Chevy Volt (3000 mile road test)

Number Nine

Your humble Detroit Bureau never quite reached 1,000 miles between fill-ups in Motor Trend’s long-term Chevrolet Volt. Chevy says many of its early Volt buyers have reported going that long between visits to the gas station. We’ve put 3,174 miles on the car, as of this writing, and Frank Markus filled it up again before he dropping it off at Detroit Metro airport for Kim Reynolds, who will drive it back to Los Angeles where the home office will have it for the rest of our long-term test.
As I write this, we’ve burned 6.6 gallons of gas since a March 16 fill-up, and we’ve gone 813.6 miles. The dash shows 105 miles remaining internal combustion engine range, which means we could get 918.6 miles out of the tank even if we didn’t plug the car in again. It’s been fun to pass up Metro Detroit gas stations with premium unleaded pushing $4 per gallon. Nice to avoid fillups in cold weather, too.
Frank has filled the Volt’s tank five times since we took delivery in early February, and I’ve filled it twice, both times during my roundtrip to the Chicago Auto Show. Two of Frank’s refills were for his track testing.
I used up all of my final overnight 12.99 killowatt-hour charge, which gave me an indicated 30-mile range at 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Our daily commute (Frank lives about a mile away from me) is about 11 miles, and taking Woodward Avenue north, then Maple Road west, doesn’t take much longer than I-696. The Volt is a bit like a normal hybrid in that it’s more efficient on city streets than on the freeway.
Drive the Volt on city streets and you get more brake regeneration, and you’ll often end up with an extra two or three miles beyond the range indicated when you unplug it. Michigan’s speed limit on most freeways is 70 mph, and at that speed, the green marble efficiency helper on the instrument panel shows you’re not driving the most efficiently. You’d have to slow down to about 60 mph to do that. I didn’t.
Drive mostly on the highway and run the heater and/or defroster, and you might lose a mile or two from the initial estimated range.
Sticking to city streets, I managed 35.1 miles battery range before the gas engine kicked in Friday. This was 1.2 miles before I returned to the office. I took a late lunch hour at the Onion Roll deli on Woodward Avenue, where one of the co-owners, Alex, is a bit of a car nut. He revealed this one Saturday when I rolled up in the first BMW 1 Series in the Detroit press fleet. He wanted to know what the Volt was like, so I dropped by for a short ride. I think he might buy one if his restaurant keeps packing the customers in.
From the Detroit Bureau, I drove it another 11 miles or so on gas before it got plugged in again, so its lifetime mpg will go down a bit. I got it as high as 75.3 mpg. From the March 15 fill-up, it averaged 121.8 mpg. Add in the cost of the 736.36 kW-hr we consumed during the Chevy Volt’s stay in Metro Detroit, and we turned it over to Kim with a lifetime 49.26 mpge. Total cost was $236.90, or 8 cents per mile, making it a penny costlier than a Toyota Prius and four cents more than a Nissan Leaf (see chart, below).
A few observations:
Heat, please. Turns out I can take the cold better than Frank, and certainly much better than my wife. Still, the heater controls aren’t as intuitive as they should be, as they seem to default to “fan only” as I discovered by blowing cold air through the vents when it was about 35 degrees outside. Most of the time, I was able to get comfortable without depleting the battery charge significantly. Still, like any hybrid, this car will be happier when it’s warm outside. The pre-heat feature does help, at least when you remember to hit the button in the morning, some 20 minutes before unplugging and starting the car. Defrosting the car seems to eat a good deal of battery, and it’s tougher at 28-35 degrees than at 20 degrees, when the engine kicks in at start even when the battery is fully charged.
But not too much heat. Obviously trying to compensate for the above, the bun-warmers get German car-like hot. I can’t take the highest of three settings very long.
Buttons, please. I don’t like the touch-sensitive center panel buttons. You have to hit them just right, and you have to take off your gloves to turn the bun-warmers up, or down. Frustrating.
Keyless entry, please. The Volt has a keyless start button. Just put the key in your pocket, and go. Except that you need to dig out the keyfob to open the door. There’s no touch-button on the door handle that checks for key proximity to unlock the door. This makes the keyless start less, not more, convenient.
But it handles. For a car on thin, low-rolling resistance tires, the Volt handles pretty well. It’s fun to drive, in the traditional sense. You feel the heft of the batteries, but mostly the car makes the most of its compact maneuverability, and it has a nice balance of ride quality and handling.
And refinement. Noise, vibration and harshness levels are better than average for a compact car. Even the 1.4-liter’s idle or start up is less intrusive than, say, the Hyundai Elantra’s 1.8 liter or the Ford Focus’ new 2.0 liter.
And it’s engaging. The combination of handling, torque-happy all electric launches and watching the lifetime mpg number rise make it a compelling car. The technology remains very impressive. You’ll have no range anxiety, but you’ll want to keep it going all-electric to the max.
Would I buy one? Yes. The Chevy Volt will make even more sense when economies of scale and normalization of the technology can bring the price down to commuter-car levels. But it’s a versatile around-town car that you can take on longer trips – and those will be easier when there are more places to plug in. Its hatchback versatility made me want to take our two collies to a dog park in it, but we didn’t have any warm weekends for that.
Personal best range: I made it 39.4 miles on a battery charge March 18 when the mercury spiked to 50+ degrees. When I unplugged it in the morning, it had consumed 12.70 killowatt-hours and indicated a 34-mile range. I made a real 39.4 miles, as the engine kicked in just blocks from home. Now I know I would have squeezed more battery-only miles out of it if I hadn’t done one-third of my drive on the freeway. Spring finally is about to arrive in Metro Detroit, but Frank and I won’t have the Volt around to see any big gains in range. I’m sure our Los Angelino colleagues will see more gas-free miles.


Your humble Detroit Bureau never quite reached 1,000 miles between fill-ups in Motor Trend’s long-term Chevrolet Volt. Chevy says many of its early Volt buyers have reported going that long between visits to the gas station. We’ve put 3,174 miles on the car, as of this writing, and Frank Markus filled it up again before he dropping it off at Detroit Metro airport for Kim Reynolds, who will drive it back to Los Angeles where the home office will have it for the rest of our long-term test.
As I write this, we’ve burned 6.6 gallons of gas since a March 16 fill-up, and we’ve gone 813.6 miles. The dash shows 105 miles remaining internal combustion engine range, which means we could get 918.6 miles out of the tank even if we didn’t plug the car in again. It’s been fun to pass up Metro Detroit gas stations with premium unleaded pushing $4 per gallon. Nice to avoid fillups in cold weather, too.
Frank has filled the Volt’s tank five times since we took delivery in early February, and I’ve filled it twice, both times during my roundtrip to the Chicago Auto Show. Two of Frank’s refills were for his track testing.
I used up all of my final overnight 12.99 killowatt-hour charge, which gave me an indicated 30-mile range at 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Our daily commute (Frank lives about a mile away from me) is about 11 miles, and taking Woodward Avenue north, then Maple Road west, doesn’t take much longer than I-696. The Volt is a bit like a normal hybrid in that it’s more efficient on city streets than on the freeway.
Drive the Volt on city streets and you get more brake regeneration, and you’ll often end up with an extra two or three miles beyond the range indicated when you unplug it. Michigan’s speed limit on most freeways is 70 mph, and at that speed, the green marble efficiency helper on the instrument panel shows you’re not driving the most efficiently. You’d have to slow down to about 60 mph to do that. I didn’t.
Drive mostly on the highway and run the heater and/or defroster, and you might lose a mile or two from the initial estimated range.
Sticking to city streets, I managed 35.1 miles battery range before the gas engine kicked in Friday. This was 1.2 miles before I returned to the office. I took a late lunch hour at the Onion Roll deli on Woodward Avenue, where one of the co-owners, Alex, is a bit of a car nut. He revealed this one Saturday when I rolled up in the first BMW 1 Series in the Detroit press fleet. He wanted to know what the Volt was like, so I dropped by for a short ride. I think he might buy one if his restaurant keeps packing the customers in.
From the Detroit Bureau, I drove it another 11 miles or so on gas before it got plugged in again, so its lifetime mpg will go down a bit. I got it as high as 75.3 mpg. From the March 15 fill-up, it averaged 121.8 mpg. Add in the cost of the 736.36 kW-hr we consumed during the Chevy Volt’s stay in Metro Detroit, and we turned it over to Kim with a lifetime 49.26 mpge. Total cost was $236.90, or 8 cents per mile, making it a penny costlier than a Toyota Prius and four cents more than a Nissan Leaf (see chart, below).
A few observations:
Heat, please. Turns out I can take the cold better than Frank, and certainly much better than my wife. Still, the heater controls aren’t as intuitive as they should be, as they seem to default to “fan only” as I discovered by blowing cold air through the vents when it was about 35 degrees outside. Most of the time, I was able to get comfortable without depleting the battery charge significantly. Still, like any hybrid, this car will be happier when it’s warm outside. The pre-heat feature does help, at least when you remember to hit the button in the morning, some 20 minutes before unplugging and starting the car. Defrosting the car seems to eat a good deal of battery, and it’s tougher at 28-35 degrees than at 20 degrees, when the engine kicks in at start even when the battery is fully charged.
But not too much heat. Obviously trying to compensate for the above, the bun-warmers get German car-like hot. I can’t take the highest of three settings very long.
Buttons, please. I don’t like the touch-sensitive center panel buttons. You have to hit them just right, and you have to take off your gloves to turn the bun-warmers up, or down. Frustrating.
Keyless entry, please. The Volt has a keyless start button. Just put the key in your pocket, and go. Except that you need to dig out the keyfob to open the door. There’s no touch-button on the door handle that checks for key proximity to unlock the door. This makes the keyless start less, not more, convenient.
But it handles. For a car on thin, low-rolling resistance tires, the Volt handles pretty well. It’s fun to drive, in the traditional sense. You feel the heft of the batteries, but mostly the car makes the most of its compact maneuverability, and it has a nice balance of ride quality and handling.
And refinement. Noise, vibration and harshness levels are better than average for a compact car. Even the 1.4-liter’s idle or start up is less intrusive than, say, the Hyundai Elantra’s 1.8 liter or the Ford Focus’ new 2.0 liter.
And it’s engaging. The combination of handling, torque-happy all electric launches and watching the lifetime mpg number rise make it a compelling car. The technology remains very impressive. You’ll have no range anxiety, but you’ll want to keep it going all-electric to the max.
Would I buy one? Yes. The Chevy Volt will make even more sense when economies of scale and normalization of the technology can bring the price down to commuter-car levels. But it’s a versatile around-town car that you can take on longer trips – and those will be easier when there are more places to plug in. Its hatchback versatility made me want to take our two collies to a dog park in it, but we didn’t have any warm weekends for that.
Personal best range: I made it 39.4 miles on a battery charge March 18 when the mercury spiked to 50+ degrees. When I unplugged it in the morning, it had consumed 12.70 killowatt-hours and indicated a 34-mile range. I made a real 39.4 miles, as the engine kicked in just blocks from home. Now I know I would have squeezed more battery-only miles out of it if I hadn’t done one-third of my drive on the freeway. Spring finally is about to arrive in Metro Detroit, but Frank and I won’t have the Volt around to see any big gains in range. I’m sure our Los Angelino colleagues will see more gas-free miles.

http://blogs.motortrend.com/farewell-chevy-volt-hardly-knew-ye-14249.html