Hagen Brothers farms,Goodrich ND | Lots of BS in this story, the guy had an agenda to make the Volt look as bad as possible, kind of like the crap mighty Government / UAW motors used to discredit the Prius which has more than 1000,000 very successful full hybrids on the road in North America, 2.5 million world wide..
According to GM, the Hummer is more ECO friendly than a Prius. ;-)
GM wouldnt lie, so did you know that at less than 90,000 miles the Prius was going to suddenly turn into a heap of toxic Nickle dust and that the car would have no chance or value to recycle , while the Hummer would run flawlessly for 300,000 miles without even an oil change, then have huge recycle value that would kick in, as the used parts guys were tearing at each other to get every one of those pristene 300,000 mile hummer parts.
Canada must be different, because a yellow cab CO in BC has over 600,000 miles each,on a fleet of 2005 Prius, with most making over 400.000 miles on the first hybrid battery. Which by the way, is fully rebuildable and reciclable into a new battery.
http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110125/bc_olsen_...
Also, until the EPA made them correct it with honest numbers, did you know the Volt was said by GM to make 230 MPG ;-) Just last week, the empty head of GM / Chevrolet said he would not be caught dead in a Prius.
Pretty good odds he is right, while he has a far better chance of being caught dead and cremated in a Volt, considering the battery fire problems. ;-)
Now to be fair about that Fox smear story.
"Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh batery is approximately 270 miles. It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph."
Now why would you add the recharge time to the travel time ? Good grief,the car is a plug in hybrid, it can run on battery or gas power, just drive home on gasoline and recharge the battery the next night. Also this jerk did not mention that a recharge takes 10 hours if you only have 120V avalible. On the 240V charger it takes half that long. In a few years, 240V charging stations should be pretty common in every town.
Also the Volt will average around 35 mpg on gas unless your a real leadfoot, not 30.
I would like to know where this guy is buying electricity for over $1 per kwh ? Here in central ND I pay 8 cents regular and 4 cents "off peak" for 1 kwh.
I have been told that most Volts go for right at $40K, one at 46K would likely have lots of option toys that the $15,000 converntional car would not have.
Plus, like it or not, the government wants to encourage the use of plug in hybrids and full electric cars, so they offer a $7000 tax credit at this time on the Volt or the Leaf, so that also evens up the price difference.
There are enough Prius full hybrids on the road that the government has not needed to offer any tax incentives on them since 2008.
With todays battery technology, I see the full electric as pretty much a city car only, while the plug in hybrid will make long trips if it must, due to the gas engine that can take over when the battery is used up.
With todays poor battery capacity, a plug in hybrid must be a compromise. The plug in hybrid can never be optimized for either electric or gas engine use. When it is running on battery, it is carrying the dead weight of a non operating gas engine and fuel tank radiator, etc, when it is running on gas, it is carrying the dead weight of a overly large, near dead battery, plus you lose one rear passenger seat(center) on the Volt to the big "T" shaped battery.
Until batteries improve, that is about the best they can do.
Edited by Jon Hagen 2/25/2012 21:09
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Chevy Volt Cost analysis one mans opinion
