Apartment living with a Volt ?

[oil pan 4]

Paying for charging is usually best case scenario is at least as expensive as buying $3 a gallon gas.

[Cd]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Paying for charging is usually best case scenario is at least as expensive as buying $3 a gallon gas.

My Civic got around 48 MPG at its' best.
To do a round trip from L.A. to New York would cost me around $310 at $2.75 at gallon.
Though not possible* to do the same in EVmode in the Volt, it would cost me $14,838 at 30 cents per minute of charge.

* This is assuming that you could stop every 30 miles ( or most likely closer to 26-27 miles on an old battery )
It would also take you more than the 3.5 hrs to charge when new.
Probably more like 4 hours.
And you would have to charge up around 90 times @ 4hours each.

[Piotrsko]

Again: it has a fuel powered system. You don't use EV power to long distance travel. It does shuttle back and forth between battery and fuel operations so your Empg would be higher.

Good luck finding a charger every 30-40 miles. Not that you need one.

I get 40 for range @450 wh per mile in my unaerodynamic as a brick ranger, in 10 years it seem to have degraded maybe 10%, I cant reliablely test to that resolution. The time to charge actually decreased because there's less capacity, but not significantly and that's my basis for deciding I have less capacity.

[Cd]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Again: it has a fuel powered system. You don't use EV power to long distance travel. It does shuttle back and forth between battery and fuel operations so your Empg would be higher.

Good luck finding a charger every 30-40 miles. Not that you need one.

I get 40 for range @450 wh per mile in my unaerodynamic as a brick ranger, in 10 years it seem to have degraded maybe 10%, I cant reliablely test to that resolution. The time to charge actually decreased because there's less capacity, but not significantly and that's my basis for deciding I have less capacity.

I know the Volt is a hybrid.
I was showing how much it would cost to charge on the public charger near where I live.

[cowmeat]

Personal opinion - I would not buy a PHEV or EV if I didn't have a place to charge. Public chargers are really expensive - especially if you live in a state that requires companies to charge by the minute and you have a PHEV or EV with only a 3.3 kW charger.

I'm going to agree, and the last 2 cars I've owned are both PHEVs

The reason the Volt appealed to me in the first place was I could do my entire 38 mile round trip commute without using any gas, but then I was able to start charging for free at work which rocks! But even when I charged at home it was maybe a buck a day to charge, if even that.

But if you don't have a designated place to charge lined up I wouldn't consider one

[rmay635703]

Why doesn’t your work have an external outlet?

For many years my place of work had cords for block heaters and after gaining permission I could plug in there (along with anyone else, signage posted)

[Cd]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

Why doesn’t your work have an external outlet?

For many years my place of work had cords for block heaters and after gaining permission I could plug in there (along with anyone else, signage posted)

They do, but they are not going to let me charge a car there for "liability reasons".

Also, I would have to park at the back of the building which is a loading zone for forklifts.

There are some free charging stations around town, but always either broken or ICEd based on reviews.

The Volt still gets decent mileage even if just using gas.
It would pretty much be like driving a Honda Civic sedan of the same year, except I would be able to drive my short trips using electricity.

One huge letdown I just found out about, is that the Volt has no instant trip informstion readouts, like instant usage, or Kwh used per trip and such.
This is a huge disappointment, since that takes a lot of the fun out of driving an EV.

If any of you Volt owners know if this was added in later years, please comment !

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Cd

They do, but they are not going to let me charge a car there for "liability reasons".

One huge letdown I just found out about, is that the Volt has no instant trip informstion readouts, like instant usage, or Kwh used per trip and such.
This is a huge disappointment, since that takes a lot of the fun out of driving an EV.

If any of you Volt owners know if this was added in later years, please comment !

My 2013 Volt provides everything needed to calculate efficiency alongside a scangage like kw meter under the speedo, this is part of the reason I wouldn’t accept an older model, the battery was a little bigger as well.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Living in an apartment without a garage, I have already considered other approaches such as getting a small motorcycle and parking it inside overnight.

[ME_Andy]

There's a 2011 Leaf on Austin Craigslist right now for $2250. But it only has 30-35 miles of range. Yikes!