Chevy Volt (good earth day post.)

[pinballlooking]

We just hit 40,000 EV miles solar powered EV miles on our 2013 Chevy Volt.
We have a total 49,000 miles with only one oil change need so far.

Here are all the real world numbers


Her is a link to just my car.
Volt Stats: Details for Volt #2013-02615 (Flynn's Light Runner)

This site has lost of Volts posting their numbers with OnStar.
Volt Stats! Tracking real world usage of Chevy Volts in the wild...

[Elcam84]

Nice. I looked into the volt as a replacement car for loml when she needs a new car. I think she will like it but it'll be a while before we replace the current car. It doesn't make financial sense until she needs a replacement as she it a flight attendant and doesn't even drive 9k a year and her car is paid off.

Speaking of mileage. I ended up with a versa as a rental last weekend in cleveland. Now the daughter has one and complains the mileage isn't great. Well after driving one 150 miles over the weekend I understand. I averaged 30 mpg which is pretty poor. I get that with my 2000 taurus wagon(dohc) and it has much more power and actually accelerates when you push the gas instead of just making noise after a long pause of nothing. I'm just not impressed with the mileage or performance of it. For a tiny car and engine I'd expect better mileage than much larger cars with bigger engines. I'd hate to see what the mileage is on our freeways as the speed limit are pretty slow in ohio. Here in tx I have found the best mileage on my wagon to be at about 75 to 80 depending on how windy it is. Mileage is worse as speed limits are slower.

[pinballlooking]

We have over 42,000 EV (electric vehicle) miles on our 2013 Volt. All solar powered. 51,700 total miles.
It is great to have so many miles powered by the sun.
Only one oil change needed so far.

Here are a few of the top EV mile volts. This data comes from OnStar.

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by pinballlooking

We have over 42,000 EV (electric vehicle) miles on our 2013 Volt. All solar powered. 51,700 total miles.
It is great to have so many miles powered by the sun.
Only one oil change needed so far.

Here are a few of the top EV mile volts. This data comes from OnStar.

Overall, quite good.

The results from line number 4 are either impressive or fictitious, I can't tell which.

-AC

[pinballlooking]

Line 4 is true he is on Facebook. He is crazy he will wait at a public charger just to not use gas. (he has had no rage loss at all )

The Volt goes into maintenance every so often (maybe six months) I am not sure because we never see it. We are just over 80% EV so my gas never gets old.

If this happens and you open your hood you can run the motor with getting any gas miles. This is what he does to limit the gas miles.
We just drive ours but he seems to have fun with it so each his own.

A side note this data comes from OnStar there is no place to manually enter data on the
http://www.voltstats.net/
site.
OnStar gets the data directly for the car.

[AC_Hacker]

It's nice that he has really big numbers. However the Engineer in me would discard that value as an erroneous value.

I think he is gaming the system. I mean his mpg number is 42 times greater than the rest of the herd.

It just doesn't mean anything.

-AC

[pinballlooking]

Yes I agree with you.

But I think the thing that he says that is very important is no range loss.
He runs almost totally on the battery and charges alot but still gets the same range with more that 80K EV miles on the battery pack.

Water cooled battery pack is doing very well.
Now that is worth talking about.

[Roostre]

Have a Volt myself. Used '13 with fairly low miles. I am commuting 36-37 miles round trip on just the EV. Here's my stats so far:



Love this car so far.

BTW- we also have a Leaf. And, yes we are really wanting to do a solar project at some point.

[pinballlooking]

Congratulations on the Volt.
I would love to hear you comparison/thoughts between the leaf and the Volt

We did 88 EV miles today with our Volt.

[Roostre]

Originally Posted by pinballlooking

Congratulations on the Volt.
I would love to hear you comparison/thoughts between the leaf and the Volt

We did 88 EV miles today with our Volt.

The Volt opened our eyes to the viability of owning an EV. Like most Americans, we probably overestimated how much we actually drive. A few weeks with the Volt not using any gasoline was a true paradigm shift.

My expectations prior to driving the Volt were low. Econo-box offerings from GM have not had the best build quality. My intention was to test drive the thing and check it off my list. But, the Volt is so good that it won me over completely. Comfort, check. Torque, check. Nice amenities, check. This economy car is really a Cadillac in disguise. Good ride, good handling. Very impressed. So I bought one. No regrets.

The Leaf is a different animal. It's mission is different. It is a light, quick nimble street fighter. It's quicker than the Volt (which is impressive from 0-30) and more fun to drive. Both cars seem to lull the driver into a relaxed state that surely helps lower blood pressure in heavy traffic. The range is sufficient, but it is always in the back of your mind. A little more range would take this platform to another level. I can see these evolving into the next classic along the lines of the original VW bug.

When we travel together around town we take the Leaf 95% of the time. It's a great run-around, grocery getter, errand runner. It's also very comfortable. The seats are outstanding. My wife's previous car was a 2003 TDI. I could not drive it more than 10 minutes before the seats caused me discomfort.

We do worry a little more about the Leaf's battery life. With no cooling system it has had some issues in hotter climates. Using Leaf Spy I can see that our Leaf battery has 86% health left. Not bad at 27,500 miles. If it follows the postulated curve for Li-Ion chemistry in our climate, I believe the car will remain viable for our use for at least 5 more years. Ours has the ChadeMo quick charger, which makes emergency fill ups around town easy and fast. Around SLC there are 5 or 6 located in fairly convenient places.

I hope that was what you were asking for. The Leaf and the Volt are both quality offerings. We enjoy them both for different reasons and they compliment each other perfectly. The next step is to install solar so we can drive on the sun like you do!