I bought a Chevrolet Volt recently.

I had a chance to try using the cruise control with it in low. It appears to work. In D, the car would coast faster than the cruise setting. In L, it would hold the speed I set and the regen. was higher.

I drove to San Rafael from Frisco this morning on about 2/3rd's of a charge. On the way back, the engine came on at the Tiberon Blvd. exit on 101. For the next 10 miles the fuel consumption was about 32 mpg. The route into the city has some steep hills and I was playing with the Mountain Mode.

Here is a teardown of the Volt's "infotainment" system to the chip level. They even dumped the software off the chips.

Kicking the engine on with Mountain mode can do some funky things to your MPG, if you turn it on after the battery is below the 'turn on' threshold for MM (about 7 miles or so left on battery).

I use MM as a 'hold charge' feature. It will 'save' about 7 to 11 or so miles of electric power for politically correct cruising around with city type driving. Because using juice in that situation is cheaper than running the gas engine. The Volt on the engine is a bit of a weird hybrid. It gets better highway mpg than city mpg on pure gas operation. At least out here in the flatlands.

The Volt sounds like so much fun when you have hills to drive it on. I wish I had hills to drive on. I don't even have any hills.

I was reading about the Prius plug in. It seems to have a real world range of about 11 or 12 miles versus the claimed 15. Also, the engine comes on at more than light throttle. Nice try, jerks. I think the Prius is a nice car and an important milestone in technology.

Something I noticed about the Volt this morning, the track is wider in the rear than the front. It makes it look more muscular than the Prius. I wonder if it causes more aerodynamic drag than a car that tapers like the Prius?

Volt Cd = 0.28

Prius (Gen III) Cd = 0.25

So it only costs .03 to not look like a roller skate dweedling down the highway?

that's .03 well spent.

There is debate about those numbers, apparently. Some involves putting the car on a treadmill in the wind tunnel for the most accurate measurement.

I saw two of these in S.F. today. That's a Michigan manufacturer's plate and the front and rear bumpers have covers over something.

Probably Fiat's electric 500.

Chevy's Spark EV is sposted to have 400 ft lbs torque. I'm sure there's all sorts of detuning on that for the 0-20 mph part of the pedal. That would be waaaaayyyy too exciting for instant acceleration. Heck, that's Duramax territory.

If you want a car that you can really get excited about, choose one that gives you great fuel economy, a fun driving experience, and/or luxurious surroundings. That’s the clear message from our latest owner-satisfaction survey, in which all of the 10 highest-scoring models feature one or more of those traits. That list includes the top-scoring extended-range electric car, which gets the equivalent of 99 mpg when running on electric power, can go gas-free for about 35 miles, and earned the highest tally for the second straight year.

I didn't see the link to the subscription window. It's gone now. This is a pretty good bump for the Volt, IMHO.

nice, a corporate-speak spam, with a link to subscribe-to-me spam too.

good job.

Familiarize yourself with Consumer's Union and their business model. Then take your anti-American anti working man gibberish, fold it so it's all corners and shove it up your food exit.

I went to the LA auto show Sunday to look at new trucks. While in the Chevy area I sat in the Volt, and as much as I didn't want to like it, I did. I tend to buy new and keep cars for many years. No doubt in my mind that CA fuel prices will skyrocket again, making this car an even more attractive option

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food doesn't exit anywhere unless you're sick. that's a waste orifice. have you confused it for other things too ?


anti-american... hmm, nope, didn't say that....
anti-working man... nope again...

if you wanna come clean, link to (or copy paste) an article that's cool, but driving folks to subscription based stuff is lame.

When you get to middle school they teach capitalization. Stick with it bubba, it's worth it.

I was politely telling you to shove it up your ass but that kind of language is in poor taste in this forum.

I'm not sure why you are getting so worked up. I konw it's your thread, but he DID post spam. #9 of the Big Rules.

Back to the Volt, I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the last GM product I bought, about 24 years ago. Yes it was that bad. I saw a car the other day and thought, that looks cool! What is that? It was a Volt. That thing look much better in person than in photos.

It wasn't deliberate.
The link is gone.