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Posted Yesterday 07:53 AM by Jonny Lieberman
Never mind the yellow journalistic brouhaha taking place on the internets in regards to the 2011 Chevy Volt. Here's why I'm so geeked on the Chevy Volt and why you should be, too. In normal, everyday driving we got 127 miles per gallon (fine, 126.7 mpg). Which is pretty amazing.
Broken down, over the course of 299 miles on Los Angeles highways, byways and freeways, the Volt burned 2.36 gallons of gasoline (fine, 2.359 gallons -- we rounded up). Most other cars use up a tank of gas going 299 miles. The Volt, to reiterate, used 2.36 gallons over 299 miles.
A couple of weeks ago I hopped into a fully charged production Volt with our tech guru Frank Markus and we set out on a little drive. The plan was to drive from the Motor Trend offices in El Segundo (near LAX) up and over some pretty serious mountain roads -- Big Tujunga Canyon and Angeles Highway -- before hooking up with Highway 14 and winding up in the desert city of Mojave. There was one catch however. Before we got to the 14, we'd avoid freeways completely in order to see how far we could push the Volt on battery only in stop and go traffic.
We took a wending, rambling, 45-mile or so circuitous route through the greater L.A. Basin, hitting such notable 'hoods as Miracle Mile, Fairfax, Korea Town, Silver Lake and Glendale. Frank drove first, and drove consciously. Part of the Volt's display is a little green ball on the right hand side. When you are driving as optimally as possible, the green ball shows three little leaves on it and spins. When you accelerate "too fast," the ball rises up the graph, the leaves disappear and the ball turns orange. When you go hard on the brakes the same thing happens, only the ball sinks. Frank did his best to keep the ball centered. Me on the other hand...
"Way to jack rabbit away into traffic," Frank chastised me as I hustled to get the Volt in front of an oncoming city bus. The good news is that the Volt behaves like a normal car; it even has a modicum of guts. The bad news is that after ten seconds, I'd already put a nice-sized dent in Frank's high-mileage effort. For the next forty minutes I gave Frank (he lives in Detroit) a guided tour of Los Angeles, not paying much attention to the Volt's floating eco-ball. Here's the neat part: at 36.3 miles, we ran out of battery-juice and the engine very quietly kicked on.
Once the engine turns on, the Volt drives exactly the same as it did in pure battery mode. Largely because it's still in battery mode. Remember, the Volt's internal combustion engine sends power to the battery, and that power then rotates the big electric motor (aka Traction Motor) that moves the car. True, over 70 miles per hour the motor clutches itself to the generator and helps power the wheels. Much OMG!-ink has been spilled over this fact, but we say big deal. Remember, that engine-assist makes the Volt more efficient, i.e. the entire point of the Volt.
At the end of the journey, we'd covered more than 120 miles. City, hard-core mountain roads and freeway -- we even took the Volt up to its limited top speed of 101 mph. Well, the speedo indicated 102 mph, but we were pointed downhill. Let me also mention that we had the A/C on because it was 100 degrees out. Factoring in the mountainous part of our romp, where Frank and I acted like utter hooligans and neglected (on purpose) to put the Volt in Mountain Mode, we still averaged 74.6 miles per gallon over 122 miles. Sure, that's less than the 126.7 mpg we got driving the car from the office to home, but it's still pretty dang good. Also, remember that if we had simply stopped driving when the battery went dry, our mileage was infinity.
Here's the big takeaway, the big payoff: We couldn't have done what we did in a Nissan Leaf. Not only is 120 miles past the Leaf's best-case scenario range, but in such heat and driven so aggressively, the Nissan's range would have shrunk considerably. With the Volt, the engine simply flicks on when you need more electricity. When the engine runs out of gas, you add more. As Kim Reynolds hyperbolically pointed out after he took the Volt over the Grapevine, "It would have taken weeks to make that drive in the Leaf." Wry Reynolds also suggested that with a little bit of hacking, you could use Volts to go and recharge dead Leafs.
The 127 mpg number we recorded is around five times the average mileage of other cars. So while the Volt does burn fuel, it burns 80% less of it. Quite the big fat hairy deal, no?
http://blogs.motortrend.com/6719595/...old/index.html
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