So, I've done a few what car threads. Some were more based in reality than others, but my CR-Z thread was fairly serious. In the end though, I didn't pick the CR-Z.
Driveway before:
Driveway after:
I'm actually about a month in, and I'm over the moon. Go figure - I dig a Chevy four door.
Uh oh, JG's sickness has spread!
Seriously though, congratulations. I desperately want one of these for SWMBO, it fits her driving pattern to a T...
I like it!
cool man. I tried to talk the wife into one, but she picked a Wrangler lol...maybe next time. It would work very well for our commute and her typical trips outside of that.
Honestly, I like the Volts. I've only seen a couple in the wild and I think they look pretty cool for an Electric vehicle.
There is a lot of hate for the Volt, but honestly I think GM did a pretty good job with it. I hear a lot of people who own them have barely needed to go to the gas station.
Have you done any long distance driving in it yet? I'm curious about the fuel consumption.
I can't say I would buy one but they are fairly sharp looking cars in the wild.
SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: Honestly, I like the Volts. I've only seen a couple in the wild and I think they look pretty cool for an Electric vehicle. There is a lot of hate for the Volt, but honestly I think GM did a pretty good job with it. I hear a lot of people who own them have barely needed to go to the gas station. Have you done any long distance driving in it yet? I'm curious about the fuel consumption.
The Volt connects all of the data and sends it up through Onstar for consumption on the myvolt.com site, so I actually have some data for you. I'm actually an information security/privacy nut, but I'm wearing blinders for this.
I've done a couple of long distance drives. I put about 260 miles on it Sunday. The drive out was part electric, part gas, of course. Chevy likes to include miles driven on electric when they calculate fuel economy - which is cheating. With that in mind:
On the trip out, with some aggressive driving on battery, plus some pre-cooling of the car after it was unplugged (also on battery), I managed 31 miles on electric. I covered 134 miles total. Chevy calls that 52.24 MPG, and I used 2.58 gallons.
The return trip, was done completely on gas. According my stats, was 135 miles at 39.77 mpg, burning 3.4 gallons of premium. There was much less aggression, mostly just hitting cruise and driving. I think it's a good representation of flat land highway mileage.
I have a current lifetime of 59MPG, but the car has only 1200 miles, and I've made some long drives. I've covered more miles on gas than electricity, but I've also been off my usual driving habits. As the city miles start to become a bigger factor, I'm expecting my lifetime MPG to go up.
Technological upgrade. Aesthetic and auditory downgrade. Sweet all the same.
I like em. Looks like they got their hands on some of the designers from Acura
My neighbor is a former car guy and he just bought a silver Volt. I really like the way it looks.
Part of me wants to punch you right in the eye for trading a perfectly badass blacked out Infiniti coupe for a hybrid...the other part of me thinks you made a great choice, and congratulates you with a big hi-five while smirking smugly at the violent part.
I keep thinking about one of these... you people aren't helping me. I don't want to be JG and trade my ms3 for one. Maybe I can get the wife a Volt.
mndsm wrote: ... you people ......
Sorry, had to do it.
I like the Volt. I use to be a hybrid hater because I thought it was just a stop gap to something better (full electric, hydrogen, etc), but realized that probably won't happen in my lifetime.
I just wish they were a little cheaper. I am considering a used Prius in the next year to play with what can be done.
-Rob
I think the Volt looks great, I'd love to try one out for my commute.
Is the interior space like a 4 seat Corolla or a 4 seat Camry? The killer for my wife would be whether it'll fit a double stroller. It would save us about $200 a month in fuel, she drives 27K a year in our Mazda5 averaging 25mpg.
It's cool to read some real world experiences. If only they offered a wagon version. I don't do 4-door sedans...
I think the Volt is a great car. But man I LOVE the look of the G35/37. Especially all murdered out in black.
Man, glad your happy congrats on the new ride.
I think that you're probably going to start kicking yourself soon. That's just my opinion, though.
I drove one and I didn't mind it too much, the interior is pretty awful though. It's similar in size to a camry, for sure bigger than a corolla.
Awful in what sense? Bad design, bad materials, just ugly? I've never seen inside one.
bluesideup wrote: Awful in what sense? Bad design, bad materials, just ugly? I've never seen inside one.
It seems a little too Apple to me, but I can't say that its the worst interior I've ever seen.
Black looks better IMO
Wow, thats a lot of buttons.
This car would be a perfect match for me. If the boss would let me plug it in at work my entire commute would be electric.
I enjoy not having a car payment way more than not having to stop at a gas station for a couple months however.
Nice choice
bluesideup wrote: Awful in what sense? Bad design, bad materials, just ugly? I've never seen inside one.
The seat adjustments are really difficult to use, and cheap feeling, there are way too many buttons, and the touch screen and gauge cluster are kinda bright and distracting with all the extra graphics, and of the 3 that I saw, white was the least weird, the others were a red one with lime gold metallic interior trim, and a black one with red trim with weird honeycomb patterns in it lol. Other that than they are not bad car though, at least they are much better to drive than a Prius.
Mine has the grey center stack and champagne metallic in the glossy panels that wrap from the door panels to the dashboard. Seats are solid black leather.
Color choices appear in the center stack (with matching steering wheel inserts), the door panel inserts (with matching dash accents) and seats.
My first choice was a standard (not pearl) white car with the black leather seats (with white inserts) and white center stack. The back and white called out to my elementary school self who loved the Space Shuttle, I guess. At the same time, the white center stack said iPod to me.This car was exactly what I wanted, but the dealer didn't seem to understand that any of the tax and manufacturer incentives, and was quoting me a monthly note about $200 above the deal I ultimately signed. If you look at the linked car, note - it is in Lousiana, I drove it a month ago, it's still on the lot, and the photos of the instrument panel show an outside temp of 39F. It's not 39 degrees in the middle of the day in Louisiana except in the dead of winter, so that car has to have been there for the better part of a year.
The plastics in the G35 are pretty cheap. The plastics in the Volt are cheaper, but it seems like Chevy is better as using cheap plastic, if that makes any sense. So, for example, they use this cheap, flexible plastic, but don't put it in situations where it needs to avoid flexing or demonstrate stiffness. Infiniti uses slightly less cheap plastic but loads it in ways that makes it more likely to creak. On the Volt, there are some visible mold seams in the center stack that should have been handled better, the chrome trim around the center LCD has a sharp edge that cut my wife on our way home from the dealership, and the rear hatch cargo cover is excessively minimal, being made out of stretchy fabric and elastic cord.
The Volt seats are slightly more comfortable than the G35 seats, and the manual adjustments are fine by me, but the seat bottom doesn't tilt, and I don't like the way it's tilted.
Butt-o-meter says 0-35 is probably about the same or better than the G35. 50-70 is pretty slow, and nothing like the G35. Considering most of my drive to work is 25 mph with lots of stop signs, the Volt seems smarter. I hated the big, pricey wear items I was burning through to haul the Infiniti up to 25 for a block, then stop, then haul it back to 25, then stop. Also, I have more than a quarter inch of head room in the Volt, so I might finally get out to an autocross.
I haven't driven the Volt particularly aggressively, but there is one thing that reading reviews and other research didn't impart - it's quiet. Sure, all of the reviews said that, but if you put the car in low (in reality, it's the same single gear as D, but brake regeneration is more aggressive) and in Sport (same power as normal, but it comes on faster) go through a corner fast, then floor it on exit, it's still silent. The tires will whine a little bit if you push them too hard, and you can hear soft velcro-like sound from the tires if you turn off climate and entertainment stuff and floor it with the windows down, but the electric drive system is actually slightly quieter when you floor it, as you don't hear the high-pitched whine of the electric motor controller. Leaving the light, you could pass the lead-foot teenager in the muffler-less Chevy pickup, and he still looks like the ne'er do well. It's odd to have throttle decoupled from engine noise.
Downside: I'm trying to figure out how to buy a Tesla Roadster in a couple of years.
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