Note: Yesterday I got an e-mail offering this review from another enthusiastic Volt driver. It’s another perspective and positive at that. I was not asked to, but as a courtesy, I left in the tagline linking back to Marek’s blogs. He and his wife run a yoga studio in Cincinnati and sell granola from a separate LLC there as well. I’ve never tried their granola, but he has good tastes in cars, so hope you enjoy it … Jeff
By Marek Tyszkiewicz
There were lots of reasons my wife and I leased our 2012 Volt four months ago. We like to be on the cutting edge of technology and we also hate to be dependent on fossil fuels, both for political and environmental reasons. There’s also the convenience factor of not having to stop at a gas station. It’s hard to pick one reason, though environment would probably be the first reason if we had to rank them.
This month we finally broke the seal and filled up our Chevy Volt with gas. We have been driving it on electricity and the original tank of gas that came with the car since leasing it four months ago. Then came a long business trip to Cleveland (Baptiste yoga training) and we finally had to fill-up. Until then, we had driven 3,254 miles since leasing the car and only used a quarter tank of gas. Since the gas tank holds 9.3 gallons, this means we were getting about 1,400 miles to the gallon for the 2.3 gallons we used.
With this milestone, I thought this might be a good time to document our experience with the Volt and answer some frequent questions we get.
How far can you go on a single charge?
We are probably the perfect consumers for the Volt. We leased it to be used primarily for business purposes for our yoga studio, Move Your Hyde Power Yoga. Our home is 8 miles away from our yoga studio, or 16 miles round-trip.
The onboard computer indicates a range of 42 miles on a fully charged battery, which is plenty for the round trip to the studio. Often, my wife makes multiple trips to the studio during the day. As soon as the car hits our garage, it gets plugged in to re-charge. The full charge at night and the partial charges during the day are enough so that rarely is any gas used commuting to the studio.
How long does it take to charge?
It takes approximately 10 hours using the standard 120V outlet in our garage. If you upgrade to a 240V outlet, this time should be reduced to about 4 hours. The Volt comes with its own power cable. You just plug one end in the electrical outlet and the other end into the Volt’s charging port.
How much does it cost to charge?
Volt’s Web site indicates it costs about $1.5 a day to charge. We decided to put this to a test. I purchased a little device called a Kill A Watt online at Amazon.com. You simply plug this device between the outlet and the electric device you’re measuring and it tells you how many kilowatt-hours (kWh) the device draws during the time period you are measuring. (This is a handy little product. I’ve used this same device to check old TV’s and refrigerators to see how much I could save on my electric bill by upgrading to newer more energy-efficient models.)
According to the Kill A Watt, the Volt used 14.41 kWh during its last full charge. Our electric bill shows that we are charged $0.0763 per kWh for the supply and distribution of our electricity. From this, we see that it costs us $1.10 (14.41kWh x $0.0763) to fully charge the Volt. Considering we also give it partial charges during the day, the $1.50 average per day estimated by GM is completely reasonable.
To put our $1.10 cost per charge into perspective, let’s compare it to a $4 gallon of gasoline. $4 in gas will get you around 20 to 40 miles for most cars on the market today. $4 of electricity however, gets us approximately 153 miles of driving distance, assuming a range of 42 miles per charge.
Aren’t you still burning fossil fuels to get your electricity?
One point often brought up with electric cars is that you are just trading one carbon footprint for another. Even if you are not burning gas, the power plant creating the electricity is burning coal for example.
We worked around this issue with our Volt. At the same time we purchased our Volt, we switched our electric supplier to Cincinnati Bell Energy (CBE). CBE is a green energy provider. In our case, CBE contracts with local wind farms that are plugged into our regional power grid.
The concept of compensating wind farms for the electricity used to charge the Volt is interesting. The wind farms are supplying electricity, i.e. electrons, into our local power grid whenever the wind blows, which may or may not be the same time we need those electrons to charge our Volt. So how can we charge the Volt using wind power?
The key is that electrons, like money, are fungible. If I lend you $5, I don’t care if you pay me back with the same $5 bill, a different $5 bill, or five singles. It’s all the same.
Likewise, when I draw electrons out of the grid and pay a wind farm to put electrons in the grid, there is no way for me to know if that electron was generated by the wind farm or not – but it doesn’t matter. They are all the same and I sleep well knowing I paid a wind farm to generate the same number of electrons I used to charge my Volt.
As an added benefit, by buying my electricity from a wind farm, I’m investing locally in jobs that can not be exported. (Wind farms must be close to where the electricity is used or else it costs too much to transmit it.) In looking at the $1.10 cost to charge our Volt, $0.78 goes to CBE for the wind farms and $0.32 is our utility company’s charge to distribute that electricity to us.
How does the Volt compare to a Toyota Prius?
We actually leased a Toyota Prius IV for three years prior to the Volt lease. The Prius was definitely a good car. We drove the Prius for over 50,000 miles and averaged 45 miles to the gallon over the term of the lease.
Here’s how the two cars compare.
The Prius has more room in the front and back seat. I’m a a pretty big guy at 6-feet, 230 pounds – and with a long torso and broad shoulders. Sitting down I look like I should be 6-foot-4-inches tall – but then I get shorter when I stand up! At any rate I think if I had longer legs and could move the seat back farther I would get more head room, but so it goes. I always struggle to find a car where the top of my head doesn’t brush against the roof of the car.
For my rather unique situation, in the Prius, I can sit comfortably in the front and back seat. In fact, I’d say the back seat of the Prius has more room than the front seat of the Volt. With the Volt, I have to lower the front seat all the way down and adjust the seat back to find a comfortable driving position that works. You can forget about sitting in the back seat of the Volt if you’re a big guy.
The Volt has a more futuristic look to it and has a lot more technology. Climbing into the driver seat is like sliding into the cockpit of a jet fighter. Computers power up, and all sorts of graphics and statistics fill the driver’s console and the navigation screen.
The Prius on the other hand is much more open and less sporty. The console is less cluttered and actually easier to use. The Prius has dedicated buttons for the radio and a simpler climate control.
The Volt is much sportier to drive and is whisper quiet while running of electricity. It even has a special second horn that chirps when activated so that you can warn pedestrians in a polite way that you are coming. A number of times we’ve startled pedestrians strolling across parking lots, not realizing a Volt was creeping behind them looking for a parking spot.
The Prius has a more iconic look to it and drives fine. I’ve never had an issue getting it up to speed on the highway, though I am a little more selective on when I pass slower moving cars on two-lane roads.
They are both good cars; however, we chose the Volt over the Prius because of its ability to plug-in and go the distance. The sportiness and futuristic design make the car very fun to drive and driving over 3,000 miles without filling up with gas was EXTREMELY satisfying.
Did you get a tax credit when you leased your Volt?
Even though we leased the car, the federal tax credit was still applicable, and was applied to reduce our lease payment. The way a lease works is that you negotiate a purchase price for the vehicle and then finance the difference between the vehicle and the residual value of vehicle at lease end. The residual value is the amount you can buy the car for after all your lease payments are made. If you don’t want to buy the car, you just turn it in and walk away.
The way the federal tax credit is applied to reduce your lease payment is a little backwards. Instead of being subtracted from the purchase price, it is added to the residual value. Either way, the amount you finance is reduced by the credit amount, which for us was a whopping $7,500. The downside is that by adding the credit to the residual, the amount to purchase the car at the end of the lease is now $7,500 more than what the car will be worth then. This guarantees we will return the car at the end of the lease, though it’s possible we could turn it in then simply negotiate with the dealer to purchase the car at its market value. Ideally, you would want the federal tax credit to be subtracted from the purchase price instead of added to preserve your options at lease-end. I’m not sure if this is negotiable though.
How do you like your Volt?
We LOVE it. We’ve leased many different types of cars (economical, sporty, and luxury), and this car is by far our favorite. It’s fun to drive, it’s good for the environment, and it economical. This is the future.
If you found this post useful, how about picking up a bag of our Power Granola to say thanks? It tastes great mixed with yogurt or as a cereal and it’s a good source of calories. Seriously, you need calories and you might as well get them from something as nutritious as our granola. You can get more info about our granola on our home page.
Question or comments? Please email us at granola@moveyourhyde.com.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2012 at 5:55 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
+7
Aug 17th, 2012 (7:27 am)I too love my Volt 2011 #1506. We have also driven a prius. We both like the configuaration of the prius and the available space. As with most econoboxes the prius was adequate and functional. The Volt on the other hand is just a blast to drive. I too get about 44 miles per charge and our electric bill has gone up about $28.00 per month.
We have owned our Volt since Feb 28th 2011 and have just over 36,000 miles on the car. I would not trade the silent, comfortable, sporty ride for any other car on the market today and as with the other 94% of those who bought a Volt it will be my next car as well unless they produce a small SUV in the next couple of years.
For those of you who have not bought a Volt, what are you waiting for?
When we get 30 million electrics on the road we stop importing oil and that will cut in half the daily export of dollars from this country.
Join us at the Kissimmee Buffalo Wild wings on National Plug-in day September 23 and we’ll give you a test drive.
Take Care, TED
+5
Aug 17th, 2012 (9:13 am)I am waiting for the Chevy Volt to become available in Puerto Rico. I have the down payment saved, and I am an Ally customer so I can get a low interest loan.
I have plenty of VES because Canadians, Britons, and Aussies can buy a Volt, but I can’t!
Raymond
+1
Aug 17th, 2012 (9:25 am)So if the $7500 tax credit is applied to the residual, then I expect that the purchaser of an off-lease Volt should qualify for the tax credit. The used price (about $29k) becomes about $22500. Or does the lease company take the tax credit and simply sell the car at the reduced price?
+6
Aug 17th, 2012 (9:38 am)Another good review by a Volt owner. We could use one of these every couple days.
This site is pretty well optimized for search engines. I regularly get a ‘hit’ on my searches-to-email from Google. My point is that these reviews are widely seen on the Internet.
The only reason I have not bought a Volt is the ‘we need a kitchen first’ argument. Even though I can easily show over 3-grand in savings per year compared to the SUV.
Aug 17th, 2012 (9:44 am)Raymondjram,
Has your local Chevy dealer tried to order one?
+1
Aug 17th, 2012 (10:32 am)I don’t think it’s the same $7500.
The original owner (the leasing company) is the only entity that can get the tax credit, correct? Once it’s a ‘used’ car, the tax credit no longer applies. Correct?
+3
Aug 17th, 2012 (11:01 am)Fun review. Personally the difference between driving a Prius and a Volt is night and day. Nice he sent the review to you Jeff.
You’re right, there is only one $7500 credit per car and the first buyer gets it. In the case of a lease it’s a leasing company. The way the national Volt leases work is that the credit gets applied to the residual. That keeps monthly payments down but makes it unlikely you’ll be willing to buy when the lease is over.
+1
Aug 17th, 2012 (11:06 am)Nice write-up, thanks. I’m 5’10″ also with a long torso so I can see where head room is a bit tight. For me I’m just short enough to not have that issue, but is a bit tight in the rear seat. I mainly use my Volt for the daily commute, occasional errands, and lunch runs. I had it about a month and really loving it. I do get the occasional looks and questions which I am all too happy to talk to others about. I send them to the dealership and salesman I bought from as it was a pretty good experience. My full charge range is now up to 40 miles as I have been learning to not be a lead foot, which was my lifetime occupation before the Volt. Good to see it can go even higher.
Jdan
Voltitude – The attitude you get when driving gas free in a Volt!
+1
Aug 17th, 2012 (11:20 am)Yes, agreed. We’re always open to guest submissions. Everyone please feel free to spread the word, if you’ve not already.
+4
Aug 17th, 2012 (11:21 am)But if “the leasing company” was the one who recieved the tax credit, why the hell would they slap that $7,500.00 on top of the residual at end of lease.
Admittedly I dunno JACK about leases…..lol
IMHO, sounds like ripoff/double dip to me.
+2
Aug 17th, 2012 (12:55 pm)From the interview, “According to the Kill A Watt, the Volt used 14.41 kWh during its last full charge.”
That seems very high. Given the 10.4 KWh battery, that result implies 40% charging losses. Could that be true? Are others seeing those results? Or perhaps is there some battery cooling going on there also?
+18
Aug 17th, 2012 (1:02 pm)Off Topic:
==================================
A Florida senior citizen drove his brand new Chevy Volt out
of the dealership. Taking off down the road, he pushed it to 80 mph,
enjoying the silent electric drive. Amazing,” he thought as he flew
down I-95, pushing the pedal even more.
Looking in his rear view mirror, he saw a Florida State Trooper, blue
lights flashing and siren blaring. He floored it to 90 mph, then 100.
Suddenly he thought, “What am I doing? I’m too old for this!” and
pulled over to await the trooper’s arrival.
Pulling in behind him, the trooper got out of his vehicle and walked
up to the new shiny black Volt. He looked at his watch, then said,
“Sir, my shift ends in 30 minutes. Today is Friday. If you can give me
a new reason for speeding–a reason I’ve never before heard — I’ll let you go.”
The old gentleman paused then said: “Three years ago, my wife ran off
with a Florida State Trooper. I thought you were bringing her back.”
“Have a good day, Sir,” replied the trooper.
=================================================
Have a great weekend everyone!!!
C-5277
Aug 17th, 2012 (3:24 pm)Jim I,
That was a really good laugh you just gave us. Would I be silly to ask if it was a true story?
Aug 17th, 2012 (3:27 pm)Bob G,
When I charged the depleted battery, it used about 12 KW. Now maybe over a long time period one would use 14 KW if the TMS system started drawing energy.
Aug 17th, 2012 (3:47 pm)=====================================
Nah.
A friend of mine sent me a joke. I tweaked it a bit to make it Volt appropriate. But it works just fine!
C-5277
Aug 17th, 2012 (5:33 pm)Jim I,
I thought National Joke Day was yesterday?
(LOL, oldie but goodie)
http://www.altiusdirectory.com/Society/national-joke-day.html
Aug 20th, 2012 (2:38 am)Bob G,
I have observed the relation of the “charged energy used” vs. the “Volt used kWh” display measured with a Kill-a-Watt myself over a period of time (11-10-11 to 5-18-12) and over a range of power used from 1 to 10+ kWh [per 2012 Volt display].
The regression equation for L1 charging is :
Charge needed = 1.26 x Energy used (=display) + 0.26 kWh – i.e. I have never seen a factor of 1.44.
[R squared is 0.9953 for those that want to know, i.e. a very good correlation]
For L2 charging the efficiency increases (i.e. less charging loss) and the equation is
Charge needed = 1.18 x Energy used (=display) + 0.09 kWh
[R squared is 0.9976, again a very good correlation / linear relationship ]
L2 charging was measured with an EKM Omnimeter that can handle the 240 V.
Because of the reduced charging loss and the faster charging time I mainly use the L2 charging.
[As time allows I will write up my observations w/ the corresponding graphs ...]