# Cost to operate a Chevy Volt



## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel's Follow the Money) test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.

For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.

Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery.

So, the range including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours.

In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery hold 16 kwh

of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery.

The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity.

I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh.

16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery.

$18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery.

Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine only that gets 32 mpg.

$3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.

The gasoline powered car cost about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000.........

So Government wants us to pay 3 times as much, for a car that costs more that 7 times as much to run, and takes 3 times longer to drive across country ... DAH!

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## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

wow! wtf? really? how did the media miss this?


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Where does 1 KWH of electricity cost $1.16 ($.116 might be more accurate)? If the other info is correct, the car went 245 miles on electricity generated by a gasoline engine. Clearly the engine came on before the battery dies completely, since this car isn't a hybrid. Where does it say you can't refill the tank and keep driving? With my normal driving, the gas generator would rarely run.


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## Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

And yet the Telsa Roadster

http://www.teslamotors.com/roadster/specs

does 245 miles per charge.

and the car looks HOT.

As for the Volt, if you don't have to drive far to work, the idea of never buying gas again sounds appealing. Nothing like sticking it to the man LOL.


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

If you check postings from actual owners, you will see things like 320+ mpg (after a year), and no gas used in 3 months, and some are using solar cells to charge them.


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## PACMAN (Mar 4, 2010)

I hate to be spiteful, but efffff GM! I hate their way of handling issues. Don't get me started on my 2003 sunfire lemon that I bought brand new, and they could not fix a defect where my car stalled in the summer..... every summer, since I got it!


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## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

Tim said:


> And yet the Telsa Roadster
> 
> http://www.teslamotors.com/roadster/specs
> 
> ...


the question is, how much does this telsa baby cost?


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## Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

bigfishy said:


> the question is, how much does this telsa baby cost?


If you had to ask that you couldn't afford it LOL.

srs I think just a bit over 100K.


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## mrobson (Mar 5, 2011)

they also dont mention the rainforests they have to destroy to get the necessary materials to make the batteries


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## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

Tim said:


> If you had to ask that you couldn't afford it LOL.
> 
> srs I think just a bit over 100K.


O.O

Yeah, a $100,000+ car will just be a dream for now xD

I only see model S starting at $50,000+, and a bmw 328i only cost $53,000 (at least people know what's a bmw )


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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

saw this tesla in one of those pimp ride show: "faster than a ferari and greener than a prius". It doesn't really have engine noise the owner had to make an artificial exhaust noise lol but it can still smoke a ferari though



Tim said:


> And yet the Telsa Roadster
> 
> http://www.teslamotors.com/roadster/specs
> 
> ...


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## Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

Holidays said:


> saw this tesla in one of those pimp ride show: "faster than a ferari and greener than a prius". It doesn't really have engine noise the owner had to make an artificial exhaust noise lol but it can still smoke a ferari though


One of the things that worry the manufacturers of the electric cars. Pedestrians can't hear the cars and they are worried about accidents.


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## trailblazer295 (Mar 7, 2010)

You forgot the amount of emissions produced by the coal plant and nuclear stations to make the power to drive your 'green' car in the first place. lol It just sounds nice on paper.


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## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

mrobson said:


> they also dont mention the rainforests they have to destroy to get the necessary materials to make the batteries


Yttrium, $400 a kilo, no wonder these car are so expensive! :O


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## Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

Do what others do and set up a small battery hut and a solar array. And if you have more power than you need you run an extension cord to the bottom of your driveway and submit the location to one of the phone apps so other people driving their electric cars can drop by for a charge


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## brianc (Mar 19, 2007)

I'd never buy the Volt or any electric car. 

If you are worried about mileage get a diesel, or get a motorcycle, or get a small engine/output car. 

Weren't there all these problems with Volts going up in flames? Even the Teslas had known problems. 

Is the lack of reliability worth the gas savings?


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

*Fox News attack on Chevy Volt doesn't add up*

ou've got to be worried for a country whose most credible television newscast appears on the Comedy Central network: The Daily Show with John Stewart.

Fox News is almost as funny; except they aren't trying to be funny. I don't think.

A piece by Eric Bolling, who appears on the Fox Business Channel's Follow the Money program, in which he attempts to discredit the economics of operating a Chevrolet Volt, is making the e-mail rounds. I've got it twice already.

Bolling makes some dramatic claims, so I thought I should give GM a chance to comment. I asked Dan Mepham, a product manager with General Motors of Canada, to go over Bolling's claims and give us GM's side of the story.

Here are excerpts from Bolling's piece (with metric conversions, as required), followed by Mepham's responses (edited for space).

Bolling: He test-drove the Volt at the invitation of General Motors. For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 40 km before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.

Mepham: While it's certainly possible to see a lower range, especially in cold weather, 40 km is not a fair representation of the driving range. If Bolling had performed this same calculation in the summer months, he would have gone about 65 km. The EPA rates the vehicle at 56 km EV range, which seems to be a fair and reasonable average.

Bolling: He calculated the car used 7.8 L/100 km, including the 40 km it ran on the battery. So, the combined range of the 16-kWh battery and the 34-litre gas tank would be about 435 km.

It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 435 km at 100 km-h. Add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. So in a typical road trip, Bolling says your average speed (including charging time) would be 32 km-h.

The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned, so Bolling looked up what he pays for electricity. He pays about $1.16 per kWh, so it would cost him $18.56 to charge the 16 kWh battery.

Mepham: The electricity cost of $1.16 per kWh is grossly inaccurate and extremely misleading. Electricity costs vary across the continent, and can be much more expensive in some places than in others. The U.S. average cost of a kWh is 12 cents, so a full charge for a Volt is typically less than $2.

In Ontario today, I pay about 11 cents per kWh off-peak and, even if I elected to charge on-peak, only a few cents more.

The analysis also incorrectly assumes a full charge on a Volt consumes 16 kWh. A large portion of that is used for "margin" and not used in driving or charging the vehicle. The energy consumed to completely charge a Volt is more like 12 to 13 kWh.

Bolling: $18.56 per charge divided by 40 km equals 46 cents per kilometer to operate the Volt on the battery.

Compare this to a similar-sized car with a gasoline engine that uses 7.4 L/100 km. At 84.3 cents per litre for gas (based on Bolling's quoted price of $3.19 per U.S. gallon) it costs 6.2 cents per kilometre to operate the gas-only car.

The gas car costs about $15,000 (U.S.), while the Volt costs $46,000 (U.S.).

So (U.S. president Barack) Obama wants us to pay three times as much for a car that costs more that seven times as much to run and takes three times as long to drive across the country.

Mepham: There are many more problems with the math, but the ones mentioned above are the most egregious, and result in the number being off by a factor of 10 to 15.

Here's simple math of how this really works:

A full charge on a Volt of 12.5 kWh at my energy cost today of 11 cents per kWh means a full charge costs me $1.38. On that charge, I can travel about 56 km, for a fuel cost of less than 2.5 cents per kilometre.

A similar gasoline vehicle such as the Chevy Cruze is rated by the U.S. EPA at 6.8 L/100 km. At a fuel cost of $1.25 per litre (based on GTA prices when Bolling's piece aired), this works out to a fuel cost of 8.5 cents per kilometre.

No matter how you slice it, the Volt is cheaper to operate.

Kenzie: Does this mean I shouldn't believe everything I get in my e-mail? Was I foolish to give my Visa number to that Nigerian prince?

Regular readers will know I am no fan of electric cars. To me, the range issues today are not significantly different than those faced by the Baker Electric of 1913.

At least the Volt gives you the option of carrying around your re-charging station with you, although the car's overall cost still makes it a marginal, if not downright unsupportable, economic decision.

Mepham concludes a Cruze costs 8.5 cents per kilometre to run, while the Volt costs only 2.5 cents.

At that rate, and assuming a Volt costs $45,000 and a Cruze maybe $20,000, you'd have to spend an extra $25,000 to save 6 cents per kilometre. That's $25,000 divided by .06, which means you'd have to drive the Volt 416,666 km just to break even.

And that's if you run it solely on electricity. If you drive more than 56 km at a time, and the gasoline engine kicks in, your break-even point would be even further down the road.

True, the Volt may have lower maintenance costs. But it also may face longer-term repair costs, and disposal or recycling costs for the toxic components in the battery. That won't become apparent until these cars have 10 years of life on them.

There is also the cost of installing a charging station, not to mention potential long-term costs of upgrading the power delivery infrastructure.

And my opposition to government handouts to buyers of electric cars - often affluent buyers who could easily afford to be green on their own nickel - knows no bounds.

But if we're going expose electrics for the non-starters that they are, we have to do it with facts. Accurate facts.

Wheels is initiating long-term tests of both a range-extended Chevrolet Volt and a pure battery-powered Nissan Leaf. This will give us some real-world evidence to bring to the party.

Stay tuned.

http://www.wheels.ca/columns/article/806266

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## Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

One thing a lot of people fail to mention about these electric cars is what if you used it to drive to work which was only 20 minute drive or so away? You would never have to pay for gas. Having the volt for short rides and a regular car for long haul trips may be the answer??

The problem with the volt catching fire was mechanics not following directions. After getting in an accident, the battery has to be (going from memory here) either dismounted or disconnected. That wasn't done after a crash and the battery heated up and caught fire.

Over the next few years a bunch of 3 cylinder engines will be coming out into the mainstream. Apparently one of the biggest steps of gas savings in recent history


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Tim said:


> Over the next few years a bunch of 3 cylinder engines will be coming out into the mainstream. Apparently one of the biggest steps of gas savings in recent history


The 3 cylinder engines have been here in the Chevy Sprint and equivalent Suzuki. They were one liter engines and got over 60 MPG on the highway. People I know that had them because they had long commutes claimed they were pretty much bullet proof. The version with the turbo was actually quite quick, sort of the equivalent of a Cooper S compare to a regular mini.


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## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

I dont think people are buying Tesla Roasters for the environment or to save gas -_- 

They want to acceleration XD


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## brianc (Mar 19, 2007)

Electric cars still seem useless to me... They aren't practical or reliable enough (not yet). The Tesla's have wicked acceleration but they still have mechanical problems. 

Isn't the Tesla roadster like $109K USD?

0-60 in 3.7 seconds or something like that.

Isn't the R35 less than that for price? It's like 90kish. 0-60 in 3.2 seconds. 

I'd take the GTR anyday. More practical than the roadster if you don't care about gas. 

If I cared about gas I'd ride my motorcycle. Faster then both of them 0-60 lol


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