GM claims Volt drivers have saved supertanker of gas

[scottf200]

I think this is good PR for all *EV type vehicles actually. (Rem: moving EV miles, Total Miles, and gas ticker a little down on this page http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-electric-car/)

GM claims Volt drivers have saved supertanker of gas
http://content.usatoday.com/communit...anker-of-gas/1

GM figures Volt owners' 40 million electric miles equal:
* 16,373 cross-country trips (2,443 miles from NYC to L.A.)
* 1,606 trips around the world (24,901 miles each)
* 167 trips to the moon (238,657 miles each)

And the 2,130,000 gallons of gas saved equal:
* 50,714 barrels of gas (42 gallons per barrel)
* 387 semi-truck tankers of gas (5,500 gallons of gas each)
* [1/42nd of] a supertanker of gas (2 million gallons) [2 mil barrels actually & 42 gal/barrel]

[ctsolar]

Unfortunately someone at GM (or USA Today) is not very good with math. Supertankers carry 2,000,000 barrels of oil - not gallons. Only off by a factor of 42. The largest tankers carry 3 million barrels.

[DonC]

Ha ha! Yes that would be barrels not gallons.

This is a half full or half empty thing. From a macro standpoint it's pathetic. The US uses 367M gallons of gasoline a day, which means all the Volt miles haven't yet saved 1% of a day's consumption. How depressing is that? On the half full side, I personally spent less than ten dollars on gas last year! (Used more but the dealer kept filling the tank!).

I think GM is better off focusing on the individual at this point than on the big picture. That will have to wait.

[CarZin]

I suspect it was USA Today's fault. They will likely run a correction. But, given all the false BAD misinformation out there, I will gladly take some false GOOD misinformation instead of the alternative.

[firebirdbandit]

I think this has to be put into perspective. Of all the personal transportation vehicles what percent are Volts and then compare that to the percent of the gas used by all the personal transportation vehicles has the Volt saved.

[JamesMcQuaid]

Yeah, GM says Volt owners have saved 50,714 barrels of oil.

Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield's write up is much better than Chris Woodyard's: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/...s-since-launch

[BAZINGA]

And my wife will claim she knows where all that "gas" went.......

[dwl]

I, personally, don't think the macro matters. It's the micro that matters. And, over time, the macro will come. If people spend too much time talking about the big picture, the sheer scale of it all will seem a bit too overwhelming. So I'm not too fond of articles like this. Factually accurate or, in this case, not.

[Steverino]

I, personally, don't think the macro matters. It's the micro that matters. And, over time, the macro will come. If people spend too much time talking about the big picture, the sheer scale of it all will seem a bit too overwhelming. So I'm not too fond of articles like this. Factually accurate or, in this case, not.

One green algae creates a meaningless, miniscule amount of oxygen. An ocean full of algae creates an oxygen rich atmosphere. Yes, the micro creates the macro.

[dwl]

Yeah it's just that it's one of the favorite arguments of the haters. Like, there are no electric cars on the road. So they aren't doing anything for the environment or taking us closer to energy independence. Almost like it's too big nothing matters so why try. And I don't like arguing macro with macro. EVs have really been selling to a mass market for 2ish years. And, like everything new, aren't experiencing a rocketing start. So you can't really counter their macro arguments with macro arguments of your own. Because none of it even matters. You're countering nonsense with more nonsense. You counter macro with what really matters. Micro.