Comparison Test: 2011 Chevrolet Volt vs. 2010 Toyota Prius PHV

The Volt has an eight year warranty on hybrid and battery components, three on the rest. Seems pretty good to me.

Relative to the Prius yes, relative to an average car no. Pollutes heavily? No, not unless you burn the car.

The Volt is overpriced but not that bad. The interior gets good reviews and would not be out of place for a $30000 car.

 

My use of the Volt will get me around 120 mpg, I think that is amazing.

Its the first practical car with a chance to let some users be completely independent from foreign oil, I think that is amazing.

I've been driving a 2003 Gen 1 Prius for 8 years and when I test drove the Volt I found the driving experience amazing.

The price comparisons are misleading because everyone keeps comparing the base prius to the base Volt but the base volt comes with many many more standard features. If you compared comparable features the price difference after the tax rebate is not very significant.

 

Who? The comparisons I see are always the opposite, comparing the most expensive model Prius to the base Volt... which unfortunately is a greenwashing trick, a red herring used to distract from what's actually needed.

For years, some of us have been begging for GM to deliver something competitive. Sure, they could *also* offer sport model. But not providing any choice whatsoever is just plain wrong. One size does not fit all. There is nothing from GM to compete with the cordless Prius and most definitely not an affordable version of Volt.

How many Volt would actually be purchased without the generous tax credit? How realistic is a $10,000 price reduction without changing performance aspects of the vehicle itself?

Toyota's effort to balance what they offer for PHV is clear. You get a system that delivers about 50 MPG after depletion and as much electric as possible with a smaller battery-pack. Later, they could provide a higher capacity choice. After all, we have already placement of a lithium battery-pack between the front seat.

It's a matter of keeping price affordable in the meantime. GM abandoned their "nicely under $30,000" goal. How are they going to sell Volt to mainstream consumers?
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Also, let's not forget the "too little, too slowly" concern.

$105.31 is the price of a barrel of oil already.

Having to wait for the next generation a few years from now isn't exactly what consumers were hoping for. I bet the stockholders aren't thrilled either.

 

If shifting from one energy source to two is your goal, then bravo. Keep in mind we also import coal that is used to generate electricity.

 

If the interior and ride quality is important, Lexus CT200h is a great alternative without the need to plug in. It also emit less tailpipe emission than the Volt. Oh, it runs on regular 87 octane gas also.

 

This is the only post I've read on this thread in a while, but we export much more coal than we import (more than 2x).

 

You're right I should have been more clear, there is so much rhetoric flying around its hard to tell who different people mean as "they"

The comparisons I am talking about make outlandish statements like a Prius is $20,000 less than a Volt, when the fair difference is more like $10,000.

What I find particularly humorous is everyone told me the same thing 8 years ago about my prius:

"it costs too much for an econo-box", "You'll never make back the price difference on gas savings, even if gas goes over $2 a gallon", "the market isn't ready for it past a few green eco-extremists, it'll never go mainstream".

I'm a beta tester for the Volt , I know that, but I was for the Prius too.

 

I don't think you were a beta tester for the Prius. Ahead of your 2003 Prius, were sold approx 100thousand, and summed to 6 years of production, and NHW11 was not the NHW10 (much more beta back then).
And after 8 years of testing the Prius, aren't you happy? Can you imagine yourself testing Volt for 8 years dealing with a manufacturer like GM? Well, you might bear that in mind...

 

Probably part of its problem. People think of a Prius and it costs about $23k. The Volt is $20k more than that. Yes, it may only be $15k or less more than a similarly equipped Prius but in a generic sense "it costs $20k more". I know a lot of people don't want nav and all that (I don't).

BTW, if you're getting 120 mpg. Well, first, you're not. Even if you're on pure electric the cost of electricity alone means you're paying about the equivalent price of 100 mpg. What does it cost you to drive 100 miles? Based on numbers I've seen it costs around $3.50, which is a gallon of gas. Anyway, if you're only driving it in EV mode you would have done much better with a Leaf.

 

The wikipedia article on PHVs lists the battery pack for a 40 mile EV range costing $14k.
A Cruze comparably equipped to the Volt is $24k to $25k.
So the Volt isn't that badly priced.
I know I'm using the wiki for an estimate, but their number may or may not include the additional motors, controllers, and charger.
And the Volt is overpriced for a broad market. I'm hoping they'll wise up and offer a base trim without all the bells and toys.

 

That argument may work if there were no other practical green cars that cost less. 2003 Prius didn't have a competing 5 seater hybrid, just the 2 seater Insight. However, Volt buyer now has other choices such as Leaf, Prius, Prius PHV and C-Max Energi (coming soon), CT200h, Insight II, etc... some of them are bigger cars, some with more EV range, some with more luxury, most of them don't need to plug in. All of them cost less, weight less and have lower tailpipe emission.

2003 Prius' MSRP was $19,995 and it seated 5. Volt's MSRP is $40,280 and it seats 4. Both are compact and today's compact cars (non-hybrids) are much more fuel efficient and better equipped - making the Volt less attractive. The compact Prius c is also coming out next year that can provide 60 MPG, cordless. Volt's 60 MPGe that requires a plug will become even less attractive. Being 10 years late to the game really sucks. The market has changed.

Electrification of the Volt's drivetrain is a step forward but there are many other aspects of it that are steps backward. For the Prius PHV, I only see further forward steps without any backward steps. That's the real progress (moving forward).

 

This is why I said if the Volt cannot quickly get its price down the vehicle is dead. Some, few customers will pay a premium for a new product simply because they like it but that does not make a profitable product. Doesn't matter if it's a car, a tv, or an airplane. If the competition can do the same thing or better for less the clock is ticking.

Whether the Volt wants to compete with the Prius or not it is competing with it. And when the PHV is in dealer show rooms there is absolutely no denying they are in direct competition. The Volt cannot pretend it's a unique vehicle at that point. Leveraging a decade+ of production vehicles and 3M sales of Hybrid vehicles Toyota will have a vehicle that costs $10-15K less than a Volt and even though its EV range is only ~40% the Volt's it is a larger, five-passenger vehicle and summarily trounces it when running on gas.

How in the world is the Volt going to put itself in a favorable light against a plug-in Prius?

 

Coal export is irrelevant to the foreign energy dependency but the coal import is relevant. Replacing oil with coal can create more foreign coal dependency. Keep in mind that we are the major producer of the oil we consume and majority of the oil imports are from the friendly countries in America continent.

 

I would not consider the Leaf such a viable competitor with the Prius PHV and Volt. The Leaf is a car I watch with quite a bit of interest, and sadly it seems quite a number of people are buying them without quite knowing what they are stepping in to. You see them on ebay occassionally with sob stories attached about how the car just cannot do what they need it to with anywhere from 50-100 miles on them. Granted this is a small % of overall Leaf buyers, but if the news catches wind of this they will blow it out of proportion as EV's being a failure.

I am really at a cross roads about the Prius PHV as to whether it will be a sucess for Toyota or not. I think a lot of people will opt for a regular Prius, or a Prius-C except for the die hard people that want plug ins.. The only way I truly see either car becoming a sucess in the mass market is if gas goes over $4 a gallon again like it did in the summer of 2008. Without some event like that in my mind "cheap" PHV's will be a thing of the past. The Tesla will survive just because it also marketed as more of a sports car.

 

I think Telsa is going all in with the S and it will decide whether they are truly viable or not. Do you have links to any ebay sob stories? I understand owners of Volts generally love their cars. I assume similar for Leaf but I've not read testimonials by many of them at all...

If the Volt is any indication, people are willing to pay a pretty substantial premium just to be able to plug their car in. I don't have much worries about the PHV sales, I really think it will do pretty darn well at the ~$30k after tax credit price.

 

Just a few things wrong here.

Increasing battery use in phevs is unlikely to substantially increase coal generated electricity.

The US is a net coal exporting country. Imports are the result of lower coal cost and/or transport costs, the US does not have foreign dependence on coal production, in fact it has 1/4 of the worlds coal reserves. Electricity can be generated by natual gas, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, biogas, biomass, etc which are much more plentiful than oil.

Although the majority of america's oil comes from north america, it imports a significant amount from countries I would not classify as friendly. This severely impacts our balance of trade, and has reaked havoc on the economy in the past.

U.S. Total Crude Oil and Products Imports

 

Here is one that is currently up for auction: Nissan : Other | eBay

If you search ebay occassionally you will see them pop up like that. There was a white one awhile ago that was the 50 mile one. Guy bought it, drove it home, and then realized it was not the car for him. I do find it distasteful that people like the one above are selling it for near retail even though the next owner will not get the tax credit. There was also a guy on here in the Nissan section that was second guessing his purchase, and debating selling it. Have not heard from him since, but hopefully we convinced him to keep it since he already spent the money. I hope you are right that the cars do well. I so far am enjoying being able to plug in, but in trying to explain to anyone that asks they do not seem very receptive of the idea.

As a side note I got the Kill A Watt EZ Meter yesterday, and monitored my charge after driving for the day. Put 26 miles on the car yesterday, and had about 51% charge left when I came home. Went out there this morning and said it has used 6.83kwh of electricity. Going to be depleting the battery today so will see what the exact full charge depletion winds up being.

 

Interesting link. I've thought out loud a few times that the first time a guy who bought a Leaf gets a call from his wife that she's stuck on the road and it's out of charge will be the last time she drives it The Leaf is tough for a lot of people to use. Its range just really isn't very good and for most they'd be regularly using most of it up, which leaves little comfort room. It's only rated at 72 and Nissan recommends 80% charge, so 58 miles or so on a brand new battery.

 

Well even if you go on the Nissan Leaf owners forum (guess I should warn, not bashing, but makes for interesting discussion) they call the range meter a "Guess-o-meter." As it has left some of them stranded. Initially this kind of worried me with the Volt, but I have come to find out the Volt after you drive the first mile or 2 in the morning is fairly spot on which I did not really suspect with it being a GM. I would say it is probably due to the 11' Leafs not having the thermal management system. They fixed this on the 12's, so hopefully we will see some improvement in this area on the new ones. Cause I myself have even noticed a slight fluctuation with the temp fluxes we have been having in Jacksonville lately. Luckily I live close enough to my work that I don't even use half the battery capacity. The Leaf would have been perfect for us it is just having to relocate all the time I did not want to pay to truck it everywhere we move.