Will the Chevrolet Volt be a failure or a success?

I almost bought a Prius II in December 2010 for $19k + tax.

As for the mpg comment, how many Prius owners do you know ? You obviously ignore all the reports here on PriusChat. This time of year I run 60 - 65 mpg with gentle AC use in my town driving.

 

Comment was to gwmort, sorry I was unclear.

 

The thing about tax credits, is that the *amount* matters. IIRC I received $500 off my federal income taxes, and my state did not collect 3% sales tax.

It would be mildly amusing to calculate how much the taxpayer base (other than the owner) is paying for gallon of petrol averted. As we know, no pollution is averted; in fact, just the opposite. I expect a Prius to be on the road twice as long as a Volt, so

Taxpayer subsidy of Volt: $15000
Taxpayer subsidy of Prius: $500 - $2000 depending when car bought.
Prius mpg: 50
Volt mpg: 125

So the taxpayer can subsidize 7.5 Prius or one Volt. If a 25 mpg car is replaced the Prius cuts oil consumption by 0.5 for that one car, while the volt cuts it by 0.8. But 7.5 Prius have been subsidized, so 7.5*0.5 = 3.75 oil units cut with Prius subsidy vs 0.8 oil units cut with Volt subsidy. Works out to the Volt costing the public 4.68 times more for the same oil savings.

Hopelessly idiotic national energy policy

 

I'm going to faint. John and I agree on something. My usage patterns happen to match up nearly precisely with the Volt's capabilities. The Leaf would work too but I have no idea when they will be available locally or if I would even like one.

Tesla crows about 300miles of range for the loaded Model S. My reaction is "So what? What possible reason do I have to spend a huge premium for capacity I will never exploit?"

 

Sure but what percentage of Prius owners read or post on PriusChat? 0.0001? I know precisely two. Both report low-to-mid 40s in mixed use and reading here suggests that's what you get when you drive with a "don't care" attitude.

The Volt is no less immune. My wife gets 10+ EV miles less than I do and I'm the one who drives too fast. Keeping up momentum, you know.

 

You make a general statement about Prius fuel economy based on TWO drivers ? I expect that kind of drivel at gm-volt.com, but you should really have enough sense to not try it here. Let me increase you anecdotal base to THREE: my best round trip with a warm engine was 80 mpg; six months of the year I average 65 - 75 mpg, 60 - 65 in the summer, and 50 - 55 in the winter. My wife is like yours, and ends up with numbers about 25% worse than mine.

 

Mid-40s is 10% under EPA combined. Are you really going to get worked up over it? Consumer Reports, those reckless speed demons, reported FORTY-FOUR mpg. Car&Driver, 42. Edmunds ~41 in their long term 2004.

So your wife drives normally and gets mid 40s in the summer. Got it.

Wayne @ CleanMPG threw down mid-70s EV miles in a Volt, the second person to report it. I'm not going to pretend it's typical anymore than 65-75 is "typical" for all but the most determined in a Prius.

 

This is correct, mid-40's is about 10% less than EPA. And EPA is set to cover about 70% of US driver results. Now that we are back to a fact based story line, by all means carry on.

Feel free to point out where I said or implied that my results are 'typical.' I'll assure you though that I do not drive like Wayne Gerdes. I wonder what he will eek out of a LEAF. I guess 200 miles. My only truly aberrant behavior is anticipating and coasting to red lights.

 

mfennel says

We likely do; I was excluding the middle class that lives on debt and will be eating dog food in retirement when SS dries up.

 

That's like saying, unless you drive your Prius with 4 passengers and a full load in the trunk, you are wasting it.

 

25*7.5=$187K
1*40=$40K

Hmmm ...

 

At first I was wondering how you'd use the PV system charge the Volt if you're not at home during the daylight hours. Then I remembered you're probably spinning the meter backwards during the daylight hours to offset your charge at night? That's the game around here, because the utility pays so little for power supplied to them by consumers versus the amount they charge for power they supply that we size our PV systems to try to just offset our power usage.

How much will the PV system cost? What's its expected lifetime?

 

7.5 cars vs one car. Kapisch ?

 

Exactly so. This is why I rent a truck rather than buy one. The difference between the extra seat in my Prius and the extra battery in the EV is the cost. You might also note that your EV has the seat, the trunk, *and* the unused batteries.

Frankly, the only way for EVs to come close to mainstream use is for the batteries capacity to be used twice daily, perhaps 2.5 times. Charge at night to travel to work, charge at work to travel home, and then charge in the evening for perhaps a trip in the evening. Sized correctly and used efficiently, a nominal 25 mile EV range battery using 80% of SOC can supply 50 - 60 miles a day of travel. That also happens to be a car that will cost less than $20k without subsidy.

There is no free lunch. People who want 200+ mile EV range are not willing to pay the price.

 

From a utility perspective, you could reasonably argue you are wasting it and would be better served with a smaller, more efficient HSD Toyota but one doesn't exist. The difference is that the excess cargo capacity comes at a small price. Currently, battery in an EV comes in at ~$625/kWh (if I understand the current state), or about $175/mile of range for an efficient car.

EDIT: LOL. I agree with SageBrush too. The world must be ending.

 

For completeness sake, I put down the $2500 under the advertised plan, I paid all the tax upfront so it wouldn't become part of the payment, and I put some extra down to compensate for the fact the advertised plan was for a base model and I got every option available (other than a premium color). Total about $7,000, a good chunk of which was the Gen 1 prius I traded in.

I've looked at the same figures on Toyota's that mfennel has and I think it would have taken me about the same to get a comparable payment on a similarly equipped Prius (I'm thinking 4 w/ nav).

 

And wouldn't it be a laugh to see how much the tax payer really pays for each gallon of foreign oil imported, in oil company subsidies, defense spending, environmental monitoring and clean up, etc...not to mention blood.

 

I don't think I want to know...

Tom

 

Not only a laugh, but absolutely necessary. Same for coal. It is the only way the country is going to clean up the cesspool and ameliorate AGW.

 

This is an excellent point and I often ask myself why more Americans are not looking at the overall cost of gasoline, also including healthcare costs.
We don't seem to worry about the adverse effects and that so much money is leaving the country on a daily basis for crude oil.

But, even when you do the right thing by driving a plug-in vehicle, you still subsidize that SUV at the gas pump thru taxes by at least $4.00 a gallon based on what others are paying.


Gas Prices Around the World: Cheaper Than Water and $10 a Gallon - Derek Thompson - Business - The Atlantic