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New Volt owner in sunny Bakersfield, CA

2K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  virivolt 
#1 ·
Picked up my new Viridian Joule Volt on Monday. Had my first charging debacle Monday night (charged at 8 volts forever, didn't know one could change the charger to 12 volts), so I ordered a Clipper Creek 240V charger this morning. Enjoyed my first all electric drive today; got about 42 miles from a full charge. Received lots of cash incentives from various government agencies to lessen the pain of initial ownership. The Volt also allowed me to change my electric rate to a TOU schedule which should pair well with my home solar. All and all, a good couple of days, think I'll have a scotch.
 
#3 ·
Congrats on the new car!

Another Bakersfield Volt, I've only seen two Volts here in Bako over the past year, hopefully they become a regular sighting here.

When to temp here gets around 70 degrees, you'll get more than 42 miles per charge. :)

I take it you applied for the San Joaquin Clean air rebate? It's $2,000. And I guess you did the state clean air $1,500 rebate also?
 
#5 ·
The incentives I know about and have received or will eventually receive include 1) $5000 cash back from Chevrolet, 2) $7500 Fed tax credit, 3) $2000 from the SJV Air Pollution District, 4) $1500 from the State of CA, and 5) approx $1600 off the sticker from some type of preferred customer deal between my credit union and the dealer. In all, it amounted to $17,600 off the MSRP. I loved the Volt at $40k but with these incentives I'm smiling all the time. There must be some other incentives out there, let's get greedy and find them.
 
#6 ·
Had my first charging debacle Monday night (charged at 8 volts forever, didn't know one could change the charger to 12 volts), so I ordered a Clipper Creek 240V charger this morning.

I am not sure, but when you buy an L2 charger, you can deduct that expense in your fed income taxes, but when you do it in the same year as the Volt purchase, it somehow gets lost. So... you might want to cancel that charger, and use 110-volt charging until next year to order the charger and pay for the wiring then, so you can get the full deduction there, too.

Like you, I went out and bought the L2 EVSE the same week as my Volt, but then it sat unused until last week! Had I known, I'd have waited.


Is your power company SCE? You might inquire to see if the Time-of-use rates with an EV would be best for you. I switched to that right away with PG&E, and set the car to charge only at mid-peak and off-peak times. It worked well 9 months, charging at 110-volts, 12 amps. It would always be fully charged by 8 AM.
 
#7 ·
The PG&E TOU rate here in Bakersfield has the off-peak 12am-7am M-F and it handles 95+% of my charging. The weekends it's most of the day - only 5pm-9pm is partial peak - the rest is off peak, which during the summer is around 3.75 cents a kWh.

I checked a year of the old PG&E rate before my Volt, and compared the price the first year with charging my Volt and TOU rate - and the difference in cost for the year was less that $15 bucks!

However, the peak hour cost goes way up, and if you use a lot of electricity - it may be better to stay with the normal residential PG&E plan.

The TOU plan works for me though!
 
#8 ·
Congrats!!! I'm also in Bakersfield. My off peak rate is $0.08/kWh, from 6 PM to noon. On-peak summer rate is $0.32/kWh. On-peak winter rate is only $0.12/kWh. I'm sure there's an increase in the electric bill, but it's probably not much, since I also have a solar PV system. I also got the Clipper Creek L2 EVSE, it's been very worthwhile, since I can go 100% EV on the weekend with multiple charges. What part of Bakersfield are you in? I'm on the east side. I saw another silver Volt here occasionally, his car has the VOLT sticker on the side.
 
#9 ·
Darren, I live on the east side as well, a place called Choctaw Valley on the north side of the river across from Kern River Golf Course. I've seen a silver Volt around town a few times, very sharp. Look for my Viridian Joule and be sure to honk. I call it my "green car", in more ways than one. I haven't seen VikAIRious's white Volt yet.

It's interesting reading about the various electric rates that were available to you all. PGE told me it has discontinued several of the rates, e.g. E7 and E9 rates are no longer available. However, the discontinued rates will continue for those already using them. All rates have been replaced by a rate it calls EV. As compared to some of the rates described above, the EV rate isn't quite as good, but it's still TOU and the game remains to spend during Off-Peak and produce, if you have a solar system, during Peak hours. My Off-Peak rate is 10 cents per kWh which is about 30% lower than the normal E-1 residential rate. At any rate, I'll know more in a year. I've had solar since 2009 and the highest annual bill I've had has been approx $400. Now I'm adding the Volt, so we'll see. Cheers
 
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