Love my 2013 Prius Two so much I bought a Volt!

New to the OP or brand new, i.e. no mileage, i wonder? We can get brand new pre-reg cars here. As in the garage registers the car and it could sit on lot for some time, al the while depreciating! Happy days for the customer

 

Excellent!
This week I'll reach 10,000 mi on my 2014 Volt- I've used 17 gal of gas so far.
Can't ask for better than that!

 

pretty sure they just enacted 2500 this year.

 

Apparently you don't realize that EVs use much less energy than a gas powered car. That is their benefit.

The energy used to refine a barrel of oil is sufficient for an EV to drive 300-550 miles depending on the EV. That's not counting the other resources used to refine oil. And then you don't even use up the oil.

 

I would love to see a source for that.
The electric usage is simply wrong.

Perhaps there was a typo and it should have been Wh instead of kWh?

Or are they somehow calculating the power required to run he entire plant and dividing it by the number of barrels produced?

 

I have no idea if the numbers are right, but shouldn't you roll the indirect costs into the per barrel equation?

 

Here are a few more efficient Volt driving tips.

EV mode (battery charge available):

Slower speeds are better between 15-100 mph. Below 15 mph the fixed energy from running the car's electronics will dominate the efficiency curve.

Gentle or moderate acceleration is better.

Hybrid mode (battery empty):

Slower speeds are better between 40-100 mph. Below 40 mph the Volt is often in the less efficient series mode.

Gentle acceleration between 0-40 mph will delay engine startup and quicken the switch to the more efficient parallel mode beginning as soon as 38 mph.

Drive electric as much as possible below 40 mph. When the engine starts due to low battery buffer at speeds below 40 mph try to bring speed up to 40 mph for 5-10 seconds so the car will switch to parallel (you will hear the engine rpm drop when it switches). Once in parallel mode you can allow speed to drop down to the low to mid 30's, if needed, and it will stay in parallel if you accelerate gently.

When the engine is running at speeds below 63 mph the Volt will slowly recharge the hybrid battery buffer. If you are on a longish free flowing city street it can be useful to run the engine to generate some energy for future electric driving at slower speeds. When the battery buffer is low but not empty you can often trigger the engine to start by moderate to brisk acceleration with steady pressure on the accelerator for a few seconds. Use the energy flow display on the center screen to see when the engine is running if you can't tell because of traffic noise or radio volume.

General advice:

Use Driving With Load techniques on hills. Allow the car to accelerate downhill to avoid unnecessarily regenerating energy into the battery when speeds are below 70 mph or so. On the uphill side use your momentum and keep a moderate foot on the accelerator allowing the car to gradually slow down to some minimum speed target appropriate to speed limits and traffic flow. Doing this will avoid a roundtrip of inefficiently regenerating into the battery and then using it to drive the motor again. Doing this also helps moderate the peak power draw from the battery. Batteries can supply more total energy output at lower power output levels.

Avoid all unnecessary use of both friction and regenerative brakes. Momentum is your friend. Look down the road and plan ahead.

Pump your tires up to within 0-4 PSI of the maximum cold pressure listed on the side of the tire. I recall that the Volt's factory tires have a max psi of 51 but be sure to check.

When you know your trip will be longer than the EV driving range, it's better to have the engine go through its cold start routine when you are driving at speeds above 40 mph so the engine is driving the car usefully rather than sitting at a stoplight just warming up.

Drive in 'D' on the highway. Drive in 'L' in stop and go traffic in the city or in congested highway traffic. Using 'L' will help you minimize friction braking.

If you follow these guidelines and keep speeds under 65 mph its easy to get 40-50 miles of EV range and 40-50 mpg in hybrid mode. My daily one-way commute is 45 miles all electric. My long term hybrid gas-only mileage is 45-46 mpg mostly highway but 20% or so city or stop and go driving.

 

No, that's the old bogus Internet meme that every gallon of gas requires 4-7 kWh of grid electricity. That nonsense just won't die. There was a recent entire FullyCharged episode devoted to repeating that story along with a few bogus embellishments such as the false claim that the oil companies are blocking the UN from publishing statistics.

The real answer is that each U.S. gallon of gasoline requires an average of 0.15 to 0.50 kWh of grid electricity -- 0.25 kwh is probably a good typical number. The 4-7 kWh value is the total energy used to refine a gallon of gasoline but only 3-5% of that is grid electricity. The vast majority of the energy is from natural gas and leftover unsaleable "still gas" hydrocarbons from previously refined crude. And yes, kwh are often used to measure non-electrical energy.

 

^^ Yep, that trash belongs in the same basket as the 'Hummer is better than Prius' meme.

Here is an honest accounting:
A barrel of oil has 42 gallons of crude;
17% is consumed in processing to leave 34.86 gallons of auto liquid fuel (petrol and diesel)
If 50 MPG cars use the fuel, the barrel provides 1743 miles

Alternatively, if the barrel of oil had been sent to a power plant:
33% of the heat energy content is turned into electricity, so 14 gallons worth remain
7% is spent on transmission, so 13 gallons of electricity reach the wall socket
This is equal to 526.2 kWh

To match the liquid fueled cars distance above, the EV has to use no more than 302 Wh/mile. That is certainly possible, but as of today the EPA estimates for the Volt are 350 Wh/mile and the PiP ~ 305 Wh/mile.

 

Here's a longish response to that Fully Charged episode including links to the relevant UN-published statistics for the UK so you can crunch the numbers yourself:

My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Pollution: EV vs ICE

The next few posts after that also include some useful extended discussion. There is also an earlier longish thread discussion on this site (probably more than one...) that discusses the U.S. statistics.

 

Yep, the gas station seems like an appropriate place to buy your ethanol.

 

Consider joining VoltStats. It gathers your numbers automatically from GM after you sign up. My monthly and total averages are here:

Volt Stats: Details for Volt #2011-00042 (Jeff N)

 

Definitely!!

However using such exaggerated data actually makes the original position look weaker, not stronger.
EVs don't need such exaggerations to come out the winner.

 

102,000 miles total with about 62,000 of that from recharging the battery. My 2011 Volt will be 4 years old in 2-3 weeks but it was delivered to me at the dealer on Dec. 21, 2010. It's the 42nd production Volt off the assembly line.

I've had zero powertrain or battery problems. I had 2 minor problems: hairline cracking on the plastic shifter handle that happen to a few of the first couple of hundred cars and a bad electric seat heating wiring connector which is a problem nobody else seems to have reported. Both issues were fixed free under warranty.

I also had some heat damage to my 120v charge cord 3-prong wall plug after using it daily for a year. GM fixed that through a free service campaign that replaced all of the original 2011-2012 120v charge cords.

I had a similar level of trouble with my early-build 2001 Prius and my ear-build 2004 Prius. Actually, the 2001 Prius was a little worse since the accelerator peddle failed which made it undrivable and it had to be replaced (under warranty).

 

I find it very amusing that this thread that I suposidly high jacked is in full swing with what i brought up, instead of about what the OP Choice was in buying a non Toyota. Of course my argument was where the real line is about where cars stack up no matter what brand. More so to the point of where on the scale of being so green really is when you account for production process, batteries, and the environmental impact. And electrical power plant questionability.
As I said before I'm all for greener cars, but they are not brilliant green yet.
I look at other threads on(On diffrent subjects) here and the subjects jump all around. But let a Hybrid Prius owner (Like me)say something of contrary to status quo of a Prius Forum, and something hits the fan.
I say that was great that the guy bought the volt, but should we all clap our hands and say great.
I think it is fair to bring up any underlying topic that pertains to the post.

 

So I am definitely way late to this gathering of opinions and machismo but first I want to say congrats to the OP. I honestly thought the volt was a little better looking and my impression of the drive made me believe that it felt much more comfortable and shall I dare to say "luxurious" next to the prius but what kept me away from the volt were all the reliability horror stories I have read not only via random google searches but even from volt forums. But then I read from posters like Jeff N that contradicts everything I have read! Is Jeff's experience unique or is it the other way around?