Alexandra, I was agreeing with everything you said until the nuclear plant comment. Spent fuel doesn't make us any more susceptible to a rogue attack. A nuclear bomb requires enriched uranium, we are far more at risk from unstable countries like Iran "losing" some of their enriched uranium. There hasn't been a significant nuclear accident in the US in decades. Nuclear plants in the US are built to last and very rarely have problems, considering there are 104 of them in the country. Furthermore new technologies are being developed to re-use the spent fuel rods, as well as make plants safer. And then there's fusion, if we can ever get it to work correctly.

Solar, geothermal, and wind are all great resources, but they consume large areas of land to be effective. Nuclear plants run cheap and are not overly large. Until someone revolutionizes solar panels, I'm perfectly happy using nuclear over coal and oil.

Wilhelmina thank you for the advice - can you use another analogy though? I am a vegan, so no eggs in my life!

i'm guessing a go getter like you likes to jump quickly off the red light - here's my best tip for getting optimal gas mileage: pretend there's an egg on the accelerator and when you press down you can't break it. Not sure if it's uncooked or hardboiled, but the idea is the same - be gentle! i bet your mileage will improve tremendously.

RP Scott, I agree with Keith that nuclear is not the way to go to mitigate greenhouse gases, because we are instead generating lots of nuclear waste - stuff with a half life of thousands of years which seeps into the groundwater. Currently, we have not found any way to safely store any of this material, and its generation makes us all vulnerable to a rogue nuclear bomb. As someone who has protested vigorously at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant (it is built near a fault line, folks.), I am not one of those greenies who thinks nuclear is the answer to our energy problems - I think it creates many, many more.

RP Scott, I do hope you get a Volt, but I hope you power it with solar instead. There is a reason that insurance companies refuse to insure nuclear power plants and the government has had to step in to cover them: if something goes wrong, it can go very, very wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...mnity_Act.

Why not rely on the sun instead, which isn't (yet) run by a monopoly of corporations, which delivers cleaner energy more effiiciently than anything else and which is not a dwindling or dangerous resource.

Alexandra

Tp Steve F, Yep it even gets cold in sunny Southern California! That photo was actually my first drive in a Volt - in a Long Beach parking lot with other EV1 drivers last winter. The temperature has remained constant since I have been driving my Volt - probably a daytime average of 70 degrees and my garage stays warm too with 2 cars charging throughout the chillier nights. So I havent had an opportunity to personally observe the effects of temperature on my range. However, at the Volt MeetUp last week, I interviewed several Consumer Advisory Board members http://www.gmvoltcab.com/ and it seemed like in December's colder weather the Volt could lose 10 miles of range. And that wasn't East Coast cold, either, so I imagine there is more range loss with lower temperatures.

I try not to use air conditioning, but sometimes (especially on my way to an audition) I turn it on. Have never noticed a huge drop in range with my all electric RAV, but that is probably because I never blast it for long periods.

So far, I have kept all internal temp regulators in the car OFF. But living here, I am fortunate that way. Other Volt drivers in the less mild parts of the United States will have more experience with trange fluctuations and temperature.

Alexandra

Alexandra

HI Keith,

Your comments are good - I hate it when people ignore the energy used to make electricity, as plugging in does take energy from a grid, unless one has solar panels (and even then, well to wheels, solar panels used energy when they were manufactured). I would have been guilty of this had I been measuring greenhouse gases put into the air and not included what my power plant contributed. However, in this post, I was simply examining my gasoline usage and my electricity usage.

For the record, I do not have solar panels on my condo (having been denied several times by the homeowners' association), but I do buy 'green power' from the LA DWP, which is wind, hydro and geothermal. These are also not completely clean (what is?), but they are markedly better than the US electricity grid, which contains over 50% coal. HOWEVER, if you read Sherry Boschert's excellent book "Plug In Hybrids, the Cars That Will Recharge America" (available at www.PluginAmerica.org) you will learn that, even when charging off a powerplant which is 100% coal, an electric car is not dirtier than using gasoline (in that instance, it is about the same in terms of greenhouse gas emissions). Luckily, there are few plants in the US like that. In the 70s after the oil crisis, we stopped using oil in our power plants. I think less than 2% of our electricity is from oil nationwide.

One thing to remember is that driving electric is not only about pollution (although that is the most important reason to me). It is also about :
-National security (electricity means fewer unsavory alliances with oil rich nations and fewer oil wars);
-Peak Oil (I believe the world has already reached Peak Oil and that we are having an increasingly hard time accessing oil reserves. Google Richard Heinberg or www.RichardHeinberg.com );
-Cost (with Peak Oil comes higher gasoline prices)
-Autonomy for the Little Guy (when we have the choice to power our car from our own roof, oil companies have less power over us and the political system)

I will start keeping track of the power I use to charge my car. It is on my house meter (whereas our other car, a RAV 4 EV pure electric, has its own meter) so it will be more challenging.

Thanks for the input - I enjoyed reading all the posts.

Alexandra

Steve,

Good question. The Volt has a very efficient HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system that is designed to use less battery power to extend your range. On cold days, it requires as much energy to heat the interior as it does to warm the battery and one of the reasons electric vehicles get a shorter range in the winter is because the battery is used to power a resistive heater to produce warm air to warm the cabin - engines produce plenty of waste heat that do that.

With the Volt, the gas engine can turn on when it is cold to generate some extra heat and electrical energy for things like defrosting the windows. You can also use the OnStar MyLink mobile app or the MyVolt.com Web site to remote start the car and warm the cabin when the car is still plugged in.

For hot weather performance, check out this video we did of hot weather testing in Yuma, Arizona. Hope that helps: http://www.chevroletvoltage.co...d=3&id=194

Doug Wernert
Chevrolet VoltAge Community Manager

Thanks Philip. That's exactly the information I was talking about. That confirms that even with the cost of electricity the Volt still beats everything on the market for cost of operation.

WVhybrid, those are great reasons for buying the Volt but unfortunately not enough people hold your same sentiment as proven by the number of soccer moms driving SUV's.
People want to think believe they make a difference but most are not willing to make the sacrifice when it comes down to it.
Dollars can be a real motivator, if they can supply a real usable car that gets double the equivalent milage of other cars that will get people yo buy and in the end will help your cause too.

If your goal is to increase jobs in the US and reduce the number of American soldiers who come home in body bags, then calculating MPG based on gasoline usage is very appropriate.

I just turned over 1,000 miles on my Volt #104; 6.3 gallons of gasoline for a gross mpg of 158.7;
I did 240 miles on gasoline, so that is 38 mpg on gas alone.
I did 760 miles on electricity (So. Cal. - mostly nuclear or hydroelectric...) I pay about 10 cents per hour for my electricity and it charges about 4 miles per hour. That means I spent $19.00 for my electricity. Assuming $3.45 per gallon, that's the equivalent of buying 5.5 gallons of gasoline. So I so spent $40.73 or the equivalent of 11.8 gallons to go 1,000 miles. That works out to a cost equivalent of 85 mpg is terms of cost. I'm satisfied...

Heat does not affect the energy in a battery! Cold reduces the number of amps! To show how this works just try this test, leave your car outside in subzero weather but remove the batery and take into your house. In the morning install the battery and watch how EASILY its starts the car. NO grinding!! :) I used to do this 40 years ago, works like charm! Go Volt, Go Chevy, Go America!

Hey Jeff, it's not that I'm not satisfied. It's just that her car didn't do those miles on gas alone. It did 577 miles on gas alone and 1395 on electricity alone. I'm not saying it's still not better than gas vehicles. But let's talk about the real energy used to produce thus mileage.
I love electric vehicles, but if we keep leaving part of the energy out of the equation we are never going to convince the naysayers.
Where I live electricity runs about 13 cents /kwh with taxes and delivery charge.
Let's find out how many kw it took to charge the vehicle and have all the info.
The fact is that her fuel economy should be calculated on the portion that she traveled while using fuel.
What if she gets towed around by a truck for the next 2000 miles? Are we going to double her fuel economy? No, because she didn't use fuel to travel that distance.

I'm not against the Volt, I think it's one if the most exciting things in the automotive world in a very long time. Let's just make our descisions with all the information needed.
Let's have all the energy consumed to travel the distance covered.
If the car is as good as we all think it is then why hold back.

You're wearing gloves. Does the car have an effective/efficient heater?
How about A/C for summer?

See you have gloves on. How's the heater perform in cold weather? Or more so for us in warmer climates, how do you think the A/C unit will work once the car heat-soaks to 120F?

When can we get Chevrolet Volt in Norway?

Hey, RP Scott that's great that you guys have a surplus if power but it's hardly emissions free. That plant doesn't run itself. Think if all the people who work and service that plant. Think if the emissions from the manufacturing of the plant. Cement is one of the biggest offenders. All of the emissions created to make that happen need to be considered.
Nothing is emission free, even solar panels have emissions during manufacture and installation.
One great thing about this is that it reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

Hey Keith..I suppose it is all in how you look at it...bottom line she paid for 15.6 gallons of fuel to go 2000 miles... bet you can't say the same about your ride for the last 2000 miles! Kilowatt electricity is dirt cheap right now providing a huge savings over the fossil fuel you used in your car the last 2000 miles.Nice post Alexandra! Some folks will never be satisfied....

Okay, so you burned 15.6 gallons of fuel to travel 1926 miles? No, you only traveled 577 miles on that fuel. That's a little over 36 miles to the gallon. That's your gasoline efficiency.
How many kw if electricity did you charge the car with to drive the other 1395 miles? How much fossil fuel was burned to produce that power? How much did the power cost you?
I love the Volt, I think it's a great idea but we need to know all the details if this idea is going to take off.
Try to keep track of how much power you're using to charge the car.

I'm seriously considering a Volt. One advantage we have here in San Luis Obispo County, CA is that we have the unusual benefit of an electric surplus. We as a county generate more electricity than we use, by a wide margin. The big contributor (and primary electric provider) to that being the ZERO emission Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant. So, my Volt would be if ran on all electric totally emissions free! Beat that greenies!

Anthony, solar powered vehicles use energy. What is wrong with using energy? That's how you power things...including your own body. Congrats to all the Volt drivers for helping reduce America's dependency on foreign oil. It may be a decade late with a less efficient battery (compared to the EV1)...but it's a great re-start.

My next and last car will be electric.

My next and last car will be all electric.

I charge my Volt with the solar panels on my garage roof. FREE energy from the sun.

ya look like ya did all 2000. miles at once witha case of red bull!lol

You feel guilty about burning gasoline? What about when you plug in the Volt? You do know that is using energy also

Picking up my VOLT Tomorrow!

AWESOME post. I love this new car, am anxiously watching the market develop. Definitely hope my next car purchase is of this GM technology.