Archive for the ‘The Volt Experience’ Category
First 30 days with our Chevy Volt! 1,700 miles and VERY little gas burned…
September 16th, 2012
Posted in About Chevy Volt, Getting Started with Volt, The Volt Experience
Well it has been one full month now with our new Chevy Volt and so far the experience has been first rate! The biggest thing about owning this car of course is fuel efficiency and it’s a star on that front! We’ve driven the car exactly 1,700 miles in these 30 days, 1,248 of those miles on pure battery power. “Burning electrons” I like to say. To cover the other 452 miles we burned 11.9 gallons of gasoline. So, depending on how you prefer to calculate your MPG we are averaging over 140MPG overall or roughly 38MPG during those times we were actually burning gas. Not bad at all on either front I would say!
The cost to run this car doesn’t stop with gasoline usage of course, after all you do plug it in and recharge that big battery every night. But charging up the 16.5kwh battery in this car isn’t as expensive as you might think. Based on our electric power rates I estimate that a full charge on the battery would cost us about $1.25. That’s pocket change! And that pocket change can take us 45-50 miles and more! Remember too that it doesn’t need a “full from empty” charge every single night. Based on our use over the last month it looks like it will cost about $25-$30 each month for the power to keep this car charged. If our utility company offered special “Time of Use” rates as many others do, our cost for charging would be even lower.
So, our electric bill will go up a bit but when you compare that to how much our gasoline bill will go down the benefit is obvious. Comparing to what we would have spent driving the car we replaced with this Volt (2002 Nissan Maxima) it looks like we saved more than $200 in fuel costs this month! I like that. Read more
Chevy Volt gives 50+ miles on a charge. How to beat EPA estimates (38).
September 1st, 2012
Posted in The Volt Experience
“How far can you go on a full charge with your Chevy Volt?”
Good question, and one I have already been asked numerous times since we took delivery. The EPA estimates the answer to be 38 miles but even in normal driving around town I’ve found that is a remarkable underestimation of the car’s capabilities. So yesterday morning I had a prime opportunity to see what it could do. After using the Volt to take my boys to school and run a couple of quick errands I drove on to see just how far it would go.
What you see above is the 7″ screen which is part of the center console in the cockpit of this car. What it’s showing is the Volt’s tally for what happened since the last time it was fully charged (overnight). As you can see it shows that I was able to travel a total 52.7 miles on pure electric power! This trip started at my home and ended there as well, so any gains from going downhill were equally offset by the same rise in elevation to complete the trip. If you ask me, that is incredible! Read more
Dressing up the bowtie on our Chevy Volt, it had to be blue!
August 27th, 2012
Posted in The Volt Experience, Volt Modifications
Straight from the factory our new Chevy Volt was not well dressed, it really wasn’t! It came to us with bowties both front and back, but both of them were bicycle reflector gold. Not a good look and I know we can do better. So it was up to me…
Now as you see above we are now sporting a nice blue bowtie emblem on the Volt and I think it compliments the Blue Topaz Metallic color very nicely. Oh and there is a bonus too, the bowties are now reflective at night!
Here is a before and after comparison of the bowtie emblem on the tail end of the Volt. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course but I like it a lot better. Bit by bit we are getting closer to the well dressed Chevy Volt I’ve had in mind since we placed the order. All that’s left now is to add some tint to the glass, coming soon!
Here is a little sample of what the bowtie emblem looks like at night, lit up and reflective (normal next to illuminated). I like this touch on top of the color match, like icing on the cake!
If you are interested in just how I did this little modification, read on… Read more
First day trip with our new Chevy Volt, lots to like in this car!
August 20th, 2012
Posted in Getting Started with Volt, The Volt Experience
Three days into owning our new Chevy Volt and it’s time for a road trip. This will be an interesting jaunt which will give us a good sense of what this car can do on the road. It will be a (roughly) 200 mile round trip which means it will not be all on electric power.
On this day we planned to take a day trip to Cumberland Mountain State Park. For the trip we briefly pondered whether to take the new Volt or drive our second car, an older SUV. It was really not a hard choice at all since even when running on the gas generator for power, the Volt should give us double the fuel mileage of the SUV.
Decision made, we loaded up four of us in the Volt and headed out. This would be our first trip to this destination so first order of business was to get some directions. One simple touch of the OnStar button was all it took. In a moment we had an OnStar representative asking how she could be of help. We told her where we wanted to go and in a matter of seconds we were hearing first navigation direction over the car stereo while the instructions were also shown on the 7″ screen in the center console stack. Easy peasy!
So off we went and just as expected we made the first part of our trip on electric power alone. No gas (yet). Read more
Our 2013 Chevy Volt has arrived and it is gorgeous!
August 18th, 2012
Posted in Getting Started with Volt, The Volt Experience
It’s here, it’s here, it’s here! After more than two months waiting for the order to be filled our 2013 Chevy Volt has arrived and we love it. The guys at West Chevrolet were all ooooing and ahhhhing over the color. There are not as many being produced in the Blue Topaz Metallic as in the other available colors. I think it looks great too but I am a bit biased.
Jason at West Chevrolet has taken very good care of us throughout the whole process from order to delivery. Great communication and attention to details. I had asked for a number of somewhat picky points to be addressed and he didn’t miss a beat. One request was that they refrain from applying a dealer sticker to the back end of our new car. That’s always been a pet peeve of mine, you spend ten’s of thousand’s of dollars on a brand new vehicle and the dealer assumes you’ll be a rolling advertisement for them to boot? Sorry but no. Credit where credit is due, West Chevrolet was fine with that request and didn’t bat an eye. In Tennessee there are no front end license plates so I asked that they leave the front plate mount off. First car I have been able to do that with in a long, long time!
Last but not least, I asked them to mount some custom aftermarket wheels on the car before we would even see it for delivery. They did and I think the wheels look great! Read more