Saw the following article; BBC News - Electric car names: Why an Ampera or a Leaf? What's in an EV's name? Why Volt, Ampera, or even Leaf? Why not Sierra, Commodore or 96 or whatever else cars were once called in the past? I also like the part about different names for different markets - the Nova meant doesn't go in Spanish and my all time fav was the Toyota MR2 name in France which, if you remember your French, is rather amusing. Try saying M R deux in a French accent and then translate the word 'merde' from French into English!
Where's the Toyota Alessandro Volta? although with GM's Volt, Toyota might be stepping on GM's toes if they used that name.
So ... perhaps the Volt ... not truely an EV, might more appropriately be re-badged as, the, D.olt ... as in 'D'iminished expectations ... Diminished ... mpg in 'Charge Sustain' mode ... & Diminished affordability. No? . . . just a thought. .
Hey now that's just plain unfair! I think 33MPG is a perfectly reasonable CS figure! I mean when the Prius drops into CS mode it only gets, oh yeah, 50. Hmm. Never mind!
And it's not like most cars here in Europe don't get 33 mpg US or 40 mpg UK, oh actually they do. So let me think about it, do I want to pay £30,000 on a 4 seater, medium sized hatchback that does 40 mpg (UK) when I could have a choice of about 100 similar 5 seat models costing about £15,000? Even with the benefits of an EV such as zero London Congestion charge and lower electric costs compared to petrol, you can buy a heck of a lot of petrol or entry to London at £8 a day for £15,000! Perhaps buy a Leaf for £23,000 and spend £7,000 on a second hand BMW (or Prius?) for longer runs? The Volt doesn't make any sense in the US with their lower fuel costs and doesn't make much sense here either where it costs 2.5 to 3 times more.
I do not know, it's a tough one. if i could do 80% of my miles on electric in an ampera/volt, then am i massively bothered about the 20% at 40mpg? For me, with my miles/pattern, my 36mpg vectra was costing £2,770 a year in fuel, the prius would be £1,455 and ampera £1,077. as it stands my enginer equipped prius should cost about £1,164 a year, making the ampera look kind of over priced.
