Prius Owners Most Likely to Go for the Chevy Volt

Electric vehicles are clearly the new kids on the block. Some people are more likely to make friends with new kids than others, as we all know. And, clearly, early adopters of the Prius hybrid are such people. Just as they led the way on hybrids, these drivers are now showing that they’re more likely to go make friends with a Chevy Volt than anyone else around. More from Gas2:

Former Prius Owners Turning To Chevy Volt (via Gas 2.0)

The Chevy Volt doesn’t get a lot of love from the right-wing, and Monday’s biased Reuters article claiming each Volt costs GM up to $49,000 certainly doesn’t help. But there is one group of car owners who are turning to the Volt in high numbers, and it is just the customer GM is hoping to attract…

Zachary Shahan (2293 Posts)

I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on some of your favorite social networks, go to zacharyshahan.com or click on some of the links below.

http://www.facebook.com/mark.brooks.12764 Mark Brooks

Makes sense, after all GM designed and built the Volt to beat the prius at its own game!
http://www.facebook.com/rebecca.pillonhash Rebecca Pillon Hash

As a H2 owner, and a Tahoe, the company I work for, Safelite, gave me a VOLT as a company car. Obviously, by my choice of personal vehicles, I am not a car fan, yet I told my boss in the event of a reduction in force, I want my VOLT as my severance package! I have driven everything form a toyota to a Porsche, and the VOLT rules by far!
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Awesome to hear! definitely sounds like an awesome car. that electric umph is a nice boost. (note: don’t test out a Tesla — you’ll probably be crying you don’t have one. )
Bob_Wallace

All you converts from Prius to Volt – is there anything/feature that you had on the Prius that you wish the Volt had?

If the Prius PHEV had come to market sooner do you think you would have stuck with the Toyota brand or switched anyway? (I can see the extra electric mileage causing some to switch, lower price causing some to stay.)
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  (silence…)
SLCVolt

My wife and I sold our Prius and bought a Volt in March. The Volt gave us the technology we always loved in our Prius, but allowed us to support American innovation, which is something we didn’t get with our Toyota. We love our Volt, and would not go back to the Prius now that we’ve made the switch.
http://www.facebook.com/ed.druschitz Ed Druschitz

./agree…. as a volt driver and a fiscal conservative / libertarian the volt makes more sense then any other car I test drove. I spent 8 months test driving anything with 35mpg claimed or higher, because I was tiered of spending 350-400 a month on gas….. the volt was the only nice car, that was also a hybrid…. its build quality / style are like nothing else in the hybrid / plug-in catagory. Also, if you spend long enough on the volt site, you will also see that a lot of former BMW and Audi owners now drive volts because the quality is close and they dont use nearly as much gas….
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  interesting point on the BMW / Audi drivers. & would love to see stats on that.
  - http://twitter.com/Kompulsa Kompulsa
    
    BMW build quality is not good, lol. That might partially explain it.
New Volt Owner

I traded my Prius for a Volt 2 months ago. I loved the Prius, but the Volt is more fun. My wife still has a Prius and I drove it the other day. I was amazed how sluggish it was compared to the Volt. I love the all electric drive and will have a hard time ever going back to a combustion-drive engine due to lack of throttle response and regular trips to gas station.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  it’s amazing to me that EV companies don’t promote that EV boost more. driving, for many people, is not just about practicality, but also enjoyment.
FASTMIKE

I am a new Volt leasee. What an amazing car. My other cars are a Solstice w ZOK package, TTRX7R1, and 97R package Miata. The Volt is a huge leap forward and I am a car guy that races.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  awesome to hear! love hearing the car guys rave about EVs.
http://twitter.com/voltdriver Volt Driver

The Volt is a natural progression for Prius owners. I am a Volt owner, and I was not impressed with the Prius, so GM is obviously expanding its audience with this car. If GM is going to be successful, however, it needs to go beyond the green message, and win over more conservatives with the ‘national security/reduction of imported oil/diversification of the transportation sector’ arguments.
http://voltowner.blogspot.com
- Transamdave
  
  I agree with you. Being in the auto industry, I tried to argue the Volt’s merits on a conservative blog site. I pointed out that it is the highest-tech car in the world and that America made it and that we should be proud, and that the effort started before Obama was even a candidate.
  One guy replied (almost verbatim) that since the government subsidized it [through the GM bailout] it was a POS. I was then banned from commenting further – interesting.
  That will be a hard one to get past.
  - Bob_Wallace
    
    It is so very strange the way allegiance to political party has made it necessary for some to damn the very things their party is suppose to promote.
    
    American made = POS
    Conserving energy = Not a conservative value
    
    It appears to me that Mitt is solidly on the way to defeat. The far-right wing will likely declare that the defeat was due to his not being a “true conservative” and will demand that the party mover further right.
    
    I suspect that if Mitt looses significantly in November then the corporate right will have had enough of trying to win elections based on an alliance of business, conservative religious and the “blinded by hate” factions. This is the last presidential election that can be won without gaining some significant non-white votes. Nixon’s
    “Southern strategy” has played itself out, there aren’t enough left who will vote on skin color.
    
    I suspect a lot of better candidates than Mitt sat this one out and are planing on an attempt to reconstitute the party more to the center by abandoning the far-right wing and appealing to the most right of center independents. They may well let the most extreme in the present Republican party drop off and form a third party.
    
    If that happens then we have a good chance of getting beyond climate change denial and anti-clean energy in our government and back to working together to solve problems.
    
    We can hope. We used to be able to disagree and still work together.
  - http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
    
    ridonkulous.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Definitely. It’s easy to sell to greens. But it’d be easy to sell to conservatives, too… if they tried.