ultraclyde wrote: That may be the first one I've seen in something other than stormtrooper white. It's really nice. So, what did you do to the Stang to get it down to 14mpg? Supercharger?
Thanks. And the Mustang was commuting on surface streets under 35 mph. Mechanically completely stock. It hit 24 mpg on the highway, which sucked the couple times I took it to CT last month.
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: I'm going to make a blanket statement that [cringe] "I happen to find the whole GM line-up except the Camaro somewhat appealing to the eye". Good luck with it. It is a nice looking car both inside and out.
I can top that: Go drive a Buick.
Seriously. You'll be impressed.
Nice write up. Tanks
mad_machine wrote: the only shame about the volt... I have only seen one on the street.. and I live 2 miles from a chevy dealer with several on the lot. Yet, I see dozens of prius every day
GM is selling more and more Volts every month, and they outsell about half the models for sale in the US. The Prius has been out for a long time, though, and being a Toyota has a better reputation AND a much lower price for the basic hybrid. But as more of us buy and drive the Volts, more people learn that they are real cars worth a real look. Especially when the plug in hybrids from Ford and Toyota are not as capable as the Volt and cost the same or more (I looked at the Fusion Energi and the C Max Energi, but they cost more per month to own than the Volt and provided much less EV only range and speed).
Hopefully Volt II will be cheaper and more capable. And as GM adds the Caddy ELR to the mix, the platform is amortized even better.
mad_machine wrote: the only shame about the volt... I have only seen one on the street.. and I live 2 miles from a chevy dealer with several on the lot. Yet, I see dozens of prius every day
I see Volts just about every day, but I'm in a liberal college town, where I've even seen a Tesla S (a very nice looking car, by the way).
I find the Volt to be a really intriguing vehicle. Its styling does play on the "techy" theme, but not in a bad way. I like its styling, and it looks really well-put together. That shade of blue is really nice, as well. I really like the RX-8's four bucket seats, rather than making the backseat a penalty box. I imagine that I will like the Volt's just as much. Depending upon how much room the backseat has, I imagine that it's just about the perfect vehicle for carting around clients.
Mitchell wrote:mad_machine wrote: the only shame about the volt... I have only seen one on the street.. and I live 2 miles from a chevy dealer with several on the lot. Yet, I see dozens of prius every dayI see Volts just about every day, but I'm in a liberal college town, where I've even seen a Tesla S (a very nice looking car, by the way). I find the Volt to be a really intriguing vehicle. Its styling does play on the "techy" theme, but not in a bad way. I like its styling, and it looks really well-put together. That shade of blue is really nice, as well. I really like the RX-8's four bucket seats, rather than making the backseat a penalty box. I imagine that I will like the Volt's just as much. Depending upon how much room the backseat has, I imagine that it's just about the perfect vehicle for carting around clients.
To be honest, it doesn't have HUGE amounts of room in the backseats. It is, afterall, based on a compact chassis. it's adequate, but I was used to an E38 740iL with acres of rear legroom.... lol!
But it's a damn sight better than the back seats of my old Mustang or our MINI Cooper. 
A few months ago I was waiting for my Mom to return from her PT session. I decided to amuse myself w/ car spotting from her third floor hospital room, pretty good birds eye view of local traffic.
Pretty much blah, blah, same old E36 M3 till this black beauty w/ chrome wheels caught my eye. As it neared I realized it was a Volt, the first I'd seen in the wild... my gosh is that a good looking car. I later found it parked in the hospital lot where I ogled all around it, just like I did as a kid seeing the latest 60's muscle car for the first time... and I had that same wow feeling.
Seeing the Volt up close changed my first impression from internet pics and vids, count me impressed.
slowride wrote: How long will it before someone rips the hybrid out of one of these and installs an LSx?
WHY?
I like the Ampera's front spoiler. I think that would be a mod I'd make if I had a Volt.
Congrats dude! Good looking color.
Good luck with it. I am hoping when I can replace my Cavalier there will be some coming off lease in nice shape.
The ads on TV have not done this car justice. It's like Chevy really didn't know how to market it. I've been giving people rides in it and they are universally impressed with how nice it is as a car (and as was said, for $40k, it better be), and how smooth and quick it is on pure electric power. If GM could just get butts in seats, they'd sell a lot more of them, even at this price point.
Off lease examples could be good values, so long as they are, IMHO, '13s or newer due to the upgrades. in 2-3 years an off lease '13 should be in the low to mid $20s and have anouther 5-6 years of battery warranty left on them. (which is important to me).
Odd, my 05 GT averages 18 under similar conditions. No where near what the Volt gets though!
ultraclyde wrote: Odd, my 05 GT averages 18 under similar conditions. No where near what the Volt gets though!
18 would have been a major improvement over what the trip computer and the $$ at the pump were telling me.
Well, 2 weeks have gone by and I've used 0 gasoline for the commute. And now that it's warmed up a bit, the gas engine isn't running at all to warm things up, so my lifetime fuel mileage is heading way up. I've also not been hypermiling with it, and using the throttle for quick accelleration 'cause it's fun to do (the sensation of acceleration is weird with no engine noise to accompany it. Just a rush of torque). I can start to imagine what some of these electric supercars must be like to drive at ful throttle. Now I want to drive a Tesla S with the top battery pack.
I have run the engine in hold mode on the highway a couple times, to save the battery power for when I get into town agian, and the worst I've seen is just over 40 mpg on the gas engine. But that's probably due to the fact that the engine is most efficient at 60-65 mph, and so it gets above the combined rating the car gets in other reports (this hold mode is new for the '13 model year) that see it being used around town, too. I have yet to get to the point where teh engine is driving the wheels, however. Even in hold mode, it will vary rpms based on load and even shut off altogether.
I'll have to see at the end of the month whether the electric bill is negatively affected much. Since this is a month where electric usage drops anyhow, I'll have to comepare the amount of drop to last year to get an idea of how much electric usage I'm adding with the car.
Cool man! Interested to see the difference in the power bill.
Yeah, real stuff is coming on our car. It's just been slow since we added the TDi to the project and decided to make it a nerd-car shootout.
I will say this in advance, though: I have a feeling that the coilovers I got for the Volt will not stay on there for long unless we can find a way to retain near-stock ride height. The thing is loooooow, even for Florida roads. And the underside is surprisingly well covered. It's a very well-though-out car altogether.
jg
poopshovel wrote: Cool man! Interested to see the difference in the power bill.
FYI, my power bill has not really moved in any noticeable fashion. We have the average billing, but even my use shows no appreciable growth since the Volt arrived.
If you figure it takes about as much energy to charge the Volt as to cook a frozen pizza, just eat one less frozen pizza for every day you drive the Volt. Problem solved.
jg
JG Pasterjak wrote:poopshovel wrote: Cool man! Interested to see the difference in the power bill.FYI, my power bill has not really moved in any noticeable fashion. We have the average billing, but even my use shows no appreciable growth since the Volt arrived. If you figure it takes about as much energy to charge the Volt as to cook a frozen pizza, just eat one less frozen pizza for every day you drive the Volt. Problem solved. jg
Wow! I had no idea.
JG Pasterjak wrote:poopshovel wrote: Cool man! Interested to see the difference in the power bill.FYI, my power bill has not really moved in any noticeable fashion. We have the average billing, but even my use shows no appreciable growth since the Volt arrived. If you figure it takes about as much energy to charge the Volt as to cook a frozen pizza, just eat one less frozen pizza for every day you drive the Volt. Problem solved. jg
Yeah, that's about right. I was figuring at the most it would add about $20/month, but it may be less than that. And yeah, a slight change in lifestyle could make it entirely moot. ;) We also changed over to a lot of CCFL bulbs in the house and garage, which made a noticeable change in the bill from last year to this.
Chris, what's the charging infrastructure like where you are? Any public charging stations in places that actually benefit you?
jg
In reply to JG Pasterjak:
Yeah, they are all over, but most of the ChargePoint ones are expensive to use. It's almost like buying gasoline. I have a PlugShare app that finds the free ones, but most of those are nowhere near where I need to go.
I'd like to see more at restaruants and places where you're likely to be there for an hour or more, rather than at places like Walgreens where you're only going to be in and out in like 5 minutes.
So far we've used a ChargePoint station while shopping at Old Navy, but it was mostly to see what it was like, as I really haven't had a need to "top off" when out and about yet.
I read a first-person account from another Volt owner on another board and he was equally pleased with his. Glad you like yours, OP.
I think it's fantastic technology. Awesome that it's an American company putting it out.
JG--you need to post some pics of your dropped Volt ASAP. That thing would be FLY on some TE37's too. 
I love reading the positive feedback on these cars. Great to hear. 
Here it is with the wheels:
Man it was tricky to find wheels for that thing. And even so, I had to run some 5/16 spacers in the front and put longer studs in.
Haven't done the KWs yet. Needs to get A/B testing with the wheel upgrade first.
jg
Did you have to add a 220V power line in the garage?
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