On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:24:26 -0500, Jon Elson
wrote:

whoyakidding wrote:


I'm considering buying a Chevy Volt.
OK, will you mostly be doing short drives and then recharging from
the line?

Plenty of shorter drives and charging at least partly from solar
panels I'll install.

If so, the cost to operate it looks really good! If you
will be going more than 28 miles or so on a typical day's driving
before recharging, then it starts to look really bad, and many
cars on the road will actually do BETTER! It appears the Volt gets
about 26 MPG on gasoline.

CR got 37 combined if I remember right. I'm reading expect 35 and
sometimes get 40 on trips. Example:
http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread....rst-Long-Drive Don't
forget that some fuel only reports won't include recharge while
driving.
http://www.plugincars.com/chevy-volt...es-107176.html
http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread....Normal-D-vs.-L I
saw a report of high 20s that once adjusted for recharge equaled high
30s.

Take a look at the Honda Civic Hybrid. I get over 50 MPG in mixed
city/hwy driving. I just did an 1100 mile round trip to a conference,
with 600+ Lbs of junk in the car (plus me) and going 70 MPH on the highway
in beastly heat, I got 46 MPG. If I ran a bit slower with less weight,
I'd get 49 or so. The HCH is a LOT cheaper than the Volt.

The Volt outweighs the Civic by about 30% but is quicker. Apples and
oranges. Anyway a large part of my theory here is that I don't want to
merely do what's cheapest for me.