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Add the 15% loss in charging to the cost per mile. At least that is what Consumer Reports measured from the meter to the battery, when they tested the Leaf. I guess it is just easy to conveniently forget that you are paying at the meter.
Most of my families driving could be covered by the Leaf and I already have 220 volt supply in the garage. Then I have to consider the 13k miles in the last 1.5 years on my bikes at an average of close to 80 MPG, without having to loose 15% of the fuel I put in the tank.
Driving a 13 year old Maxima that cost me $2k and gets say 28-30 MPG, by the time I recovered the cost of the 40k car I will probably be dead of old age. Take the same 40 and stick it in a stock paying 12%, or even better a stock like Dominion Resources that has just about doubled in value since March of 09 and paid 7% dividend on the March 08 price. Now it is closer to 9%, if you bought it in March 09.
At $200 per month it would take 200 months to pay for the Volt with just our monthly fuel expense (if we paid cash). That's 16 2/3 YEARS! If I live that long I'll be almost 77 years old. I would also have to never have put a single drop of fuel in the Volt.
I guess if you want to eliminate petroleum fuel consumption as you greatest priority then you could justify buying the Volt. It is amusing how the manufacturers seem to think that paying a huge up front cost instead of higher monthly fuel costs is a better alternative.
Or I could just have kept my VX and averaged close to 60 MPG, but I like riding the bike and it gets great mileage without much hypermiling. Personally taking the little CBR 250 or the Vulcan out for a ride and getting where I need to get locally with little real direct cost supports my philosophy that the vehicle should do most of the job of being efficient while the driver, or rider, should use practical techniques to maximise mileage, without extreme efforts that double the time necessary to get the same distance.
Maybe an electric motorcycle in the future for me, as long as it had a range of about 80 miles that would be fine.
regards
Mech
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