Who owns or is planning to own a chevrolet volt?

[martinjlm]

it's a death trap.

All small cars have low safety ratings. If it's a "green" car, the standards are lowered.

If I recall; 2000 more deaths a year are acceptable.


Not to mention it doesn't save fuel, you have to pay to have its charger installed and all drives must be round trip since there is no place to plug it in.

The Chevy Volt has a 5-Star crash rating. That's the highest possible rating. Your car?

 

[Truthseeker420]

I'm waiting for the electric Camaro.

 

[martinjlm]

it's a death trap.

.......
Not to mention it doesn't save fuel, you have to pay to have its charger installed and all drives must be round trip since there is no place to plug it in.

as I've stated in two per threads on this topic.....

We've had the car since March 7th......we've burned 2.7 gallons of gas over 1,600+ miles. Wanna explain how that's NOT saving gas?

Two nights ago we went to dinner Downtown. Plugged in while we ate. Even if we hadn't, we could easily have driven home and if the gas engine kicked in during the drive, so what? That's the difference between the Volt and other electric cars. The gas engine is only there as a backup system.

 

[martinjlm]

I'll take my F350 over a Chevy Dolt any day.

And I'll take my Chevy Volt over an F350 anyday. See what we just did there? We both exercised freedom of choice. Your choice didn't hurt me.....my choice didn't hurt you. Wasn't that fun?

 

[theDoctorisIn]

I don't drive a car.

But if I did, I wouldn't buy a Volt because I'm too big for it (6'5). I'd need a big yacht of a car, like a Lincoln or a Caddy.

I wouldn't be opposed to buying a Tesla Roadster though.

Ya wouldnt fit in it either

I wouldn't fit comfortably in a Lamborgini either. But I'd make do...

 

[Katzndogz]

The Volt has a place. It's a short runabout, good for being a second car, like the Smart Car. I have no idea how many restaurants provide charging stations, I've never seen one. My apartment building has no charging stations in the 3 story parking structure so a Volt is out of the question. If I lived in my own home with a garage that I could put a charging station in, I might get one to run to the store, take in a movie, go to dinner. The volt is a run about if you need to carry things, have the occasional load, want to take a vacation and need luggage space or camping/ sports gear, the volt could never be more than a second car.

 

[martinjlm]

The Volt has a place. It's a short runabout, good for being a second car, like the Smart Car. I have no idea how many restaurants provide charging stations, I've never seen one. My apartment building has no charging stations in the 3 story parking structure so a Volt is out of the question. If I lived in my own home with a garage that I could put a charging station in, I might get one to run to the store, take in a movie, go to dinner. The volt is a run about if you need to carry things, have the occasional load, want to take a vacation and need luggage space or camping/ sports gear, the volt could never be more than a second car.

For a lot of people you are absolutely correct. But for so many others the Volt could be an only car every bit as much as a Toyota Corolla or Ford Focus hatchback. A lot of people have those as an only car. If you drive 50 miles a day on average (over 90% of the US driving population drives 40 miles or less per day) the Volt can work. What differentiates it from Corolla or Focus (at least until the Focus Electric is available) is that you can do most of your driving without burning a drop of gas. My wife has proven that over the past 47 days. 2.7 gallons in 47 days? The problem with that is what?

And for the couple of times a year that we take a road trip we COULD take the Volt if we wanted to, because after the electricity is used up, it gets 40 mpg on the highway. The Focus Electric wouldn't work in that situation. So for around town, the Volt is better than the Focus. On the highway the Volt is better than the Focus Electric. I think that says a lot about the car.

 

[Katzndogz]

The Volt has a place. It's a short runabout, good for being a second car, like the Smart Car. I have no idea how many restaurants provide charging stations, I've never seen one. My apartment building has no charging stations in the 3 story parking structure so a Volt is out of the question. If I lived in my own home with a garage that I could put a charging station in, I might get one to run to the store, take in a movie, go to dinner. The volt is a run about if you need to carry things, have the occasional load, want to take a vacation and need luggage space or camping/ sports gear, the volt could never be more than a second car.

For a lot of people you are absolutely correct. But for so many others the Volt could be an only car every bit as much as a Toyota Corolla or Ford Focus hatchback. A lot of people have those as an only car. If you drive 50 miles a day on average (over 90% of the US driving population drives 40 miles or less per day) the Volt can work. What differentiates it from Corolla or Focus (at least until the Focus Electric is available) is that you can do most of your driving without burning a drop of gas. My wife has proven that over the past 47 days. 2.7 gallons in 47 days? The problem with that is what?

And for the couple of times a year that we take a road trip we COULD take the Volt if we wanted to, because after the electricity is used up, it gets 40 mpg on the highway. The Focus Electric wouldn't work in that situation. So for around town, the Volt is better than the Focus. On the highway the Volt is better than the Focus Electric. I think that says a lot about the car.

Any kind of petrol using car is going to be better than an all electric car.

 

[Duped]

Anything Obama pushes is got to be crap!

 

[westwall]

As yet nobody have ever shown us how electric cars are a solution to our energy problems.

They still demand the same amount of energy to do the work as every other car.

More in fact.

 

[westwall]

The Volt has a place. It's a short runabout, good for being a second car, like the Smart Car. I have no idea how many restaurants provide charging stations, I've never seen one. My apartment building has no charging stations in the 3 story parking structure so a Volt is out of the question. If I lived in my own home with a garage that I could put a charging station in, I might get one to run to the store, take in a movie, go to dinner. The volt is a run about if you need to carry things, have the occasional load, want to take a vacation and need luggage space or camping/ sports gear, the volt could never be more than a second car.

For a lot of people you are absolutely correct. But for so many others the Volt could be an only car every bit as much as a Toyota Corolla or Ford Focus hatchback. A lot of people have those as an only car. If you drive 50 miles a day on average (over 90% of the US driving population drives 40 miles or less per day) the Volt can work. What differentiates it from Corolla or Focus (at least until the Focus Electric is available) is that you can do most of your driving without burning a drop of gas. My wife has proven that over the past 47 days. 2.7 gallons in 47 days? The problem with that is what?

And for the couple of times a year that we take a road trip we COULD take the Volt if we wanted to, because after the electricity is used up, it gets 40 mpg on the highway. The Focus Electric wouldn't work in that situation. So for around town, the Volt is better than the Focus. On the highway the Volt is better than the Focus Electric. I think that says a lot about the car.

The difference being, of course, you can buy three Focus's for the cost of one Volt. How many decades do you have to drive it to pay back the difference? Oh yeah, longer than the car will be around.

To me that's a rather large problem. Not to mention your electricity comes from a fossil fuel powered plant in most cases. So yes, you do indeed spend less on gas but you make up for it with the electricity you use, the pollution generated in making the car in the first place (significantly more than that F350 you claim to hate) and finally the toxic mess of the battery pack when it wears out in 8 years.

All in all, it's terrible from a financial POV and environmentally it's horrible. But, hey, we always knew it wasn't about saving the planet anyway. Didn't we.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

As yet nobody have ever shown us how electric cars are a solution to our energy problems.

They still demand the same amount of energy to do the work as every other car.

More in fact.

Completely false.

A Chevy volt, in electric mode, gets the equivalent of 93 miles per gallon.

 

[Ernie S.]

it's a death trap.

All small cars have low safety ratings. If it's a "green" car, the standards are lowered.

If I recall; 2000 more deaths a year are acceptable.


Not to mention it doesn't save fuel, you have to pay to have its charger installed and all drives must be round trip since there is no place to plug it in.

The Chevy Volt has a 5-Star crash rating. That's the highest possible rating. Your car?

Yeah right. What's going to happen when the batteries rupture and the electrolyte gets all over you?
The government can give the Volt any rating it wants.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

it's a death trap.

All small cars have low safety ratings. If it's a "green" car, the standards are lowered.

If I recall; 2000 more deaths a year are acceptable.


Not to mention it doesn't save fuel, you have to pay to have its charger installed and all drives must be round trip since there is no place to plug it in.

The Chevy Volt has a 5-Star crash rating. That's the highest possible rating. Your car?

Yeah right. What's going to happen when the batteries rupture and the electrolyte gets all over you?
The government can give the Volt any rating it wants.

Crash test ratings aren't given by "the government".

 

[percysunshine]

No, but I plan to buy one soon!

How can I sue the manufacturer when it catches on fire if I don't purchase it first?

That is what my lawyer tells me anyway. He says I could afford a Lexus with the settlement.

 

[Zander]

It appears that the VOLT is not even good for the environment....

According to the EPA the 4-seat Volt is capable of driving 35 miles on its 16 kilowatt hours (kWh) of stored electric charge. The Volt’s gas-only fuel economy rating is 37 mpg.

Since two oxygen atoms from the atmosphere combine with each carbon atom when gasoline is burned, a gallon of gas produces about 19.6 lbs. of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. So when operating on gasoline, the Volt produces 0.53 lbs. of CO2 per mile (19.6 lbs. of CO2 per gallon divided by 37 miles per gallon).

Since we can’t quantify accurately just how much transmission loss there is between electricity generation and charging points, we’ll assume an impossible 100 percent efficiency at the charger to work out the CO2 emissions for the Volt’s 16 kWh stored charge.

In 2007, national “average” CO2 emissions were 2.16 lbs per kWh from coal-fired generation and 1.01 lbs per kW for gas-fired generation. according to Power Systems Analysis. Given that 44.46 percent of electricity in the U.S. is coal-fired and 23.31 percent is gas-fired, on a national basis, then, the mean emission of CO2 per kWh is 1.2 lbs/kWh. (2.16 lbs/kWh x 0.4446 = 0.96 lbs/kWh from coal, plus 1.01 lbs/kWh x 0.2331 = 0.24 lbs/kWh from gas).

The Volt’s “emissions mileage” from its stored charge is then 16 kWh x 1.2 lbs/kWh divided by 35 MPG = 0.55 lb CO2/mile.

So on an “average” basis, the Volt emits more CO2 from battery use than from gasoline use (0.55 lbs/mile vs. 0.53 lbs/mile).

Detailing the greenwashed Chevy Volt | JunkScience.com

 

[theDoctorisIn]

It appears that the VOLT is not even good for the environment....

According to the EPA the 4-seat Volt is capable of driving 35 miles on its 16 kilowatt hours (kWh) of stored electric charge. The Volt’s gas-only fuel economy rating is 37 mpg.

Since two oxygen atoms from the atmosphere combine with each carbon atom when gasoline is burned, a gallon of gas produces about 19.6 lbs. of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. So when operating on gasoline, the Volt produces 0.53 lbs. of CO2 per mile (19.6 lbs. of CO2 per gallon divided by 37 miles per gallon).

Since we can’t quantify accurately just how much transmission loss there is between electricity generation and charging points, we’ll assume an impossible 100 percent efficiency at the charger to work out the CO2 emissions for the Volt’s 16 kWh stored charge.

In 2007, national “average” CO2 emissions were 2.16 lbs per kWh from coal-fired generation and 1.01 lbs per kW for gas-fired generation. according to Power Systems Analysis. Given that 44.46 percent of electricity in the U.S. is coal-fired and 23.31 percent is gas-fired, on a national basis, then, the mean emission of CO2 per kWh is 1.2 lbs/kWh. (2.16 lbs/kWh x 0.4446 = 0.96 lbs/kWh from coal, plus 1.01 lbs/kWh x 0.2331 = 0.24 lbs/kWh from gas).

The Volt’s “emissions mileage” from its stored charge is then 16 kWh x 1.2 lbs/kWh divided by 35 MPG = 0.55 lb CO2/mile.

So on an “average” basis, the Volt emits more CO2 from battery use than from gasoline use (0.55 lbs/mile vs. 0.53 lbs/mile).

Detailing the greenwashed Chevy Volt | JunkScience.com

Only if you live somewhere that gets 44% or more of it's power from coal-fired power plants.

 

[martinjlm]

The Volt has a place. It's a short runabout, good for being a second car, like the Smart Car. I have no idea how many restaurants provide charging stations, I've never seen one. My apartment building has no charging stations in the 3 story parking structure so a Volt is out of the question. If I lived in my own home with a garage that I could put a charging station in, I might get one to run to the store, take in a movie, go to dinner. The volt is a run about if you need to carry things, have the occasional load, want to take a vacation and need luggage space or camping/ sports gear, the volt could never be more than a second car.

For a lot of people you are absolutely correct. But for so many others the Volt could be an only car every bit as much as a Toyota Corolla or Ford Focus hatchback. A lot of people have those as an only car. If you drive 50 miles a day on average (over 90% of the US driving population drives 40 miles or less per day) the Volt can work. What differentiates it from Corolla or Focus (at least until the Focus Electric is available) is that you can do most of your driving without burning a drop of gas. My wife has proven that over the past 47 days. 2.7 gallons in 47 days? The problem with that is what?

And for the couple of times a year that we take a road trip we COULD take the Volt if we wanted to, because after the electricity is used up, it gets 40 mpg on the highway. The Focus Electric wouldn't work in that situation. So for around town, the Volt is better than the Focus. On the highway the Volt is better than the Focus Electric. I think that says a lot about the car.

The difference being, of course, you can buy three Focus's for the cost of one Volt. How many decades do you have to drive it to pay back the difference? Oh yeah, longer than the car will be around.

To me that's a rather large problem. Not to mention your electricity comes from a fossil fuel powered plant in most cases. So yes, you do indeed spend less on gas but you make up for it with the electricity you use, the pollution generated in making the car in the first place (significantly more than that F350 you claim to hate) and finally the toxic mess of the battery pack when it wears out in 8 years.

All in all, it's terrible from a financial POV and environmentally it's horrible. But, hey, we always knew it wasn't about saving the planet anyway. Didn't we.

We lease my wife's Volt. It costs @ $100 more than our second choice car. It costs us $40/month in electricity. We've used 2.7 gallons of gas in 47 days and will probably have to fill up for the first time in <gulp> July. So for $140 more per month than our 2nd choice vehicle, we can drive a vehicle that almost never needs gas.

As for the F350....I don't hate them. I do prefer the F-150 or Silverado / Sierra 1500.....I just don't need or want one......And you'd have to prove that it is less polluting than even a basic car the size of a Volt, let alone a Volt. Hint.....I am an automotive engineer and I totally understand the concept of carbon emissions, well-to-wheels "-analysis" and the misconception that all electric car and hybrid batteries will end up in landfills. They won't. No more so than the catalytic converter that is on your F-350 or any other of the millions of cars disposed of since the late 1970's (they have chromium, Plutonium, and palladium in them, you know. All are horrible for the environment).

For starters, batteries in most hybrids and all electric vehicles are designed to NOT deplete all of their storage capacity for reasons too mundane to go into here. What that means is when they are no longer useable in a car, they have unused capacity that is useable as energy storage in power generating plants, windmill farms, and to support stationary generators.

 

[Zander]

It appears that the VOLT is not even good for the environment....

According to the EPA the 4-seat Volt is capable of driving 35 miles on its 16 kilowatt hours (kWh) of stored electric charge. The Volt’s gas-only fuel economy rating is 37 mpg.

Since two oxygen atoms from the atmosphere combine with each carbon atom when gasoline is burned, a gallon of gas produces about 19.6 lbs. of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. So when operating on gasoline, the Volt produces 0.53 lbs. of CO2 per mile (19.6 lbs. of CO2 per gallon divided by 37 miles per gallon).

Since we can’t quantify accurately just how much transmission loss there is between electricity generation and charging points, we’ll assume an impossible 100 percent efficiency at the charger to work out the CO2 emissions for the Volt’s 16 kWh stored charge.

In 2007, national “average” CO2 emissions were 2.16 lbs per kWh from coal-fired generation and 1.01 lbs per kW for gas-fired generation. according to Power Systems Analysis. Given that 44.46 percent of electricity in the U.S. is coal-fired and 23.31 percent is gas-fired, on a national basis, then, the mean emission of CO2 per kWh is 1.2 lbs/kWh. (2.16 lbs/kWh x 0.4446 = 0.96 lbs/kWh from coal, plus 1.01 lbs/kWh x 0.2331 = 0.24 lbs/kWh from gas).

The Volt’s “emissions mileage” from its stored charge is then 16 kWh x 1.2 lbs/kWh divided by 35 MPG = 0.55 lb CO2/mile.

So on an “average” basis, the Volt emits more CO2 from battery use than from gasoline use (0.55 lbs/mile vs. 0.53 lbs/mile).

Detailing the greenwashed Chevy Volt | JunkScience.com

Only if you live somewhere that gets 44% or more of it's power from coal-fired power plants.

Well, that is the national average. Not really sure how you can defend it's "green" credibility.

At an rate, it's not a bad car. But it has major hurdles to overcome before it will be mainstream. It's not "green". It's not energy efficient. It's expensive. It's subsidized by the taxpayers, and...It's not selling very well. We'll see what happens....

 

[westwall]

As yet nobody have ever shown us how electric cars are a solution to our energy problems.

They still demand the same amount of energy to do the work as every other car.

More in fact.

Completely false.

A Chevy volt, in electric mode, gets the equivalent of 93 miles per gallon.

The environmental cost to manufacture the battery pack is worse than the impact to make the pickup truck. Plus the lithium is truly a limited resource (and primarily comes from China). But hey don't let a little thing like facts get in your way.