Our new car is a Chevy Volt!

This past Friday, the Chretien family traded in our fabulous 2002 Toyota Prius and bought a 2015 Chevrolet Volt.  After three months of research and test drives, we decided to go with the Volt if we could find a Chevy dealer we could tolerate.  It was a difficult choice because we also liked the Prius Plug-In Hybrid and the all-electric Nissan Leaf.  We would have been happy with either of those, especially given that we loved our 2002 Prius and still love our 2008 Prius.  In fact, we even thought about holding off on buying a plug-in for a year or two because the 2002 Prius has been running great.  On recent highway drives, it was getting 55 miles per gallon (mpg). 

The Volt gives us a great opportunity to go 8000-10,000 miles per year on electricity without worrying about range or where we would get our next charge.  Fortunately, Quirk Chevy in Braintree was good to deal with and sold us the Volt at a fair discount below the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price. 

The Volt

The Volt is an “extended range electric vehicle” or plug-in hybrid.  It runs about 38 miles on an electric charge and when the battery is discharged completely, it will run on gasoline.  As the EPA rating says, to drive the Volt 100 miles, it will take either 35 kilowatt hours or 2.7 gallons if on gasoline (at 37 mpg, combined city/highway).  Consider that 35 kilowatt hours costs about $5.25.  Consider further that the average new car gets 25 mpg and uses 4 gallons per 100 miles at a cost of about $14.

So far, we’ve gone about 90 miles without using a drop of gasoline because we have been able to charge the car at night and a little bit during the day.  To be very precise, all of our miles have been wind-powered because we buy New England Wind through Mass Energy. 

As I wrote before, running a car on the “regular” electricity you might get from your local utility – a blend of fossil fuels, nuclear power, trash-to-energy and a small percentage of renewables – will cause few emissions than running a car on gasoline.  However, if you buy green power from Mass Energy, you drive an electric vehicle a million miles without putting a pound of CO2 into the atmosphere. 

My family bought the Volt primarily to be green.  But as middle-class folks, we are happy that running the Volt on electricity costs so much less than on gasoline.  And it will have lower maintenance costs than regular cars because the gas engine won’t have as much wear and tear. 

We were also motivated by the $7500 federal tax credit and the $2500 Massachusetts state rebate.  With the federal and state incentives, plus the trade-in value of the 2002 Prius, the Volt is costing us about the same as our Prius did a dozen years ago. 

We will file for the federal credit when we do our 2014 taxes and put in the paperwork for the state rebate right away.  We will let you know how that process goes, but we expect smooth sailing.  The state’s web site is very good and provides a lot of information in addition to being the place to go for rebate applications.

Aside from the Volt being an affordable green car, here are some other points:

• It’s cool.  Test drive one.  You’ll enjoy the ride.  My 16-year old daughter said it is “swag”, which I think means cool and stylish.  When my friends saw it, some said they were impressed at how sharp a green car can be.

• It has lots of bells and whistles. The car is almost as much about computerization as it is about advanced battery technology (Lithium Ion).  Some features are fun and some are practical (three years of OnStar service, which is a great safety feature).  As I drive, I see a display showing me whether I’m driving efficiently (maximizing miles per kilowatt hour).  It also gives me an instantaneous display on how much power I’m using for climate control (ironic, isn’t it?).  And once a month, Chevy is going to send me a report on usage and efficiency.  I am sure that the data they’re collecting from Volt owners in the field is helping them refine their products.

• Charging the battery is easy.  So far I have been charging it with from a 120 volt outlet.  It takes all night to give it a full charge, which is fine.  But pretty soon I will have an electrician install a 240 volt charger at my house.  That will give an empty battery a full charge in just four hours. 

The Conclusion

After all this research and settling on one plug-in vehicle, I have come to a few conclusions.  First, none of the three cars we looked at are perfect.  But they are excellent in the ways that matter most and are practical green car answers for a middle-class family.  The Prius Plug-In and Nissan Leaf are great choices too.  Second, they are clearly a generation beyond the 2008 Prius, which is a great car.  The technologies have definitely advanced greatly in the last few years.  Third, we know that the car companies are all working to improve their offerings.  We will have even greener and more affordable cars in the next couple of years. 

So when it comes to cars, we can pretty much say what we have been saying about energy efficiency in buildings and renewable energy.  It’s a great time to go green and it’s only going to get better.  By buying a plug-in vehicle today, we can send a strong signal to the market.  President Obama set a fuel efficiency standard for the auto industry.  By 2025, the average car will have to get 54.5 mpg or the equivalent in electricity.  I am sure we can do better.