Quote from Sandybestdog:
If the national average is 32 miles roundtrip, then in fact the Volt would be perfect for the average person. Since you have still not presented a single piece of evidence or story of anybody consistently only getting 25 miles per charge, I'll just have to go off of my real world experience of 35+ miles per charge. How can I be the one telling falsehoods when you are the one who can't back up youir statements?
You continually cite how the concept version of the Volt was so much better and how you wanted to buy one, but just now went on a rant about how the battery's will pollute ground water. Assuming GM made the production car as you claim the concept car was, and you bought one, I don't see how using your logic, the battery disposal would be any different. So in fact, you would be contributing to the pollution. But putting that aside for just a minute, please answer me one question. I can drop my old laptop battery at any number of recylcing places in the area so it can be disposed off/recycled properly. If I can do that with a laptop battery, why would a car battery be any different? You mean to tell me that when I'm done with the car, it's just going to be towed away and dumped in a river?
As stated before, I would much rather buy coal from West Virginia than oil from Saudi Arabia/Iran/Canada. Our own innovation with electric and natural gas powered vehicles is our key to energy and economic security.
The 25 mile per charge range was cited in a documentary by Eric Bolling of Fox News:
GM put a press fleet Chevrolet Volt in the hands of Eric Bolling of Foxâs The Five (video embedded below). Maybe they thought Bolling would feel the same kind of love for the Volt that tree huggers experience upon climbing into their first Toyota Prius. Not quite. Bolling criticized the battery-power performance of the Volt, about 25 miles, when the Nissan Leaf approaches 100 miles. Bolling noted that, two days in a row, âThe car ran out of electricity in the Lincoln Tunnel on my way to work,â which prompted a co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle to pipe up and say, âIâd rather roller skate backwards in the Lincoln Tunnel than drive that thing and break down.â Bolling added, âWhy would you put out an electric car that gets only 25 miles?â
The Volt has been a tremendous failure for the engineering, economic and environmental reasons I've already cited. I think that electric cars will become mainstream in the future but it won't be because of the GM Volt. There is nothing innovative about a car cobbled together from off-the-shelf hybrid parts and a chassis designed for internal combustion engines. GM threw away a pretty good design in order to save a little money and ended up with a car that nobody wants aside from a few democrats, a few people unable to understand the technical flaws and others who drive only a few miles per week.
It isn't even necessary to discuss the serious safety flaws of the Volt, the cars lack of range and other performance issues condemns it to the scrap heap of history even if it doesn't burst into flames. You drive a Volt for ideological reasons. I select cars for their value in terms of performance, cost and durability.
