One Year of Owning the Chevy Volt

My Chevrolet Volt was delivered on December 17th 2010, and as of today I have owned and operated the vehicle for a full year.

It is nearly five years in fact since I first founded this website in an effort to gain and sustain national attention on electric cars and this vehicle in particular, and to push GM to develop it.

I can say with sincere conviction I have immensely enjoyed owning and operating this vehicle.
To this day I still get a thrill when I jump in and power it up. I drive often with a smile on my face. I thoroughly love not using gas almost of of the time, and having the safety and freedom to kick in the gas generator when needed.

I have found the car of impeccably high quality and 100% reliable performance in all kinds of driving situations and environments. The car is worthy of all the awards it has received.

Thus far I have put on 8,635 miles and used a paltry 36.6 gallons of gas with a lifetime fuel efficiency of 237 miles per gallon. My number has fallen curiously close to the infamous 230 mpg estimate GM once put forth.

In April after five months of driving, I moved jobs, changing from 52 miles down to only 6 miles daily round trip. I drive at least twice a month more than 100 miles.

My oil life still says 56% and I haven’t changed it. I rotated the tires at 7,500 miles and had a software upgrade performed.

I have a steep driveway entrance and each day coming and going, the low spoiler scrapes against it. I realize it isn’t harmful and the part is meant to take it but I finally recently decided to change the spoiler to the newer shorter one. Other than those trivial dealer visits I have had not problems whatsoever. The car has flexibly managed all the variations in my driving patterns.

As I drive around I still notice that in my area 40 or so miles north of New York City, there are almost no other Volts on the road. In my year of driving in fact I have only seen another Volt on the road about three times.

Though perhaps not important, I am a bit surprised GM won’t meet its first year target of 10,000 cars. Considering all the attention and robust discussion I observed while running this site, and the calls by many for great volumes, I was sure demand would be higher. Eventually I still think it will. A lot of it is economic. In these tough financial times with gas prices stable, the $41,000 without tax break price tag remains out of reach for many. It is great though that the car is on the road so that in the future, through economies of scale the price will drop and more will be sold. As well, surely some are waiting for the first generation to work out its kinks and are watching on the sidelines eventually planning to buy a next generation model.

Speaking of kinks it has been impossible to ignore the media firestorm sparked by the Volt battery fires. When I first heard of it it caught my attention. As I learned more I came to the conclusion it was a non-issue for me. Though GM officially offered loaners and unofficially Volt buybacks, I never considered either option. After all I’ve seen firsthand and learned about the Volt and its development I feel safe and comfortable. Any human engineered item can be made to fail under the right set of conditions, in this case extreme and rare conditions that won’t occur in regular use.

I imagine GM will shortly issue some type of optional battery fix to current owners and an update for generation two, but just like the infamous iPhone Antennagate, the Volt Batterygate will surely just turn out to be a mere bump on the road to greater sales.

There were naysayers ever since the Volt concept was announced in January 2007, and many are still here today and will be ad infinitum. They may never be silenced, but the reality is GM has made the dream come true of a mass production electric car with range extender and it is an awesome thing indeed. I also think its fair to say the company ushered in a new era of accessible electric transportation as essentially every automaker has followed suit with electric cars of their own.

May everyone and their families of this great Volt nation have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new Year and be proud of what we have helped accomplish. I look forward to more Volt news in 2012.

Source: GM-Volt.com