Comments on: One Year With My Chevy Volt

By: charlotte.landeros

charlotte.landeros — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 13:44:00 +0000

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By: pjkPA

pjkPA — Thu, 22 May 2014 03:01:00 +0000

My first year cost me less than $275 for fuel electricity and maintenance… I’ve had my Volt for a year and a half now and still have only been to a gas station once and total maintenance has been one tire rotation $12.. no oil changes… and I estimate in my gas car I would have gone to a gas station over 50 times… I’m saving over $1,000 per year. I have a wattmeter on the charger so I know exactly how much the car is costing me. I paid $22,900 for my Volt and that was before the $5,000 price reduction… you can buy a Volt now for under $20K after all incentives. The ride and other benefits of the electric drive are better than any gas car… and I really liked my V8 vehicles… but this Volt is much better than any V8.. I still like my ICE car .. but find I drive my Volt 99percent of the time… it’s just more relaxing.. the smooth quiet power still amazes me.

By: Dave M

Dave M — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:41:00 +0000

Bob, I also own a Prius. A 2006 to be exact. I bought it in 2005 when my work had me commuting through tunnels and over bridges, and I figured it would save me a bundle. It did. My fuel bill dropped from 100.00 a week to under 30.00 a week. That is a substantial savings for sure. Then my work location changed. I now drive to a different compound to pick up my work truck, and I no longer have to sit in bumper to bumper traffic, which is the only place a hybrid, such as the Prius really makes any sense. You see, Hybrids really only save gas in stop and go traffic when they can shut off the gas engine and run on electric power. My new location requires me to drive 1 mile from my house, then 15 miles on the freeway, and about .5 miles from the freeway to work, reverse on the way home. So my gas bill shot up to about 40.00 per week. Still very reasonable compared to the gas guzzler I drove before, but I wanted more. Remember the gas guzzler, well my wife was still driving that. When she was a stay at home mom, all she used it for was taking the kids to school, and going to the store. Then she decided to go back to work, so now she too is commuting, and the gas bill quickly climbed to 100.00 a week on that car again.
So, enter the volt. Paid 40,000 after trade in, and govt. rebate.
I put no gas in it for my mostly urban driving to and from work, and all my running around, and have put in a couple hundred of liters of gas for 3 road trips, one to Prince Rupert BC, another to Kelowna BC, and a 3rd to Medicine Hat Alberta. (that’s why I didn’t buy a Tesla, or a Leaf, as I need to go on trips from time to time and a full on electric just wouldn’t do it). My wife now drives the Prius, and she is using just over 40.00 a week in gas, so lets round it to 40.00 for comparison sake.
A new Prius runs in Canada about 26,000 before taxes. I paid 33,000 for mine 8 years ago incidentally, but lets figure this on the new list price. Assuming 40.00 a week in gas, which is what I put in mine, correction my wife’s Prius now, that is 2080 per year in gas. Over the live of the car, lets say 10 years, that adds up to 20,800 in fuel, plus the 26 grand for the car, 46,800 and I haven’t added taxes onto the car, now maintenance. I just put in 2,000 to get the brakes done on my current 8 year old Prius, but it was the first time the brakes have been done.
So in 10 years, the cost of the Prius, and gas is more than I paid for my volt.
My old car that I scrapped used about 100.00 in gas per week, which works out to about 5200.00 per year in fuel. Do the math, about 7.6 years to totally pay off the volt in fuel savings alone, as I am putting no gas whatsoever in my volt, except when I have gone on road trips, and I am not counting that fuel.
On average I drive about 220 miles per week, or 350Km.
Any way you add it up, the volt will save money over the long term, and incidentally, even when the car is 10 years old, there won’t be more than a few thousand actual miles on the gas engine, so that will still be like new. Incidentally. I have logged 40,000KM on my volt in 2 years which is about 12.5K miles per year.
I never considered a plug in Prius, or Ford plug in due to the way these cars operate. In both cases the engines start every time, and run through a warm up cycle, and then they switch to electric. The plug in Prius, which is 35 grand, can then only manage 11 miles on battery, and at speeds less than 52MPH, which means that on the freeway the gas engine is running, and even at lower speeds, you have to drive them like you are transporting nitro glycerine or the engine fires up, just like on my existing Prius, and the Ford plug in also fires the engine to warm up, and then it switches to electric. It can do 80 MPH on electric power, so I would get to work, but with a 20 mile range, I would be driving home on gas power, so that wasn’t the answer. The Volt is the only car that made any financial sense to me, and I didn’t buy a cheap one. Mine was 47,000 before my 5000 government rebate, and my 2000 trade in. An entry level in BC could have been had for about 37, and now with the price drop about 32,000 after the rebate here in BC. They make more sense then ever for anyone wanting to sit down and actually do the math.
Did I mention that the volt is a BLAST to drive. Unlike the Prius that spends it’s life in the slow lane, as it is gutless. The Volt has lots of ponies under the hood ready to be released. It moves along plenty fast enough for me. Not scary fast like a Tesla or Corvette, but it moves along more than fast enough for me.
In closing, the volt was an excellent decision for me. When the Prius dies I will buying my wife a full on electric car, such as a Chevy Spark EV, or a Nissan Leaf, as she will never need to buy gas with her short commutes, and having the volt I will always have a car that can go anywhere. A volt and a full electric is a great combination in a 2 car house, and over the long term they will pay for themselves, and it gets me off that f*&%ing oil, which is better for all of us, especially for those with clean generated electricity as we have here in BC.
For those that claim that coal generated electricity pollutes more, well it actually doesn’t, as it takes more electricity to move oil, and bitumen around from the ports and tar sands to the refineries, so that coal is burning weather you use the energy to charge your car, or to pump the oil to the refinery so you can put it in your tank.

By: Dennis Embry

Dennis Embry — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 06:05:00 +0000

As an owner of oil and gas property plus two electric cars and solar cells on our house, I marvel at the “j’ai acuse” silliness of fossil fuel apologists these postings who are shocked, just shocked, outraged and just indignant that alternative energy efforts have receive a penny of incentives from the federal, state and local governments. It’s just un-American for such efforts, and you know its only the hard-won private sector money that made America a fossil-fuel giant.

That is a nice illusion or paid distraction. Hey, I know. We checked off the special deductions in taxes for fossil fuels for years in in my family. And, I was happy to do so with the solar and electric cars. At least I am honestly consistent. The apologists for the Koch family herein are not. All of those fossil fuel raided the federal kitty to subsidize their efforts.

So, there is a simple remedy for this problem. Every single beneficiary who is so “outraged” —from posters here to the Koch brothers— of government tax incentives, tax breaks, or tax loopholes for fossil fuels is hereby invited to write checks back to the US, state and local tax payers. Gosh, those check would bail us out of the horrible deficits.

In case you don’t believe that we, in America, subsidized fossil fuels a lot more than any alternative energy is hereby invited to spend an evening on a computer reading things from a Google Search, “historic subsidies for oil and gas in the US.”

Am I unhappy about these? Yes and no. Those subsidies enabled the rise of modern America. Were they abused? Of course. The Koch family would not be rich except for the money they made off of Joe Stalin (just look up “Koch family and Stalin.”

Oh, BTW, both the Volt and Leaf (which we own) are fabulous cars. And Solar cells on top of the house are fantastic. At the maximum of electricity use during the summary, we paid on $24 — for the house, our office and to power our cars.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 18:42:00 +0000

Playing the skeptic-devil…

Seems like you should compare your Volt expense vs. a ~$20k Prius hybrid.

When I’ve run the numbers the Prius comes out a bit better for a 13k mile per year driver. But I haven’t run them since the Volt price dropped.

By: Dave M

Dave M — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 18:16:00 +0000

My answer to the question, am I saving money is a definite YES.
My old car easily sucked back 400 a month in gas if I was driving it like I drive the volt. (mileage wise) I used to try to avoid driving it because it was so thirsty.I bought my volt 2 years ago, a loaded model, 47,000.00 With my govt rebate and trade in it ended up 40,000.00 which is about what I paid for the previous car. I now go thousands of miles between fill ups. In fact in the past 1700 KM I have used 0.1 liters of gas!
My daily average commute is 55 KM, and in the warm weather I average 68 – 70 KM of range. In the cold weather it drops to around 50, so for the winter months, the engine runs a little more frequently. Since I purchased the car I have already saved over 7,000.00 in gas, and that is over 2 years. The way I figure it, in less than 10 years the entire price of my Chevy volt will be 100% recovered in saved fuel. For the skeptics that say I could have bought a cheaper car, that is true, but I would still be putting gas in it forever. My volt will be totally recovered in savings, and that is just the gas part. Maintenance costs are also substantionally less due to electric motors not requiring maintenance, brakes last much longer due to majority of stopping using regenerative braking. The engine oil only needs to be changed every 2 years and that is just due to age. Air filter doesn’t need changing, as it isn’t being used much. Very little maintenance other than rotating the tires.

By: Mark Renburke

Mark Renburke — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 12:24:00 +0000

“Compared to the Audi, I felt completely safe driving in white-out blizzards, freezing rain, and icy roads. It has the most responsive braking and steering system, comparable to any luxury car you may be driving. The Chevrolet Volt is packed with standard safety features…One of my most pleasant discoveries is how quiet this car is…The other discovery is great ‘pick-up’…enough power or speed to pass other cars driving in heavy aggressive traffic.”

So if all this is true (not to mention superior handling, ride, exterior and interior design and quality, and tech features) why do otherwise sympathetic authors fall into the trap (laid by anti-Volt media) of cost comparing the Volt to a base Chevy Cruze? Why not instead use an average of the base prices of entry level upscale/luxury cars? (Lexus/Lincoln/BMW/Benz, etc) Volt “break even”is basically day one, which is perhaps why so many defectors are from these brands. Oh, I forgot, Audi too!

By: Volt Owner

Volt Owner — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 06:16:00 +0000

You have a rare “Model T” version of the Volt with the ultra rare 11 gallon tank! The rest of us have the more common 9.3 gallon tank.

By: albaby2

albaby2 — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 11:50:00 +0000

Won’t admit your financial interests, eh. So you’re playing the Obama game? You believe in free speech as long as you are the one doing all the talking? You’re not talking down to a student, Mr. Professor. I can see that you believe in the free exchange of ideas. While people in your profession like to claim that those researchers that receive money from private firms are agenda biased, those that receive money from the government are not representing the governments agenda. ( of course we know that the governments agendas are all about good things for the masses)

Wasn’t it wonderful that the minute Al Gore discovered we were all going to die because of carbon based fuels,. he created the Chicago Carbon Exchange so polluters could continue to pollute as long as they paid a tribute to the CCE? ( The CCE would then heel in a few seedling trees in the Amazon Rain Forest and all would be good.)

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 16:00:00 +0000

What financial interest do I have in alternative energy?

If you stay on topic, are willing to support your claims, and play nicely you can stay.

By: albaby2

albaby2 — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 15:29:00 +0000

But of course.

By: albaby2

albaby2 — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 15:28:00 +0000

What name calling are you talking about? How about admitting you have a financial interest in alternative energy? Funny how the Climate change “scientists” claim those that counter their claims are deniers and are doing the bidding of Big Oil but never admit that their findings are doing the work their sponsors, Big Government, expected from them.
Deny that. Are the “Deniers” the phonies, or are you? I suppose, in true liberal fashion, you will try to have me banned from further postings?

By: agelbert

agelbert — Sat, 27 Jul 2013 04:23:00 +0000

Thanks for the LCA article on wind turbines. The EROEI on them goes up, according to Charles Hall, no friend of renewables, with MW size. They are now making 6 MW monsters so they must have an EPBT of a couple of a years or less. Also, remember that every country that makes wind turbines ALREADY has at least 15% and up to 100% renewable energy penetration of the electric grid. Electric arc furnaces can handle ALL the high temperature industrial steel processes, no fossil fuel run furnaces needed, thank you very much. So a percentage of the juice to make the turbine is already renewable energy.

Check out this eye opening chart!

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/assets/images/story/2013/5/16/1-large-penetration-of-renewable-energy-in-selected-markets.jpg

I wrote an article about how we really do have the ability to switch to 100% renewables even though it will involve some pain. Saving the climate for our descendants is worth it. My industrial model for this massive enterprise is the first mass produced ship, the Liberty Ships of WWII.

I posted it as a comment to an article on humanity’s dismal future at the Automatic Earth web site:

You will have to scroll down the comments to find it. It involves with a critique of a fossil fuel energy expert’s talking points after discussing her successful farming and 90% reduction in energy use:

Link here:

Open letter to Nicole Foss
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/Energy/widely-visible-symbols-of-human-folly.html
I discuss energy pay back time (EPBT) of wind turbines and PV as well. It’s long but it is well researched. If you like it, pass any part of it along with or without attribution. The main thing is to tell people the truth. All these critiques of wind turbines and PV leave out the massive amount of fossil fuels used each year to build and maintain internal combustion machines. It’s A LOT MORE ENERGY to build those high temperature alloy pigs than renewable energy machines. It torques me off that the ICE, which is 100% carbon in the hole when it is built, then proceeds to use more fossil fuels for 20 years or so. That’s horribly wasteful when you can build something that uses ZERO fossil fuel to generate electricity once it is manufactured. We just need to mass produce renewable energy machines like we did with the internal combustion engine and they will be cheap as dirt! Goodbye fossil fuel dependency!

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 16:41:00 +0000

“The energy balance of a wind power plant will show the relationship between the energy requirement over the whole life cycle of the power plant (i.e. to manufacture, operate, service and dispose) versus the energy generated by the wind power plant. This energy payback period is measured in months, where the energy requirement for the life cycle of the power plant equals the energy it has produced…..

For wind turbines the breakeven time of for instance a V80-2.0MW wind power plant is 8.6 months for low wind conditions. Over the life cycle of a V80-2.0MW wind power plant it will return 28 times more energy back to society than it consumed over its life cycle. So when 1 kWh is invested in a wind energy solution you get 28 kWh in return.”

http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/sustainability/sustainable-products/life-cycle-assessment/comparing-energy-payback-1.aspx

That same turbine placed in a high wind area can payback the energy invested in it in as little as three months. Something like an 80 kWh return for each kWh invested.

By: BeachbikerCA

BeachbikerCA — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 16:05:00 +0000

Duckweed! I was trying to remember the name of that while writing that last post… Thanks for that. Google is fairly useless these days for some reason– bloated and full of cheesey ads.

On other fronts… I was recently riding through eastern Oregon– naturally noticed all the wind turbines around there. Got curious regarding whether and how much of a net benefit wind power really is– i.e., since it begins life with a carbon deficit from the manufacturing, construction and other processes. Found one older study from Europe:

http://www.infra.kth.se/fms/utbildning/lca/projects%202006/Group%2007%20(Wind%20turbine).pdf

The good news, it does pay for itself over its life cycle. The other interesting info was the source of power used in construction– fossil fuels used lessen the overall efficacy, but hydro-power tends to maximize it… Your previous outline of EV’s charged even from FF sources having less of an impact than straight ICE’s was interesting.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 15:13:00 +0000

Amazingly wrong you are.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 15:10:00 +0000

No. Get back on the topic of clean energy and how we minimize climate change.

Any more name calling and you’re gone.

By: albaby2

albaby2 — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:51:00 +0000

It figures. You are someone who has never actually worked for a living, but expounded your theories and babble to young people at the taxpayers expense and under the guise of “academic freedom”. I’d bet you never had a position of responsibility where you were held accountable for anything. Period.

This site is about finding solutions for climate change? Is this part of your research? How much was your grant? You sound like a professional student.

By: albaby2

albaby2 — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:42:00 +0000

Now about the effects of the additional chemicals on land and water used to increase crop yield? The waste generated in the production of Ethanol? The air pollution? BTW, The New Energy Ethanol plant is not too far from me. It stinks to high heaven and so does the effluent it pours into the sewers. It went bankrupt when subsidies were decreased and is being fevived by another firm ( that will probably get the subsidies renewed) I don’t understand how you feel that subsidies and grants are not a cost of production. Do you feel the government is smarter than the investors? Why should investors invest in the development of new products when their government subsidizes their competition? Sure they too can apply for grants and subsidies but they also realize that results in obligations to the government and may not involve making a better product, but in deciding who they can hire etc. The amount of these “gifts” also involves returning part of the money to lobbyists and the politicians who gave them the taxpayers money.

By: albaby2

albaby2 — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:29:00 +0000

You mean that because I don’t agree with you, I should go away? I didn’t realize this was a mutual admiration society discussion. You sound like a liberal racist who labels everyone else a racist if they don’t agree with their every statement.