Consumer Reports 7/10/12: Volt owners tell us they use even less gas than we do

[mrosack]

When talking about the average behavior of a population, one needs to look at the median not the mean.

I'd respectfully disagree with this - I think the most important thing is the the displacement of gas on the fleet as a whole, and I'd think that the mean shows that more accurately than the median. That said, I think that the median could be useful also, I'll look into adding it this weekend.

(No worries about the criticism, ray - I'm not going to close up shop just because someone said we need median instead of the mean... )

[AZ EV Driver]

Thanks. I guess you missed the first five paragraphs in the post.

No, I didn't miss your first five paragraphs. While I agree that reducing operating cost is a good thing, I see it as a peripheral benefit. When I signed up for the EV1 lease (purchase was not an option) in 1996 my lease payments were on the order of $800/month, definitely not for someone looking for cheap transportation. I did it because I wanted to put my money where my mouth was and support GM's effort to produce an electric vehicle. This later turned out to be a huge disaster on GM's part, and I said for the second time I would never buy a GM product - this after being employed by the General for 18 years.

What this says is that my motives are not driven by the all mighty dollar, nor by unrealistic MPG numbers. As a society we need to think beyond cost to the other benefits presented by something other than petro fuels and everything associated with feeding our addiction for the past century. Time to move on to something that makes more overall sense, putting the cost at a lower priority. I believe our world would be so much better off if we did thing because they were the right thing to do rather than only pushing the cost down to the lowest level while setting everything else aside.

VIN # B0985

[ari_c]

OBTW- I just went over 2500 mpg today.

I saw you passed me the other day dropping me down to #6!

Went out to lunch with my co-workers and one asked me if I had to buy gas yet. I just laughed and said I haven't used any gas in months. I'll break down and fill up when the fuel maintain mode comes up in Dec.

[rayS]

I'd respectfully disagree with this - I think the most important thing is the the displacement of gas on the fleet as a whole, and I'd think that the mean shows that more accurately than the median. That said, I think that the median could be useful also, I'll look into adding it this weekend.

(No worries about the criticism, ray - I'm not going to close up shop just because someone said we need median instead of the mean... )

I get your point now, I think we are both right in some sense. Your method of dividing the fleet EV miles by the fleet total miles (71.1%) indicates what percentage of oil was replaced by electricity as a result of using volts. My method of using the median aims at characterizing the behavior of an average volt user.
Thank you for being a good sport

[drbruns]

What this says is that my motives are not driven by the all mighty dollar, nor by unrealistic MPG numbers. As a society we need to think beyond cost to the other benefits presented by something other than petro fuels and everything associated with feeding our addiction for the past century. Time to move on to something that makes more overall sense, putting the cost at a lower priority. I believe our world would be so much better off if we did thing because they were the right thing to do rather than only pushing the cost down to the lowest level while setting everything else aside.

VIN # B0985

I never said my motives are driven by the "all mighty dollar". I said (and others as well) that my primary motivation was to use no gas or as little as possible. This does not mean that we can't have secondary motivations as well. Taken as a whole, all these motivations seem consistent what your position. If I were concerned by the all mighty dollar, it is unlikely that I would have spent over $40k for solar panels in 2008 (when the 30% tax credit was capped at $2k) in order to do my part with dealing with "our addiction with petrol fuels".

I find it offensive that you seem to think your motives "are not driven by the mighty dollar", and seem to be implying that mine are somehow selfish or insignificant. What I did not say was that I bought the Volt primarily to get 6000 mpg. However, if this becomes a function of using very little gas, so be it.

I think most Volt owners agree with your last paragraph (less the first sentence), so I don't see where all this fuss is coming from.

[AZ EV Driver]

I never said my motives are driven by the "all mighty dollar". I said (and others as well) that my primary motivation was to use no gas or as little as possible. This does not mean that we can't have secondary motivations as well. Taken as a whole, all these motivations seem consistent what your position. If I were concerned by the all mighty dollar, it is unlikely that I would have spent over $40k for solar panels in 2008 (when the 30% tax credit was capped at $2k) in order to do my part with dealing with "our addiction with petrol fuels".

I find it offensive that you seem to think your motives "are not driven by the mighty dollar", and seem to be implying that mine are somehow selfish or insignificant. What I did not say was that I bought the Volt primarily to get 6000 mpg. However, if this becomes a function of using very little gas, so be it.

I think most Volt owners agree with your last paragraph (less the first sentence), so I don't see where all this fuss is coming from.

I didn’t say anything about your motives being driven by the “all mighty dollar”. However, I will point out that in your post #47 you talk about how much in dollars your Mercedes was costing and as a comparison how much the Volt was costing you now. If the focus is using as little gas as possible, maybe presenting the number of gallons saved would have been better. I certainly didn’t intend to offend you.

That being said, I often have to quote how much I am saving in dollars on gasoline use. This is primarily because it rings the bell for many folks that don’t understand why anyone in their right mind would drive any type of electric vehicle. Living in an extremely conservative town, in an extremely conservative state, it is a matter of self-preservation. Anyone who expresses a “liberal” concept in my world finds people whispering about how “out of touch” they seem and are not to be trusted.

In addition, a significant number of discussions on this board seem to focus on the cost savings their Volts are producing. Maybe this is due to similar reasons for which I have to talk about cost savings, or maybe it is because they are indeed focused on cost savings – hard to tell. It could also be something I would call “group speak”, where someone expresses a non-threatening concept, and everyone jumps onboard to sort of fit into the “culture”. The Volt is a very interesting concept because it can appeal to “moderate liberals” and “moderate conservatives” with very little compromise to the opposite viewpoints. Maybe this is because of the leadership of Bob Lutz, a “conservative” developing a “liberal” leaning concept.

Anyway, to get back to my original objections to using MPG as a metric. Miles per gallon is a measure that came into use long before anyone had the concerns we associate with fossil fuels today (both scientific and political). It is a metric that nearly all people use and think they understand. I believe it was originally used as a way of expressing “cost of operation” without getting into how much you were paying for that gallon, because the cost of a gallon varied then as it does now. Very similar to what we face when trying to express how much it is costing us to charge and operate our Volts, because the cost of electricity is widely variable. I know that the average is quoted as something like $0.12 per kWh but the range is from zero, for a fully amortized solar install, to some larger number purchased from you friendly electric company. So I feel any metric used to express “cost of operation” for a Volt should take into consideration the fact that there is more than one source of energy that powers our Volt. To ignore one source would be an incorrect oversight and very misleading to those used to the old definition of MPG. Even though I’m not real keen on it, MPGe at least tries to utilize a concept that people are familiar with (MPG) and the newer world we are hopefully moving toward of using other energy sources. If I was driving a BEV and someone asked me (without thinking) what kind of MPG I was getting I would reply “infinity”. They would probably react with a duh moment and then we would move on (happened more than once with my EV1). But I drive a more complex dual fuel Volt, and I don’t feel it is valid to quote some large number which ignores one (and for some primary) source of the energy. The questioner would probably continue to carry on an abbreviated conversation and walk away thinking I was full of it. If your primary interest is in reducing (fill in the blank) then simply say that. If you are answering the question about MPG then a more inclusive statistic is needed.

I feel that for the Volt to be successful, people interested enough to ask questions need understandable information without thinking we are all full of it. I guess this assumes the political hurdles have been at least set aside, if not leaped.

VIN # B0985