[KFM]

I drove the Volt for a couple days while my dad was out of town, and here are my thoughts on it.

First of all, hitting the accelerator in the Volt felt so good compared to the output that you get from an ICE. I had never driven an electric, before, and it was a different experience with the steady and silent acceleration. Instantaneous torque and not having to stop and shift makes 0-60 so much fun in Sport mode. It feels like you're getting up to speed on a tire-assisted roller coaster. Getting up to speed in Normal mode is nice and laid back, and I didn't feel like I needed to push it to get up to speed.

It had very little cabin noise, except a quiet high-pitched whine that popped up occasionally, I can't remember what the circumstances were, and the gas engine kicking in when the battery is out/when driving in Mountain mode. The gasoline engine isn't too loud, but has a decent bit of rumble when the battery is exhausted. I drove some of the way in Mountain mode on the highway and left the battery for in-town, where it's quieter.

All in all, it was a very comfortable ride and handled exactly the way that I wanted it to. I turned the TCS off immediately after finding the button, so I don't really know how it drives with it on. The car felt heavy, but I'm used to a Gen 1 Insight, so I'm not a great judge of weight, but it definitely felt heavier than my wife's '09 Civic. It felt fine around corners, though, and I drove it in L, so I only had to hit the brakes two or three times in the whole day, so the weight didn't make much of a difference in how I drove it. The car is lower than I expected, and when taking speed bumps at around 18 mph, the guard brushed the road surface. Also, when backing up, the bumper is low enough to hit the curb, so use care if backing into a space at the end of a lot.

The field of view through the windshield was a little uncomfortable, at first, because it felt squished vertically, but I got used to it by the second day and didn't notice it anymore, as it's plenty wide. The pillars stay out of your way when going around corners, too, so I didn't need to crane my head all over the place like I do in my wife's Civic when driving through my neighborhood. The rear field of view is pretty obscured, but I don't have a rear-view mirror in my Insight, so I can't really speak to how functional it is, since I always use the side mirrors when backing up. I did try to tilt the rear-view mirror up and at its highest point, it still felt too low for me, as it mostly showed the bottom half of the window. The side mirrors offered a good view of what was around me, and were taller, so you could see quite a bit out of them.

I found that with a commute as long as mine, about 70 miles, it was a little too much for the battery to handle with my driving style. I spent about $1.00 on electricity charging it up to get 57 miles on the battery, then spent another $2.35 on a gallon of gas for the extra 40 miles I put on it over the course of the day. I drove part of my commute in Mountain mode to save the battery for when I got back into town, and that seemed to help a little, but wasn't much of a gain over the first day that I drove it fully in Normal. However, it was quieter this way, you just need to do some math in your head so that you don't waste gas and pull into the house with some battery charge left. I did about 10 miles of my 70-mile commute in Mountain mode on the highway, and it worked out just right.

I would end up using a little gas on my commute every day with the Volt; which with our off-peak rate of about $.09/kWh, is more expensive per mile than using the battery. I'd say if you have a shorter commute ( around 45-50 miles if you're not living in FL where it's warm and flat ), you could probably drive the whole commute with the battery. With our electric company's off-peak rates and the high "eMPG" you get with the battery, it costs almost nothing to drive it, and if your commute is shorter, you should be able to crank the A/C a little higher or do some driving in Sport mode, which is extremely fun. I kept the A/C fan at about 2 and turned it up to 3 if it started getting warmer. The first day, I drove with the A/C on 3 and got 43.7 miles out of the battery, but maybe four miles was wasted due to me gunning it in Sport mode to show it off to my co-worker. I found that the car had about 9.4kWh at its disposal on my two drives and according to my Kill-A-Watt, took 12.13kWh to charge from empty to full charging with 120V.

I had a great time driving it, it was much more comfortable than my Insight, and it has a little graphic with a spinning circle to keep the acceleration and brake under control. Having no idea how to drive an electric, I followed this little circle as a guideline, and it seemed to get me pretty good mileage, even after the battery charge ran out. The keyless start and hokey startup and shutdown sounds it makes spoke to the 13-year-old in me, and there's just something about this car that is undoubtedly cool. I could see me getting one in the future.