Study: Volts are cleaner and cheaper

[Steverino]

Carbon footprint: "The Volt has emitted 478 pounds of carbon dioxide from gasoline for a total carbon footprint of 3,734 pounds of carbon dioxide. A Prius would have generated 3,958 pounds of carbon dioxide over the same number of miles."

Cost to operate: "for the 10,102 miles they drove, or three cents per mile. For comparison, with an estimate of $3.50/gallon gas, a 2012 Prius that gets 50 miles per gallon costs seven cents per mile, and my 2004 Saturn station wagon costs 14 cents per mile on a good day."

"With their typical driving, my parents pay less per mile than they would in a traditional hybrid or gas-powered car. They also emit less carbon dioxide."

Evelyn Lamb editor of Scientific American

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...eally-cheaper/

So the operating cost of the Volt is low (as we owners know), and the Volt's carbon footprint is low (even with dirty coal as the electric source). And these are compared to a Prius!

[ghostgs1]

A very good article it seems to me. The results her of parents are very similar to our experience, though we have see a bit lower costs due to slightly better electric and gas mileage. Our best distance on one charge has been 66 miles, but we never exceeded 45 mph on that drive and usually were at 30-35 mph.

[DonC]

Nice article. Great to see some real analysis rather than a lot of whacky cherry picking of the numbers.

[Steverino]

<snip> the fact that nearly all my driving is done only on a charge from home, or at my second place, those electrons going into my Volt from wind turbines are making my Volt greener than 99% of the vehicles on the road...

Thanks for sharing the pics. We have a large wind farm located near some of our nuclear plants in Illinois. They are impressive.

Not so impressive? Romney: "You can't drive a car with a windmill on it". It's sad that someone who wants to be a leader uses that as a laugh line aimed at electric cars.

[Sterling Silver]

Romney: "You can't drive a car with a windmill on it". It's sad that someone who wants to be a leader uses that as a laugh line aimed at electric cars.

And isn't Romney the same guy who took off on vacation with a dog on the roof of his car? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney_dog_incident
I thought Chevy Chase (National Lampoon's Vacation) was the only one who did that, but I suspect Chevy (or at least GM) is smart enough to know wind turbines are the future and salvation of our (tongue in cheek) "crude" ways.

[2BeLivingGreen]

Another advantage of electrifying the automobile is that it can make dramatic environmental improvements almost overnight. That is if one is to envision the US with VOLT like cars and if we decide we want clean coal, alternative energy, and/or any other clean or low carbon sources for electricity (think of a matrix of clean sources depending on location/area) then rather than wait for entire life cycles of cars to evolve with less emissions from cars the power generation network can make conversion to clean energy almost overnight. It is a much faster process than waiting for conventional car emissions to improve slowly over time.

So let me see, the VOLT has great energy efficiency, can eliminate the need for all foreign oil, can be cleaner for the environment, is fun to drive, and many other reasons the VOLT Owners on this forum express, so why is it that some of the media is against a USA product as great as this?

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

So let me see, the VOLT has great energy efficiency, can eliminate the need for all foreign oil, can be cleaner for the environment, is fun to drive, and many other reasons the VOLT Owners on this forum express, so why is it that some of the media is against a USA product as great as this?

So, I take it you didn't take that $7,500 credit? The criticism is that it's so expensive it depends on tax credits, HOV lane access and production subsidies for its existence. If the Volt cost $32.5k and didn't have HOV lane access privileges it'd be judged differently.

PS I wish my electricity were $0.0885/kWh. I'd expect i'd be into a PEV very quickly. A 5 cent differential between PEV and HEV is more than enough to cover prospective battery costs for a driver with 10k EV miles per year.

[Norm51]

..... The wind turbines in my picture below (I don't have any idea how to make larger) are only a few miles from my farm.

I'll have to check with her to be sure but, I think that's also one of my sister-in-law's projects. She works for an oil company that has invested in wind farms. I know she has one south of you at Fort Stockton, Texas. I'm still waiting for my tower climb that she promised at that site.