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Comparing real world to real world, the Volt uses VASTLY less fuel than Priuses, with most peopel getting real world distances equivalnet to 300+ mpg. If I had one, I'd be getting closer to 800 mpg on my commute, while a Prius woudl still be getting only 40-45.
the Plug in Prius that is soon to be released will not quite match the Volt in electric range, and will cost very nearly as much as the Volt does,. Why? Because the tech cost that damn much, that's why.
Never heard of an actual Volt catching fire in the real world, either, ONE Volt that caught fire 3 WEEKS after the NHTSA crash test does not a fire hazard make. But yet you'll drive around on a rolling bomb every day with no problems. And there are at least one car fire EVERY DAY in the US. But you still drive a gas powered car, don't you?
And thank you for pointing out the ridiculous claim that Volts are "catching fire." 1 Car, crashed (on purpose) sitting for WEEKS without the NHTSA doing the post-accident recommended battery drain down to avoid exactly this incident. But it's a claim the naysayers keep parroting.
A very biased source linked. Questions I have weren't answered in the linked article. How many of the increased sales were from fleet sales (corporations and municipalities)?
From Forbes...
Quote:
“March was stronger than we’d thought; we were thinking it’d be closer to 1,500 units,” Batey said. “But we kept hearing all month that business was good and that it was real demand.”
Only 160 of the March sales total of 2,289 were fleet orders. Much has been made lately of how GM might be able to gild underlying Volt demand by playing around with the booking and reporting of fleet orders, but that certainly didn’t appear to be the case in March. And Batey said that the much-talked-about, ongoing large fleet order for Volt by General Electric wasn’t a factor in the March numbers.
And thank you for pointing out the ridiculous claim that Volts are "catching fire." 1 Car, crashed (on purpose) sitting for WEEKS without the NHTSA doing the post-accident recommended battery drain down to avoid exactly this incident. But it's a claim the naysayers keep parroting.
Well, they are the only hybrid to be recalled to fix a problem with fires that the NHTSA discovered after they were in customers' hands. They are also the only one with problems of the charging cord overheating and melting as well. On par with GM reliability as a whole sad to say..
Well, they are the only hybrid to be recalled to fix a problem with fires that the NHTSA discovered after they were in customers' hands. They are also the only one with problems of the charging cord overheating and melting as well. On par with GM reliability as a whole sad to say..
That's your opinion, but clearly a biased one. That NHTSA fired does not an epidemic make. GM is taking the necessary steps to make sure this isolated incident isn't repeated but this it's a voluntary recall, and recalls effect every brand eventually.
GM announced Thursday that it will replace the 120-volt charging cords that come with the Chevy Volt. Customers who already own a Volt will get the revised units, which are said to improve on durability and reliability.
Volt spokesman Rob Peterson tells us that GM found owners were plugging the short pigtail into an outlet and letting the charging unit—the black plastic brick that houses the charging indicator lamps and doubles as the cord reel when not in use—hang from the cord unsupported. This placed undue strain on the cord, and could potentially loosen the plug-outlet connection. “This is the type of thing that you learn with real-world use and experience,” Peterson says. (We’ve found this to be a problem in our experiences with the Volt, sometimes having to create makeshift stands for the device like the one you see above; unfortunately, the wire length from wall to brick is mandated by electric code and cannot be increased.) He emphasized the program was “not a recall, but a customer satisfaction program.”
Again, nothing nefarious or terrible going on here. Working the kinks out with new tech always catches some issues. This is nothing new for early adopters.
Well, they are the only hybrid to be recalled to fix a problem with fires that the NHTSA discovered after they were in customers' hands. They are also the only one with problems of the charging cord overheating and melting as well. On par with GM reliability as a whole sad to say..
Actually, HHTSA fires occure primarily when they took the battery pack out of the volt and smashed into it directly. And even then, it took days to start a fire. Wonder what woudl happen if we took your gas tank out of your car and smashed it against a wall at speed, with an ignition source?
Again, you have no problems driivng around in a rolling fireball yourself, but have the audacity to claim that the Volt, which even NHTSA says isn't a fire risk, is somehow regularly burning down?
Here, go read this thread from front to back and get back to me:
That's your opinion, but clearly a biased one. That NHTSA fired does not an epidemic make. GM is taking the necessary steps to make sure this isolated incident isn't repeated but this it's a voluntary recall, and recalls effect every brand eventually.
Again, nothing nefarious or terrible going on here. Working the kinks out with new tech always catches some issues. This is nothing new for early adopters.
Umm no.. NOT an opinion. a FACT they are the only ones shown with this problem.. Simple fixes? sure.. If you're not the one the cord melted and burned.. If so simple, why are these problems being found now, AFTER the car is released to the public???. All should have shown up earlier and fixed earlier.. Great mileage in between all the issues/problems.. Too bad for GM there are
even more economical choices WITHOUT so many problems, that actually do seat adults front and rear, that don't require PREMIUM fuel.. etc... Again, sad to say, typical GM.. A day late and a dollar short.. Again.. it's an mmeeehhhh car, not great, not even VERY good. Let's see if their second shot is better, more reliable, and more useable.
Umm no.. NOT an opinion. a FACT they are the only ones shown with this problem.. Simple fixes? sure.. If you're not the one the cord melted and burned.. If so simple, why are these problems being found now, AFTER the car is released to the public???. All should have shown up earlier and fixed earlier.. Great mileage in between all the issues/problems.. Too bad for GM there are
even more economical choices WITHOUT so many problems, that actually do seat adults front and rear. Again, sad to say, typical GM.. A day late and a dollar short.. Again.. it's an mmeeehhhh car, not great, not even VERY good. Let's see if their second shot is better, more reliable, and more useable.
We've agreed over things with hybrids in other threads, but this isn't going to be one of them. There remains the simple fact that NO car can do what the Volt does. The plug-in Prius only gets around 13 miles of pure electric range and CANNOT drive at normal speeds or accelerate normally without using the engine assist. Option out a plug-in Prius to match the content of the Volt and the cars are within around $2k of each other.
If we are talking purely economics of total ownership cost on a new car purchase, then no, the Volt doesn't make a ton of sense...but then either does the plug-in Prius. The Volt is different and really is next gen technology. GM beat Toyota to the punch and patented the drivetrain that makes the Volt work, just as Toyota patented the one in the Prius which is why no one else builds a "Prius", as they have to lease the tech from Toyota, hence why other hybrid systems were never as good. Similarly, no one will build an EV with a range extender that will come close to what the Volt does, because GM owns the intellectual property for how to do it the best way possible.
As for the issues, the NHTSA test fire was incredibly biased and was the result of punturing the battery pack and rolling it like if the car went down a hill. They then failed to follow the proper procedures for deactivating the battery pack...and then after a few days it caught on fire. The little mentioned piece in the news stories is that GM issued the recall on it's own, but NHTSA is using the case to update standards for ALL vehicles with battery packs, so this issue that was seen is theoretically present in all vehicles with this type of battery pack like the Leaf and Prius.
The chord issues are the kind of thing that usually bugs me. That is something that they could have probably done a better job with. However, when you see the issues that Apple (supposedly the best engineering and design company in the US) manages to find on its devices after they are released, this kind of thing isn't a surprise. Did you jump up and down when Macbooks started bursting into flames or did you realize that there was an element of user error that could only happen once the product was being manhandled by people not in a lab?
I would recommend a Volt purchase/lease to very few people solely because it isn't a great option for people who aren't early adapters or have a commute situation that the car will work perfectly for. For most people, it just doesn't pay off compared to other options. However, that doesn't mean it's a bad car and I think it is the kind of vehicle we will be seeing more and more of.
I would recommend a Volt purchase/lease to very few people solely because it isn't a great option for people who aren't early adapters or have a commute situation that the car will work perfectly for. For most people, it just doesn't pay off compared to other options.
There are over 200 million drivers in the US. If it's only perfect for 1% of them, it's a HUGE sales success. Hell, if it's only good for 1/10th of a percent of them, that's still 200k Volts. I don't think GM can MAKE that many.
Considering that the average commute in the US is less than 30 miles, I'd say the Volt could be perfect for far more than 1% of drivers, if they realistically looked at their habits.
Umm no.. NOT an opinion. a FACT they are the only ones shown with this problem.. Simple fixes? sure.. If you're not the one the cord melted and burned.. If so simple, why are these problems being found now, AFTER the car is released to the public???. All should have shown up earlier and fixed earlier.. Great mileage in between all the issues/problems.. Too bad for GM there are
even more economical choices WITHOUT so many problems, that actually do seat adults front and rear, that don't require PREMIUM fuel.. etc... Again, sad to say, typical GM.. A day late and a dollar short.. Again.. it's an mmeeehhhh car, not great, not even VERY good. Let's see if their second shot is better, more reliable, and more useable.
The Prius has had multiple recalls. The Leaf had a recall before they even got into customers hands. Fisker and Tesla have had massive issues trying to get their car into customers hands with a level of reliability that you'd expect from a 6-figure price tag.
You don't get that "better" Gen 2 car without working out some kinks on a Gen 1 car. They are not a "day late and a dollar short" the Volt is brand new technology, it's a leap frog of current hybrid tech, including the Plug in Prius. GM (and thus the US) is inventing the processes that are making this car possible.
GM made a half-hearted attempt at a "mild-hybrid" years ago and it failed miserably. That was old GM. New GM is taking a leadership in the EV field, they are leading. It's a shame so many people seem intent on cheering against that.
Leading edge technology needs real world testing. Early adoptors are the primary buyers and understand this. All of these growing pains are necessary to develop the technology.
We've agreed over things with hybrids in other threads, but this isn't going to be one of them. There remains the simple fact that NO car can do what the Volt does. The plug-in Prius only gets around 13 miles of pure electric range and CANNOT drive at normal speeds or accelerate normally without using the engine assist. Option out a plug-in Prius to match the content of the Volt and the cars are within around $2k of each other.
If we are talking purely economics of total ownership cost on a new car purchase, then no, the Volt doesn't make a ton of sense...but then either does the plug-in Prius. The Volt is different and really is next gen technology. GM beat Toyota to the punch and patented the drivetrain that makes the Volt work, just as Toyota patented the one in the Prius which is why no one else builds a "Prius", as they have to lease the tech from Toyota, hence why other hybrid systems were never as good. Similarly, no one will build an EV with a range extender that will come close to what the Volt does, because GM owns the intellectual property for how to do it the best way possible.
As for the issues, the NHTSA test fire was incredibly biased and was the result of punturing the battery pack and rolling it like if the car went down a hill. They then failed to follow the proper procedures for deactivating the battery pack...and then after a few days it caught on fire. The little mentioned piece in the news stories is that GM issued the recall on it's own, but NHTSA is using the case to update standards for ALL vehicles with battery packs, so this issue that was seen is theoretically present in all vehicles with this type of battery pack like the Leaf and Prius.
The chord issues are the kind of thing that usually bugs me. That is something that they could have probably done a better job with. However, when you see the issues that Apple (supposedly the best engineering and design company in the US) manages to find on its devices after they are released, this kind of thing isn't a surprise. Did you jump up and down when Macbooks started bursting into flames or did you realize that there was an element of user error that could only happen once the product was being manhandled by people not in a lab?
Ive driven plenty of prius plug ins.. You certainly can drive around at normal speeds and acceleration without the engine assist. And yes, the range is rather limited on the PIP, but that's all battery size, not any tech that GM has over anyone else. The Volt is bigger on the outside but MUCH smaller on the inside than a PIP. Again, battery size. The PIP could match the EV range of the Volt, but then it wouldn't be able to seat 5 adults or have as much cargo room. With a 5'10"+ driver, a 5'10" passenger is NOT getting into the rear of a Volt.
As far as Apple's MAC products catching on fire, don't care as I'd never own any of those either.
And there is no "optioning out" a PIP.. They only come in 2 flavors, basic, and advanced with the self parking feature etc.. compared to the Volt's one. What feature does the Volt have that is not in the PIP standard version at 32,990 before 2,500 tax break? I'm not up one every feature inside the Volt. I'm still not seeing what "next gen tech" is in the Volt that is not readily available to other manufacturers, besides a bigger hybrid battery.
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