Initial April Sales

It's the blue side that keeps on wanting to tax EVs for their "fair share".

 

Yes. It wasn't intended to pronounce a definitive winner. The article was intended to sketch out the various ways of looking at gasoline vs electric energy use and therefore the tradeoffs to consider when thinking about buying a hybrid or plug-in hybrid.

The regular Prius and the Volt were chosen as iconic representatives of alternate ends of the spectrum. The concern was that mixing in more cars like the Prime or the i3 would have made the article more confusing to read (it was already pretty math-nerdy) without shining much more light on the key variables to think about when choosing a new vehicle that best fits a buyer's situation.

I think the Volt's gas engine is now made in Michigan although it was initially made in Mexico. GM made tradeoffs just like Toyota made tradeoffs in the Prime. In the Volt, they favored longer electric-only range and stronger EV performance. That means the engine is less likely to be used. So, they saved money by tweaking an engine design shared with their other non-hybrid cars, skipped on using an exhaust heat recovery system, and used a less expensive generator motor that works fine for EV driving but is less effective at maximizing hybrid gas engine efficiency.

In the Malibu hybrid GM chose to maximize hybrid efficiency by added an exhaust heat recovery module, using a more expensive generator motor, and a new engine designed for hybrid operation efficiency.

 

I considered in purchasing Chevy Volt Premium, overall price was higher than Prime Advanced. I remember the price was 41650 -7000 discount-7500 tax rebate = 27150, servicing (oil change/tire rotation..) were similar to Prime. The main two reason why I decided to not to purchase Volt was pricing and car looked like Honda. The Volt handling is better than the Prime, and another Volt advantage is that the temperature control can be easily accessible, while if Prime Advance 11 inch screen does not work, it is inconvenient to control.

 

That's a misconception.

You'd be surprised how many people assume there's only one way to access controls.

Prime offers the ability to adjust climate controls without requiring the big screen. Those functions are redundantly available via the buttons on the steering-wheel.

 

John1701a,
can you please find and let me know how to turn off the heater and air condition without big screen. I tried to use the buttons as you stated, I can turn, but cannot turn off.

 

Does voice direction operate climate in the Prime, just like the Gen 2 did? Prime manual seems to say yes.

 

I agree to the first but not to the second. Volt is not iconic representative of the other end of the spectrum.

 

The Volt was the first PHEV available for sale, and it also didn't have blended EV operation. The other mass market PHEVs available soon after it arrived, had that blended operation in addition to shorter EV range. Until last month, the Volt also outsold the other PHEVs in the US. BEVs aren't on the spectrum for this article because they do have limits that a gas powered car doesn't.

What would you consider as ionic PHEV?

 

You can narrow the spectrum as much as you wish until it meets your criteria.
Somehow, I read Jeff's first paragraph different than you.

 

Don't narrow it at all.
Which PHEV would you say is the iconic example?

 

Without narrowing the spectrum BEV is at the other end.

 

I meant the interpretation that Trollbait picked up on but perhaps I was ambiguous. The Volt was chosen not just as the first PHEV, and the PHEV with the largest sales volume for a single model, but also as the PHEV with the largest battery and range. Thus, the Volt represents the end of the PHEV spectrum furthest from the Prius hybrid while maintaining a full-performance hybrid mode. It seemed like the best choice as an illustrative comparison.

At least that is my understanding of what Jeff Cobb was thinking. I helped out in gathering a statistic here and there and checking some of the numbers. I thought it was a good and useful article to help jog the thought process of potential customers about some of the tradeoffs to consider. Obviously it's a big topic and this was just one angle on it.

 

If he wanted extremes he would have compared the Volt to a Hummer. Instead he used a Prius Liftback for comparison and included a picture of the Prime, just for the confusion factor.

 

i suppose he should have ended the article with an explanation, and a bit about the many alternatives for saving gasoline.

 

The article was comparing hybrids vs plug-in hybrids and gas usage and related tradeoffs. I'm not aware of any Hummer-branded plug-in hybrid compact/mid-size passenger cross-competitive cars. As far as I know, the Hummer brand is dead.

The picture of the Prius Prime has caption text which describes what it is.

 

There are multiple ways you could change the article. It tried to usefully explore some of the issues and was clear that it wasn't covering everything. It was already getting to be long and arguably overly-detailed.

 

agree about long and over detailed, but it wasn't clear to me, thanks for clearing it up.
and as prodigy place mentions above, the prime pic and blurb in the middle just muddies the waters.

 

That picture has a caption which says:

I suppose he could have not mentioned the Prime at all, or not showed a picture of it and just mention it in the main text. Not sure why that would be better.

 

Most people expect apples to apples comparison, IOW, plug-in to plug-in. HE compares a Hybrid to Plug-in and then shows a picture of a Plug-in that is confusingly similar to the Hybrid.

 

why not throw in a pic of the i-3 and a blurb? idk, the whole article just seems odd to me. i guess it's just my perspective. i don't know why you wouldn't start out saying, 'for those of us who are looking for alternatives to straight gas burners, there are now many choices to help reduce gasoline use. i'm going to focus on two popular models with different approaches for this article, and will/may do future articles comparing other offerings'.