whoyakidding wrote:


Plenty of shorter drives and charging at least partly from solar
panels I'll install.
This doesn't work. The Volt has an 18 KVA battery pack, I think.
To get 18 KVA from a set of solar cells, you'd need the roof space
of a good-sized commercial building. One face of a typical home
will get you a couple KW for a few hours a day, so MAYBE a halfway
charge overt a full day. A big enough solar cell array to perform a
full charge on one day might cost MORE than the car!

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.
37, 35, 40? Are these numbers range on electric power or MPG?
The MPG numbers I've seen INLCUDE powering it electrically until the battery
is depleted, THEN switching to gasoline, and counting the wall-power as
free!


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.
Yep, those batteries are heavy. But, my HCH experience is from 50K +
miles in one. I'm certainly a satisfied customer.

Jon