd half expected would have happened by now, given how powerful a tool it can be), so they know something about security. Furthermore, even if someone steals your phone, guesses your password, and starts the engine, the car won't actually go unless the key fob is physically inside.
If you're interested in what the car looks like, I took a few pictures. Someone else posted some better ones. If you look closely, you can see that the front grille is actually closed - because an electric motor doesn't need air to work. It's streamlined, with a small lip on the back that acts like a mini-spoiler, reducing drag and thus improving fuel efficiency. You might also be able to see the small rings of bright blue LEDs near the headlights - they function as the car's daytime running lights.
All in all, I'm excited about the car. It's a real, meaningful step forward. And hey, I got a free t-shirt (and was offered free food, too) just for checking it out! :)
If you're interested, you can get more information at VoltAge, GM-Volt, and Chevy.
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