I'm in Atlanta and have signed on the dotted line with a dealer in northern Virginia, in the Washington DC market. That's 600 miles away. I'd like to hear from others who are doing this as well.
nasaman, are you around? You're in Florida (Space Coast I assume) and also buying from Washington DC, right? That'd be about 1000 miles and would have me beat.
Anyone else? West coast buyers getting theirs from LA dealers?
I really don't intend for this thread to be about WHY. We have our reasons for wanting to be early adopters on this, and believe me I thought hard about this.
But in thinking about this, I realized that this decision is definitely not for everyone, and I wanted to itemize here some key factors that pay in enabling me to take this leap.
1. I know what I'm getting into. I am an electrical engineer and I've been studying this field closely for 2.5 years now (during my spare time). I really do understand the nuts and bolts and what things could go wrong. GM certainly does not need to educate me on the technology.
2. I don't need Level 2 charging for now. Which mean I will NOT need to install a charger, which means I won't need an electrician that understands what I'm installing, a utility that understands what rate plan I'm asking for, or a city inspector that understands what he's looking at. I don't need any of those things because, initially at least, I will be doing only 110V / Level 1 charging. One key reason for GM's limited rollout is they have to train a whole ecosystem of third parties about this, and they want to go slow at first. Fine, but that's not an issue for me.
3. I can live without a car. In a worst case scenario, the car has some sort of catastrophic failure, and my local Chevy dealer can't fix it. They will have had basic Volt repair training, but let's be honest, mine will be the first they've ever seen, and they almost certainly will not be able to do serious repairs. So I could be looking at weeks if not months with no Volt because it's been hauled on a flatbed to some faraway place for repair. And in that case, I have a bike and nearby mass transit (sadly underfunded but functional) and can commute that way. I don't expect this to happen, but engineers trade in failure scenarios, and this is one I'm prepared for.
And really, the above is my argument for why buying long distance is not for everybody. I'm taking a pretty big risk for the first few months (or maybe a whole year!) until my market gets launched, and I'm OK with that.
So, who else is doing this and what other things have you thought about?
nasaman, are you around? You're in Florida (Space Coast I assume) and also buying from Washington DC, right? That'd be about 1000 miles and would have me beat.
Anyone else? West coast buyers getting theirs from LA dealers?
I really don't intend for this thread to be about WHY. We have our reasons for wanting to be early adopters on this, and believe me I thought hard about this.
But in thinking about this, I realized that this decision is definitely not for everyone, and I wanted to itemize here some key factors that pay in enabling me to take this leap.
1. I know what I'm getting into. I am an electrical engineer and I've been studying this field closely for 2.5 years now (during my spare time). I really do understand the nuts and bolts and what things could go wrong. GM certainly does not need to educate me on the technology.
2. I don't need Level 2 charging for now. Which mean I will NOT need to install a charger, which means I won't need an electrician that understands what I'm installing, a utility that understands what rate plan I'm asking for, or a city inspector that understands what he's looking at. I don't need any of those things because, initially at least, I will be doing only 110V / Level 1 charging. One key reason for GM's limited rollout is they have to train a whole ecosystem of third parties about this, and they want to go slow at first. Fine, but that's not an issue for me.
3. I can live without a car. In a worst case scenario, the car has some sort of catastrophic failure, and my local Chevy dealer can't fix it. They will have had basic Volt repair training, but let's be honest, mine will be the first they've ever seen, and they almost certainly will not be able to do serious repairs. So I could be looking at weeks if not months with no Volt because it's been hauled on a flatbed to some faraway place for repair. And in that case, I have a bike and nearby mass transit (sadly underfunded but functional) and can commute that way. I don't expect this to happen, but engineers trade in failure scenarios, and this is one I'm prepared for.
And really, the above is my argument for why buying long distance is not for everybody. I'm taking a pretty big risk for the first few months (or maybe a whole year!) until my market gets launched, and I'm OK with that.
So, who else is doing this and what other things have you thought about?