Chevrolet Volt experience

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Text and photos by Cor Steenstra

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-3IEmwHukc

Really, 3 days is not enough To get a fair opinion on this car, but 3 days is what we were allowed, so that is what we have to deal with. After a full nights charge we had 39 miles on the range indicator. To drive my daughter to her school takes a total of 3 miles, but there are some hills on the way. At the end of this very short drive, the range had reduced by 12 miles, with only 27 miles left. I was not using a heave right foot, so this came a bit of a shock.

The average fuel consumption when we took delivery of this Volt was set at 77 mpg, which was darn impressive. I then went on a drive over the 74 highway to the location of the photo shoot, and then took the car up on a little detour drive back to Orange County.

This meant that I far exceeded the EV part of the available power, going over a mountainous road and doing some actual mileage. As a result, over a less than 120 mile drive, I managed to get the average fuel consumption down to a stunning 34 mpg, something even the most normal similar sized car can achieve without any hybrid drive train.

Of course I taped my experience in the video you see here, and as soon as that video was uploaded the complaints started coming in fast and furious; how dare I say anything bad about the latest miracle coming out of GM..?

Well.., I can only call it as I experience it, and I was far from impressed. I have waited a bit to post this, since I wanted to see how this experience would measure up with that of the Nisaan Leaf, since it might be a very similar one, maybe forcing me to take a less harsh stance, but… No.. The Chevrolet Volt is by far not the miracle the hyped up advertising promises it to be, and certainly not close to a reputation builder that the GM EV1 was… I wonder what happened to the brilliant team that developed that within GM?

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