Will follow with first impressions tomorrow.

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Yes, it's been a long time coming for me to get some for of electrified transportation. Was following developments in the 90's closely and saw the limitations then but also the potential for hybridization. Glad GM finally came with a product that fit well enough with what I was looking for and finally got to use my GM card points on one of them.

I wasn't really planning on purchasing a Volt this year as I felt there are a couple of things GM could improve or include that are of great value to me, most notably the option to use the Volt as an whole house emergency generator. The political uncertainty of tax credits and the advantages to me of getting the credit in 2011, along with the loosening of pricing brought me to the dealer. I also had a trade that was still under warranty but wouldn't be this time next year. Finally, I feel like Volt sales need a push now rather than later. A lot, sadly too many people, are salivating for any reason (real, rumored, or distorted) to call the Volt a failure. I liked the idea of doing my little part to help mitigate one of those arguments. Volt sales do seem to be slow in South Florida and needing of banner wavers. I would have bought a demo unit and kept the big side decals for just this purpose if I had found one in the color and with the options I was looking for.

My Volt was purchased in Punta Gorda at Palm Chevrovlet (very pleasant buying experience BTW), which is about 175 miles from where I live so there was ample time to exprience CS in both highway and city driving. I had test driven the car before so the driving experience wasn't new but the length of the experience was. The ride quality is very good: quiet, refined, and stable. Acceleration is very good for normal driving. Two lane passing from 55mph to 75mph is a breeze. The interior, with leather, is nice but not "very" nice. Comfort and user interface is lower high end. Getting used to the very few peculiarites of the ride and only reach for the gear shifter once leaving a red light as the "feel" was more that of a car that was out of gear since it is so quiet and vibration free.

A lot of fuss is made about the price and I don't think GM has done a good job of position the car properly in the market to show it's comparable value. They talk about eco, the Leaf, "range anxiety", Prius killing but rarely opine on the Volt's luxury value. Seems silly to include so many high end features and spend so much time creating an appealing design that is still very efficient yet spend so little effort emphasizing those values. GM also chose to make it a Chevy and, like it or not, this makes it much harder for a lot of the public to appreciate the premium aspects to the car. IMO, the closest comps are Lexus IS250, BMW 125i, Mercedes C, Acura TSX, etc. Those are $30K and up. Even a Civic Hybrid is $26K with similar options to mine but the Civic has an inferior ride and finish. Oh and BTW, the Prius Plug-In advanced is $39,500. So, for about $33,500 after the tax credit I'm pleased with my purchase, even from a financial perspective.

There is a lot to like about the car and I agree with most things everyone else has elaborated so much about:
-of course EV range is number 1 like
-EV drive (smooth, quiet, quick)
-Exterior design (unique and appealing)
-Interior comfort
-screen information and interface

I do have a few nits but no show stoppers and GM could easily improve on them:
-Rear hatch lid cannot be opened remotely.
-Rear hatch has a high lip. Heavy objects cannot be slid into the storage area and must be lifted over the lip.
-Excessive hard plastics in the interior.
-Small glove box
-Emergency whole house generator option (Big nit)
-No 120V outlet in cabin
-Arm and storage bin should be longer to the front.
-Gear shift is nice quality but unneeded. It takes up a lot of space that could have been very functionally used and also restricts access to the storage in front of it.
-No clear change holder.
-120V charge cord storage compartment is under the hatch storage area cover which is an impractical location. If anything sizable is in the hatch area, it needs to be taken out to get or store the cord. The sides of the hatch area are very large and should have enough space to create a cord storage void there or under the front seat.
-The wall side plug tail on the 120V charge cord is too short (frustrates me like the dinky length cord for the IPhone charger)
-The rearview mirrors are bigger than need. They are triangular shaped and the top of the triangle could be shave, reducing whole profile and potentially the drag from them
-No low drag wheels or covers yet available. They are pretty and low weight (forged aluminum) but I would prefer a low drag option, low weight option.
-The breaking is very good up to the point of regen release (~5 mph). I'm sure I'll get used to it and compensate but they can refine it to keep the deceleration more consistant.


Overall I'm very happy with my purchase and feel I've done well for the economy, the environment, myself, and my country. Hopefully many others see the value in electrified driving like the owners here and will support the Volt (and all EVs) with enough purchases to spur further advancements and proliferation into more classes of vehicles.

Congrats - had mine only about a month - loving it!

Congrats and welcome! Judging by your time and posts on the forum, you probably know the thing inside out already.

You'll have fun Koz!

After 10k miles, it still feels great when I drive my Volt. Let some relatives drive it over the weekend. All were impressed by the dash boot up, then the quiet, then the torque, then the handling. Favorable comments on styling as well. Of course, one asked what all the fuss was regarding the crash test cars. He thought a few weeks would be plenty of time to get out of a crashed car! Another would like to buy a used Volt (budget reasons). Seeing the dash display 118 MPG lifetime makes everyone take notice.

Pictures please :)

Congrats, you will love it!

Congrats! I'm thinking this is a moment you've been waiting for for a long time...

Don't forget to add your new car to Voltstats.net. :)

Koz, your quite the observer/lurker joining this site back in early '08

Not sure how you refrained all these months from making the jump earlier but good for you. ENJOY!

Congrants on taking the Pluge. Nice post.

Sounds like this has been a long time coming. Welcome to the club!

Welcome! My 2012's decision timing is also partially based upon the support of sales at this time. Good to hear another member's support :) The low drag Ampera style wheels will be avaliable soon I think.

Welcome to our Forum Koz,

Your initial observations ar very good,

I personly do not think using the Volt as a back up generator would be cost efective or convient, unless you have no room to store or mount a seprate unit. A typical whole house genertor system that would activate automaticly and test it self automaticly, run on natural gas, costs about $10,000. Using the Volt as a power source would still require you to connect it to a proper disconnect system to be installed in your house. .

If the connection could be made through the charger and a switching system interfaced with that to auto disconnect from Edison and re connect, also the Volt would need to be able to modified to keep the battery charged when using it as a generator. Even with all that gives you a almost equivelent system, you have to remember to open your garage door to vent the fumes and if you needed to use your Volt to drive, your house would be with out power.

Welcome to the "Volt Owners" Club!

Welcome to our Forum Koz,

Your initial observations ar very good,

I personly do not think using the Volt as a back up generator would be cost efective or convient, unless you have no room to store or mount a seprate unit. A typical whole house genertor system that would activate automaticly and test it self automaticly, run on natural gas, costs about $10,000. Using the Volt as a power source would still require you to connect it to a proper disconnect system to be installed in your house. .

If the connection could be made through the charger and a switching system interfaced with that to auto disconnect from Edison and re connect, also the Volt would need to be able to modified to keep the battery charged when using it as a generator. Even with all that gives you a almost equivelent system, you have to remember to open your garage door to vent the fumes and if you needed to use your Volt to drive, your house would be with out power.

I am not an electrical engineer, so this is a fairly subjective opinion, but I do think it would be nice to have the option to use the Volt as a backup generator for power outages. I'm pretty sure GM could come up with a gadget that would regulate/limit the power draw from the car and so forth to protect the car, etc.

I am not an electrical engineer, so this is a fairly subjective opinion, but I do think it would be nice to have the option to use the Volt as a backup generator for power outages. I'm pretty sure GM could come up with a gadget that would regulate/limit the power draw from the car and so forth to protect the car, etc.

Limiting power draw to protect the car shouldn't be an issue for any normal house... Most well equipped houses in the US these days use 220v/200A service. Even if you were using that continuously (no one ever does,) that's only 44kW - barely more than a third of what the Volt can draw from the battery during hard acceleration, and less than the ICE and MG A are rated to generate continuously.

There's no serious engineering barrier to making it work, but there are some issues to be addressed. The simplest way to do this is with a direct connection to the car's HV DC bus, and a hard mounted inverter. The inverter is simple and easy to find, depending on the amount of power you need - a typical PV string inverter routinely makes 220 AC out of 3-600v DC, and could easily be connected in. However, in doing so you create potential safety issues - a permanant connection to HV DC that'll kill anyone it grounds across. There are connectors to handle that (the Chademo DC fast charger used by the LEAF is an example, and SAE is considering what they'd like to do,) but they aren't typical or cheap.

I suppose you could add some safety by connecting on the downstream side of the high voltage contactor - which would also help protect the battery SoC because it'd mean the inverter only ran when the car was on. I'm not sure what the car would think of a major battery drain, though (again, if GM develops it, it'd be simple - as an aftermarket hack it might not be.)

The other option would be for GM to include an inverter on the car, wired directly in to the HV bus. In that case, you'd need a connector to handle high amperages of A/C power that you could plug into your house power panel. The highest power options I know of are the 14-50 (rated for 50 amps) used at RV campgrounds, or possibly the J1772 connector the car already has (I think I read it's rated for 70 amps in some applications?) I suppose the ideal version would be if the car had the circuitry to push power back out of the existing j1772 under the right conditions, but then helping the car to know when those right conditions are becomes an issue - you don't want the car keeping the male plug live if someone unplugs the EVSE from the wall. And, of course, even if the charger module is reversible, the current module is only rated to 3.3 kW or 16 amps. (Though upcoming cars have 6.6 kW chargers, and it *might* be possible to retrofit...)

So in summary, it's completely doable for someone like GM, but there are safety concerns on the house side to address and it's challenging (but likely possible if determined enough) for the aftermarket.

Congrats Koz!!

Just drive and smile!

WopOnTour

Congrats on your new car Koz. You'll enjoy it. Always nice to see someone who has followed the Volt for so long finally get one. Exciting.

Thank you all for the congratulations. It has been a very rewarding and enjoyable experience thus far. I like the tech and engineering in cars but have always been a "car is an appliance" kind of guy as far as buying and owning them. The Volt is truly an enjoyable ride. Much of that is from following the tech and strongly believing in the many benefits that plugged-in EV commuting brings but a lot is also just from the ride itself. I really believe GM needs to concentrate their marketing more on the latter to move sales beyond the early adopters and EV crowd.

Some add'l observations:
-Don't know about EV range anxiety for BEVs but I don't know about gas burning anxiety for the Volt. Wish they would program a nearly at destination mode to add one more mile of range. That little bit of engine run isn't good on many levels and the minor extra draw on the battery once in a while would not do harm.
-Would like to see a max mpg highway mode someday. NVH for 60+mph driving be damned.
-Mitt is a twit. Would like to hear him say when he sat in or drove a Volt, how much $ deficit the US runs each year for oil, where the city bound pollution comes from, what the range of the Volt is, if he feels the time has come for manufacturing jobs in the US, etc.
-Everyone, EVERYONE that has seen my Volt and is not already familiar with them is VERY impressed. And it isn't the 40 miles EV that impresses the most or at least that is not what their verbalizations of their initial impressions are. They are most impressed with the look and ride.
-I probably will not need to fill up until the next time I drive out of town. I did have to go for gas already once but that was for natural gas for my grill. Thought I my experience a Volt commercial deja vue.

I suspect that simply paying for the US Navy to patrol the Strait of Hormuz is considerably more than ALL the federal rebates and tax credits for EVs...and probably even al alternative forms of green electricity production.