Ask Me about Your Volt

It’s a boxy, snub-nosed little bastard, with roughly the rear visibility of a Mercury space capsule. But Chevrolet’s Volt is plenty slick, in its way.

The one I’ve just strapped to my back in New York City is Silver Ice Metallic with four leather-appointed bucket seats and a pair of seven-inch LCD displays on a dash arrayed with twoscore buttons and dials by which one can access the onboard DVD player, the satellite radio, the built-in nav, and the “Driver Information Center.” This last gives you a real-time graphic representation of the distribution of operating power among the Volt’s 288 lithium-ion battery cells, its electrohydraulic regenerative brakes, and the geologic pesto of processed Paleozoic carrion that folks in the flyover states call “gasoline.”

Those regenerative brakes, which are augmented with good old-fashioned “Oh, %&#!” anti-lock discs, are spongy and take some getting used to. The blind spots are more like blind blotches. And the driver’s seat accommodates a 6̋ʹ2″ buffet enthusiast like this reporter only at the expense of the circulation in the rear passenger’s lower extremities. But the Volt is tight and responsive through turns. Its 149-horsepower (that is, 111-kW) Voltec electric motor considerably overachieves, since it requires no transmission and therefore delivers its 273 foot-pounds of torque all at once. After barely a few miles at cruising speed I figure I could get used to this. It sure beats my usual ride — a dun-colored ’94 Cherokee with a failing transfer case — if for no other reason than that its right rear bumper isn’t held on by duct tape. Oh, and it is quiet. Ghost quiet. U-boat-full-of-mutes-in-cotton-booties-coasting-through-an-ocean-of-mineral-oil quiet.

Then he spends twice as much space lamenting that he can’t find recharge points while on a long trip

It's a valid thing to research and report; when you pay $40K for an EV you want it to work as an EV and not as a lawnmower. Scarcity of public charging stations is a problem of growth, but it's a problem nevertheless.

while never mentioning that exactly what makes the Volt better than the Leaf is that you can utilize gasoline on long trips.

He did mention that. Most of his trip was on gasoline, and he reported the mileage to be 40 mpg (premium.) [A Prius would give you at least 50 mpg on regular gas.]

when the whole point of the Volt is to charge at home and never need public charging stations.

This is a debatable statement to make. Perhaps if you live in North Korea, where you aren't allowed to leave the city, you can indeed ride around in a golf cart and you will be OK. However everyone who I know takes long trips quite frequently - sometimes even involuntarily (when family members call and ask for something that you can't refuse.) Cars, as they are today, are universal vehicles. A car can take you to work, all of five miles, but after work a call from wife can send you on a trip of 100 miles because (insert any reason here.) We do not plan our life around cars - they are our servants, always waiting for orders and always ready to carry us, non-stop, pretty much anywhere.

Cars like Leaf - and in part like Volt - are undermining this freedom. Now they are becoming new tamagotchi, things that need care and feeding. But don't we already have enough of those?

Cost-wise, modern EVs (Volt and Leaf) offer negative savings over the estimated lifetime of the car. The savings are trickling in so slowly that the car will become dust and rust before you break even. Do not forget, you are investing $40K that you could have invested differently, with interest. A car doesn't pay you an interest.

I personally would love to have an electric car. But it has to be a real car - one that can go for a few hundred miles, one that can be recharged in minutes, one that can hold the charge pretty much forever, and one that costs reasonable money. That's what today's gasoline cars do. As soon as an EV meets these requirements I will be glad to buy one. Until then, these are just toys. The technology is simply not ready.

“However, at $50,000+, its a no-go for me.”

Why do you feel the need to exaggerate ? The MSRP on a Volt is $39,146 not OVER $50,000.

The purchase price is only part of the total cost of a vehicle. If you drive 40 miles per day between commuting and lunch and errands, you could expect to save $100/mo in fuel costs as the difference between $4/gal gas and $0.10/kwh electricity compared to a 40mpg gas-only vehicle. So you need to adjust the price of the vehicle by the amortization value of $100/mo savings. Did you do that ? Fuel savings over a ten year lifespan makes it equivalent to a $27,000 gasoline vehicle, not a $50,000+ vehicle. Then subtract the $2,000 you won’t be spending on oil and filter changes and mileage engine services over that ten year period and it becomes the equivalent of a $25,000 gasoline vehicle. Did you add that into your cost comparison ? With the $7,500 tax credit the Volt is the equivalent of a $18,000 gas vehicle, but even without that credit any honest comparison would compare it to gasoline vehicles in the $25K price range and not the $50K range.

Did the writer correct the two old farts at the end of the article by telling them the car saves so much money on fuel costs and maintenance that it is really equivalent to a $25K conventional sedan and not for “rich people” ? No, because he’s a fool who can’t do basic math and/or is happy to perpetuate misinformation that supports his prejudice against the Volt. Kind of like some people around here.

Right now you’re thinking about the battery replacement cost after ten years. Today a 16KWH pack is about $8K, but the cost of LiFe batteries has come down by half in the last five years and ten years from now it will likely be under $4K for the Volt battery pack. Compare that to the cost — including labor — of dropping a new engine, cooling, and emissions system into a typical Chevy midsize sedan after ten years and 150K miles. (That’s a valid comparison as a new equivalent Malibu is about $25K and it will be a worthless POS after ten years.) Heck it cost me $2K to have a timing belt and blown head gasket and block truing done 15 years ago ! Ten years from now, a complete engine replacement is going to cost more than a complete Volt battery replacement.

“[A Prius would give you at least 50 mpg on regular gas.] “
So a Prius can regularly achieve $0.09 per mile, while the Volt cost $0.11 per mile on long trips and $0.025 on short trips. Clearly vehicle choice depends on your mix of driving. Although the writer is honest enough to mention the quiet, handling and solidity of the Volt — something Prius is not noted for.

“Cars like Leaf - and in part like Volt - are undermining this freedom. “

True of the Leaf, but how is it true of the Volt ? With gasoline usage immediately and seamlessly available, how has your freedom of usage been limited in any way ? By the psychological impact of knowing you could be driving at a lower cost per mile if only you could do it all electric ? The Volt is, as you said, a “universal vehicle” just as it is, while the Leaf is definitely limiting.

You say the savings “trickle in”, but actual owners are reporting a net reduction in monthly fuel costs of $100/mo. That isn’t a “trickle”. Over a ten year ownership, that is a $12K cost advantage, making the Volt cost equivalent to a $28K conventional vehicle even before other savings such as oil, filter and other engine maintenance costs. TCO is similar to a $25K conventional vehicle even without any tax credit.

A writer who was doing true “research and reporting” would mention this fact, and not slant two pages to the lack of public charging stations in an unfamiliar city after a long trip. That is unbalanced reporting, surely ? An actual owner would charge at home, not waste time looking for charging stations like a Leaf owner would be forced to do.

True of the Leaf, but how is it true of the Volt ? With gasoline usage immediately and seamlessly available, how has your freedom of usage been limited in any way ?

Psychologically, just as you surmised. Wouldn't it pain a normal person who knows the value of money that he paid $20K for an electric drive but can't use it? I can understand doing it in emergency, but doing it daily for half of your trip to work is not very appealing.

Unfortunately after 10 years of use the main (traction) battery in Volt (and in any other hybrid, actually) will be dead. Prius' battery costs about $3K today, new from the factory. But Volt's battery reportedly costs about $18K. even if we imagine that the cost will drop down to $12K in ten years (something that did NOT happen with Prius' batteries) you are left with zero savings. But a gas tank in a regular car will be as good as new.

On top of that you incur the opportunity cost. The $20K that you could have invested would become $32,600 after 10 years at 5% interest. This means you not saved $12K on a Volt but lost about the same $12K.

The actual loss would be less than that because gas for your other car still needs to be bought, reducing that sum. If we say that you spend $1,200 per year on gas then after investing $20K under 5% and taking $1,200 yearly you will still have $17K left. That's the value of deferred payments. You do not want to pay for gas ten years in advance.

Also about savings on engine wear. As I understand, the gas engine in Volt runs all the time at freeway speeds if the battery charge is less than a certain amount. It also runs periodically to circulate the fuel. So it would be naive to expect no need to service its fuel and oil systems. Furthermore, it is well known that small engines wear faster.

To summarize, Volt requires $40K up front and after 10 years it needs a new battery, negating all savings on fuel. If you buy a generic car for $20K and invest the difference you will enjoy free gas (similar to Volt!) *and* end up with a tidy sum of $17K that you can use to buy your next vehicle. A Volt driver will have nothing saved.

There is yet another issue with Volt. It delivers those savings only on electric power. If you charge only once, at home, you can't drive more than 30 miles daily. This limits your savings quite a lot. As we calculated earlier, 10 cents per mile is a reasonable number to expect from a modern car (a hybrid helps but is not required.) So you can "burn" not more than $3 per day in gasoline that you don't buy; but you use about $1 to charge your car daily. So the savings end up being about $2/day, or $60/mo. I'm unsure where the figure of $100/mo comes from, but apparently you need to work hard (and drive far, and charge at work) to make it happen.

I want to stress again, I am not against EVs in principle. I am only against products that don't make sense.

You have skewed all of your numbers just enough to convince yourself.

“Psychologically, just as you surmised. Wouldn’t it pain a normal person who knows the value of money that he paid $20K for an electric drive but can’t use it? I can understand doing it in emergency, but doing it daily for half of your trip to work is not very appealing. “

Half their daily driving ? So they regularly drive 80 miles per day ? OK, so they burn one $4.50 gal of gasoline and $1 electricity. That is $5.50/80 = $0.0685 per mile compared to a Prius at 9 cents per mile or a typical mid-size sedan at 15 cents per mile. I don’t see the buyer’s remorse as this guy drives down the road — I see him smiling all the way to the bank.

“Unfortunately after 10 years of use the main (traction) battery in Volt (and in any other hybrid, actually) will be dead. Prius’ battery costs about $3K today, new from the factory. But Volt’s battery reportedly costs about $18K. even if we imagine that the cost will drop down to $12K in ten years (something that did NOT happen with Prius’ batteries) you are left with zero savings. But a gas tank in a regular car will be as good as new. “

In your regular vehicle, after driving 150,000 miles over ten years, the engine will be dead. How much will it cost to replace ? You are equating the battery with the gas tank, but that is incorrect. The gas tank would compare to the heavy power cables in the Volt, as a carrier of energy and not where it is converted into motive power. You need to compare the battery to the big expensive component that will wear out in a conventional vehicle. The AC electric motor has only a single moving part and will out last the vehicle, being still as good as new after 150,000 miles. And what report did you get $18K as the Volt battery cost from ? GM executive Lauckner scoffed when somebody suggested $16K and said it was half that already. Lauckner expected the second-generation battery pack to cost $4K ($250/kwh). That seems reasonable considering the cost for the cells themselves has already fallen to $400/kwh.

“On top of that you incur the opportunity cost. The $20K that you could have invested would become $32,600 after 10 years at 5% interest. This means you not saved $12K on a Volt but lost about the same $12K. “

You are double counting. An equivalent gasoline vehicle is not $20K it is $25K. The Volt is not simply an electric version of the Cruze. The Cruse is a noisy tin can of an econobox, traits completely unlike those attributed to the Volt. They may begin on the same platform, but in terms of features, handling, ride quality, etc. stepping up from a Cruze to a Volt is like the difference between a Suburban and an Escallade. When you spend an extra $12K on fuel compared to the Volt, and an extra $2K on engine maintenance, you’ve spent $39K total over ten years. But we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. TCO has been calculated by reputable sources that figure in all of these costs. They show the Five-Year TCO of the Volt at $39,667 and an equivalent Cruse LTZ at $38,214. That is a $16K operating cost they are assigning to the Malibu over five years and only $8K for the Volt (they include the $7.5K tax credit obviously). Extending to ten years, the Volt will cost $47K and the Cruze $54K. Replace the battery in one and the engine in the other, and the Cruze was still more expensive. Take away the tax credit, and the Cruze was still more expensive.

“Also about savings on engine wear. As I understand, the gas engine in Volt runs all the time at freeway speeds if the battery charge is less than a certain amount. It also runs periodically to circulate the fuel. So it would be naive to expect no need to service its fuel and oil systems. Furthermore, it is well known that small engines wear faster.”

The battery management system in the Volt is very conservative. It never uses more than two thirds of the charge to go its 40 miles. That is so the battery will be sure to outlast its ten year warranty. It could actually achieve 60 miles in an emergency. But the gasoline engine does not automatically run just because you are at freeway speeds. It only does that if the battery is below half charge, which means after 30 miles of freeway. As to small engines wearing faster, we are not talking about a two-stroke lawnmower engine here. We are talking about an engine more powerful than a VW Rabbit used, and that is never subjected to the variable loads of a regular car engine. I didn’t say it would never need oil and filter changes, just enough fewer to save $2K over a ten year period compared to a motive engine. Over a ten year lifespan, it will be in better shape than the engine in a little old lady’s car that still has only 30K miles after ten years.

“If you charge only once, at home, you can’t drive more than 30 miles daily.”

Ridiculous. GM is low-balling expectations when they advertise 35 miles. Have you read reviews of actual owners ? They all give average ranges in the 45 mile range, dipping below 40 only under extreme conditions of weather or hill climbing.

“As we calculated earlier, 10 cents per mile is a reasonable number to expect from a modern car (a hybrid helps but is not required.)”

We calculated that for what non-hybrid “modern car” ? The Cruze LTZ is 30mpg overall, which is 15 cents per mile at $4.50 gas. 10 cents per mile (45mpg) is only available from real sub-compacts that will rattle the teeth out of your head, not from any comparably solid and quiet mid-size sedan.

“I’m unsure where the figure of $100/mo comes from, but apparently you need to work hard (and drive far, and charge at work) to make it happen. “

Not at all. A single home charge is over the 40 mile range, that is $6/day for the Cruze vs. $1.50 to charge the Volt. That is a $4.50/day advantage and yields $100/mo savings with 22 days of commuting per month.

“I want to stress again, I am not against EVs in principle. I am only against products that don’t make sense.”

You keep saying that, but then you believe the disinformation of the bashers and dismiss the experiences of actual owners, GM engineers, and impartial reviewers like Consumer Reports, Vincentric, etc.

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