New Michigan Volt

[sarahjs]

Well I've been reading here for several weeks and finally wanted to say hi. Thanks for all the great information!

Got my 2012 black Volt about 4 weeks ago. Everything has been great so far and I love the car. Unfortunately for me, but lucky for my husband, I have been out of town for 3 of those weeks, so he has gotten to drive it more than me. No gas used yet though! I drove it to the airport this week and thought that would be one of my few trips requiring gas for the 56 miles roundtrip. But thanks to a thread in this forum, I found out that DTW airport has 2 free chargers! So now I can make that trip gas-free. And what's even better, if I can't get a charger at the airport, no big deal, just a little bit of gas used. I learned (from here again) that maintenance mode will run every 6 weeks anyway, so I might as well burn a little bit of gas every now and then. My husband is able to charge at work, but one day all chargers were full, so he got our best actual range so far: 50.2 miles with 2 to spare.

After a week or so of having the car, we had the discussion about what would happen if GM decided to no longer make the Volt for some reason by the time our lease is up. Obvious answer is that we'd buy it if we can't get a new one. I think regardless, we'll have to eventually get a 2nd Volt so we aren't always arguing over who gets to drive it that day. I also don’t think I could ever buy a pure ICE car again.

And by the way, we ARE people who were both Volt and Cruze shoppers. I've seen this discussed several times, so wanted to throw this out there. We bought a Cruze Eco manual in February for my husband's commuting car, 52 miles roundtrip. At the time, we were looking for great fuel economy and a good price. Full disclosure, my husband is a GM engineer, so he (and by proxy we) knew plenty about the Volt. However when we were Cruze shopping, the dealers just didn’t have any. IF there were any available to drive, then we maybe would have gotten a Volt then. However that just wasn’t the case. I was baffled how Volt sales were so low, yet there weren’t any around here to sell. We even talked about getting another Cruze for my car’s replacement. We can afford to buy a Volt, but tend to be more frugal and wouldn’t have thought of spending that much on a car. So in the past few months when we started seeing advertised lease pricing and Volts actually in stock, the ball got rolling.

Between a $1500 off marketing mailer, $1000 in GM credit card points, the dealer’s GM preferred pricing (no employee discounts on the Volt), and Ally lease incentives, we got a 36 month, 12,000 mile lease for $277 a month and $900 something up front. It really was just too great of a deal to pass up for the opportunity to drive such a cool car. It took a couple weeks after that, but I found a new home for my Civic.

We are also in the process of getting a Schneider EVLink installed in our garage through DTE and SPX. The supposed free program is going to cost us $200 out of pocket. I'm sure there will be more to this story, but I can't really complain about getting the free charger.

Thanks again for all the discussion here and I hope to join in more soon!

-sarah

[montgom626]

Got my 2012 black Volt about 4 weeks ago. Everything has been great so far and I love the car. Unfortunately for me, but lucky for my husband, I have been out of town for 3 of those weeks, so he has gotten to drive it more than me.

Sarah, have you got a twin? I want to marry her!!!!!!! Seriously, you were very kind to leave the key with your husband. I would have told him that I lost the key and to wait until I got back so I could take care of it. You are a rare jewel and one of a kind!

Bob

PS Did I already ask if you had a twin?

[sarahjs]

LOL... well actually... when we got the Cruze, he wouldn't let me drive it unless I was taking a highway trip since he didn't want my city driving to mess up his mileage. (This coming from a guy who drove a 14 mpg truck for 16 years!!) So I turned the tables a bit on him. I told him he was only allowed to drive MY (lol) Volt to work while I'm gone if he took advantage of those free charging stations and didn't use gas unless he absolutely had to. There aren't any chargers right by his building, so he usually had to walk quite a bit from a charger, but he obliged by my rules. There was just the one day he couldn't charge and sacrificed the A/C to be sure he made it home on battery.

The other great thing for me about the lease is that I knew he'd want to drive it all the time, but he CAN'T or else he'd blow through all of our lease miles on his work commute. I put together a spreadsheet on our usual driving and determined he could take it one week per month. I think I'll probably end up letting him have it 2-3 weeks depending on how our mileage goes. Honestly it just makes a lot more sense for his commute than mine.

[jbfalaska]

As a former Air Force serviceman, my wife served by my side faithfully until both of us could retire, the General (GM) was always there for the American soldier. As poor as military personnel are, the discounts for serving sure helped. GM definitely leaped over everyone with the EREV concept. I have a 78 mile daily trip, and the 45 miles I'm getting on a battery charge is exceptional. I also have zero qualms over the very good 38 to 42 miles on gas. I figured out, driving down into Denver on electric pushes the battery out about 3-5 extra miles, and driving back on gas, up slope, is a great approach. Good luck in Motor City. Hope you're voting this year. One candidate certainly helped keep America's cars from becoming Xiaping Motor City China. There's a real choice. Michigan is America's home for building AMerican made vehicles. Always was, always will be in my heart and mind.

[jbfalaska]

buy an AMerican made, American fueled car. My way of saying thank you to those americans who gave me a job for all those years, I get to return the favor.

[DonC]

Congrats on the car Sarah. Nice of you to let your husband drive it. But you need to be careful. We've seen this before. What starts off as fairly innocent "borrowing" can quickly turn into "Voltnapping"!

On a more serious front, unfortunately from my viewpoint you did what most people do when they look at an EV. They take a look at the MSRP and think that it's a really expensive car. But if you look at the total cost of ownership the cost of owning a Volt isn't much different than the cost of owning a Cruze. I think Kiplinger's did an article on this maybe six months ago. What they found was the cost of owning both cars to be roughly equal. It's just that most people don't think that a 40 mile drive somewhere is going to cost them more than $20, but that's how it works. For fleets it's not an issue because the fleet guys all wear green eyeshades. But looking at total cost of ownership is foreign to the vast majority of consumers. As Girsky put it this week: I don't think consumers really know how to buy a product like this, or a Nissan Leaf, for that matter, where you're paying for most of the energy costs up front in the form of a battery. So your upfront costs are a lot higher. Your operational costs are a lot lower. Fleets would get it because they focus on cost of ownership and cost of operation, but the average consumer I'm not sure gets it so fast.

I think GM is on to something with the low lease prices. There has been talk about selling the car cheap and charging a monthly fee for the battery. That is a non-starter. But the idea of coming up with a low lease price based on a high residual works. It lowers the monthly payments, which people not looking at TCO like. When the lease is over it shouldn't be hard to sell or lease them at a price which doesn't need to be at the buy out price. I don't think you're along in being motivated by the low lease payments.

[saghost]

Congrats!! Welcome. It sounds like you're off to a great start. Don't forget about Voltstats.net - it's a handy way to automatically get all sorts of trip computer type data, and also gives us a look at the fleet as a whole (over 1200 cars there now, and something like 10% of all Volt miles.)

Since you're current owners of both a Cruze and a Volt, I'd be interested in your (and your husband's) thoughts about the similarities and differences between the two. There aren't many people who have lived with both cars (DCFusor is the only one on the forum who has commented on his experience AFAIK.) It sounded from your other comments like you both prefer the Volt?

[Voltastic]

There aren't many people who have lived with both cars (DCFusor is the only one on the forum who has commented on his experience AFAIK.)

Zete has both cars.

[sarahjs]

What starts off as fairly innocent "borrowing" can quickly turn into "Voltnapping"!

Yes, I'm quite aware this will happen. And all I have to say is "we don't have enough miles on the lease for you to drive the Volt every day", and that will be the end of it. I feel I am being VERY generous in letting him take my car around half the time considering I have only driven the Cruze probably less than 10 times since we've had it.

I mentioned that his commute makes more sense for the Volt. He drives 50-52 miles round trip depending on route without any side errand stops or going out to lunch. My office is just about a mile from our house, but my total driving for the day usually encompasses errands, shopping, appointments, driving to the airport and occasionally visiting other locations for work within driving distance. Of course that doesn't happen every day, but the days that it does, the Volt is perfect for my driving and can be done almost exclusively on battery. What I guess we didn't really anticipate is that the Volt would be perfect for my husband's driving as well, especially since he can charge at work. I feel like this is something that you maybe just don't realize until you actually have the car and understand how it works with your typical driving and where you can charge. It's a paradigm shift that even we, people who work in the auto industry and have a better understanding of the Volt than the average person, are getting used to.

On a more serious front, unfortunately from my viewpoint you did what most people do when they look at an EV. They take a look at the MSRP and think that it's a really expensive car. But if you look at the total cost of ownership the cost of owning a Volt isn't much different than the cost of owning a Cruze.

When I was reading up on the Volt before we pulled the trigger on the lease, I found lots of articles and references to total cost of ownership, and there were a lot of points that I hadn't really considered before, especially the minimal maintenance. But we really didn't get this car to save money. Maybe we will in the long run, maybe we won't. But that really doesn't matter to me. I was interested in the Volt for the geeky coolness of it, not having to rely on gasoline, and to support this pretty incredible technology. I don't want it to go away.

I think GM is on to something with the low lease prices.

Yes. I don't think we would have gotten into a Volt without a low lease price. And now that I've experienced this technology, I will most likely pay the premium to purchase it in the future. Maybe we'll wait for the next generation, but I don't know if we can continue sharing the one Volt for that long!

[sarahjs]

Don't forget about Voltstats.net

Signed up the day we brought the Volt home. When I'm out of town, I use that plus the OnStar app to check up on my husband's driving and make sure he's charging at work like he's supposed to. 2012-28358 sarah's volt.

Since you're current owners of both a Cruze and a Volt, I'd be interested in your (and your husband's) thoughts about the similarities and differences between the two. There aren't many people who have lived with both cars (DCFusor is the only one on the forum who has commented on his experience AFAIK.) It sounded from your other comments like you both prefer the Volt?

I've been thinking about this, and it's all too easy to say something like "the Volt is awesome and blows the Cruze away." I mean, it does, technology-wise. But the Cruze really is a solid car. I have recommended it to many people looking for an affordable car with great gas mileage, and it looks pretty decent too. Our Cruze Eco manual transmission consistently gets over 40 mpg. It's a nice, smooth, quiet ride. The 6-speed eco gearset and the turbo combine well. One of the first Cruzes we drove was an automatic and had horrible turbo lag. In the manual, there's no lag since you're shifting and kind of determining the power and timing yourself, but you can feel the turbo kick in and it feels like a natural boost.

I will admit that sitting inside the Volt feels pretty close to the feel of being in the Cruze. The only major difference are the LCD screens and the controls. I wouldn't call the Volt "luxury". I'm still getting used to the Volt and knowing my clearances and how to park, how much further I can pull ahead before hitting something, etc. The Cruze didn't take long to figure that part out. I think it's because I can't see the edge of the hood in the Volt so I have a hard time sensing where the front of the car really is. I'm getting better with it though. Oh, we also have the power driver's seat and rear backup sensors in the Cruze. I kind of miss those in the Volt. The steering wheel material in the Cruze is also a lot better feeling than the Volt's.

But driving the Volt is obviously the big difference from the Cruze. The smooth acceleration and instant power is awesome. The first week my husband had it, we had a conversation that went something like this:
him: the Volt is so much cooler to drive than the Cruze. I don't have to drive like a grandma to still get good fuel economy.
me: so you're admitting you drive the Cruze like a grandma?
him: yes.

He turned into a hypermiler when he got the Cruze. Can you believe that we'd be going somewhere together in the Cruze with him driving 60 mph on 696 on a Saturday with no traffic, trying to draft behind a semi, and I had to tell him to speed up!! Once he got the little computer showing him his instant and average mpg, he was focused on beating his best numbers. We can still do that in the Volt, trying to get the best miles per charge, but you can punch it when you need to punch it, and you're not wasting a bunch of gas and therefore killing your stats. So yeah, overall we'd both prefer to drive the Volt, but the Cruze is still a great car.

I'd also like to make it clear that I am not a car person. At all. A car to me is something to get you where you need to go safely and reliably with efficient energy use. I see no need for luxury cars, giant SUVs, leather seats, cars that go 0-60 in 4 seconds or whatever. I had a 2000 Honda Civic for 10 years that I was perfectly happy with. Even after almost 212,000 miles, it had plenty more life in it and it was sort of tough decision to actually get a new car when I didn't really need a new car at this point in time. Also my husband had a 16 year old truck before the Cruze. We both made pretty giant leaps in terms of car features and technology, so we probably weren't too hard to please in that regard.

Here's a list of rental cars that I've either driven or ridden in over my past few months of travelling: GM - Impala, Malibu, Traverse, Acadia, Enclave, Camaro, Terrain, Suburban, Tahoe; Chrysler - Journey, Charger, Grand Cherokee, Patriot; Ford - Mustang, Explorer Limited.
Some of these were boring, some of these were pretty nice. However, lately all I can think is "I can't wait to get home and drive my Volt."