AUTO RED BOOK TEST DRIVE: 2012 CHEVROLET VOLT
Craig Hover |
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 10:21AM | 
In the past few months, staff members at The Automobile Red BookTM have had the opportunity to test drive a number of electric vehicles. From the Ford Focus Electric, to the Nissan Leaf, to the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, to the Smart Car Electric; we’ve tried them all. And the one thing they all have in common is limited range. Discharge the batteries, and you’re dead in the water unless you have a recharging station nearby.
But there is one electric car out there that all but eliminates that range anxiety. The Automobile Red BookTM recently spent a week with a 2012 Chevrolet Volt. And we can truly say that this car “generated” a lot of “buzz” around our Kansas City-based offices.
In a typical hybrid vehicle, an electric motor powers the car at lower speeds and keeps things like the air conditioning running at stoplights. The gasoline engine only kicks in at certain higher speeds, or when the driver blasts off the line. That’s why a normal hybrid generally shows better gas mileage numbers for the city than the highway—the opposite of a gasoline-powered vehicle.
In the Volt, the gasoline engine never actually runs the car at all. In fact, if you take short commutes (about 30-miles) and plug your Volt into the wall outlet every night to recharge it, you could conceivably never use a drop of gasoline again. The car itself runs completely, 100-percent on electricity.
Where the 1.4-liter, four-cylinder gas engine in the Volt comes into play is when the battery runs out. Then, the engine will kick-in to regenerate power in the battery. With all this going on, you may be able to travel more than 300 miles with the help of the gasoline engine.
By just using the gasoline-generated power, you can achieve as much as 37-MPG. Plug the Volt in, run off the electricity, and kick over to the gasoline for half your trip, and you’ll be looking at 60-MPG. Or, charge it up and take it on a short trip where you’ll just use electricity, and you’re looking at 94-MPGe.
The Volt proved to be a good car. It was roomy, powerful, and soothingly quiet in electric mode. For such a radical concept, it was very pleasant to live with.
All of this technology does come at a cost. Our test vehicle had an MSRP of $43,880. That does not include the government tax credit of $7,500, and there may be other discounts if you do your homework.
People really seemed to be interested in the Volt. Everywhere we went, people would want to stop and ask questions. For a car that has enjoyed as much press as the Volt has the last couple years, people don’t typically seem to understand how it works. If you dare to drive one, make sure you know what’s going on mechanically, and what all the in-dash displays mean, because you will be answering plenty of questions.
The Red Book enjoyed our time with the Chevrolet Volt. It really is a game-changer in the realm of electric vehicles. You can still do your part for the environment, and your good deeds won’t leave you stranded.
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