Traded 2013 Volt for New Prius HB

IIRC, a Volt owner has to keep the car for a minimum time to not run afoul of the tax rebate laws. How did that play out for you Rudiger ?

Also, if you do not mind sharing, what was the the total cost for the Volt experience ?
Volt Purchase Price
+ trade-in deal
-----------------
= Prius + one year of Volt use

 

Thanks for detailed info!
I would like to " buy American" but had several GM vehicles in the past and all were unreliable ( our Buick's nickname: "Calamity Jane"). Toyota has made a clear corporate commitment to hybrid drives across a range of vehicles, whereas I still wonder if GM is really committed to EVs or the Volt is more a PR device. Saw rumor that Gen 4 Prius might be made in US, so maybe I can "buy American" that way.

 

It sounds to me like you got paid $3,500 to drive the Volt for a year. $7,500 tax credit - $4,000 = $3,500.

Sweet!

 

lol

By your arithmetic he was paid $3,500 to own the Volt for a year.

 

Sounds about right if you get to keep the tax rebate. Do you ?

 

You mean 8 amps, NOT kW. The Volt only has a 3.3 kW onboard charger. Heck, my '13 Leaf has the optional 6 kW OBC.

As for the crappy L1 EVSEs included w/the Volt, yeah, I'd heard plenty about that. I haven't kept up w/all the revisions and current situation.

 

I thought he was calculating 8 Amp * 110 Volt = under 9 kW

 

I have OBC envy.

 

You mean, under 0.9 kW.

I would be so sure about the i3 having "100 mile EV range". See i3 Driving Dynamics: What A Disappointment - Page 4.

The '13 Leaf has an inflated range of 200 km (124 miles) on some inflated European cycle. Ask any non-hypermiler Leaf owner how far they can go, realistically...

The i3 gets slightly fewer miles on that inflated cycle than the Leaf, then it'll probably get ~70 miles of range on the EPA test, likely less than 75.

Yep. From browsing a few other GM forums of vehicles w/worse to far worse reliability records than the Volt (which IIRC has a surprisingly good reliability record, so far), I've seen similar stuff and there will be he GM defenders and fanboys who will be in total denial about a poor reliability record, bashing Toyota and Honda, etc. Seems true of VW fanboys as well.

 

Yep I was wrong, 8amps not kw.

I've used my L1 EVSE almost exclusively.. not had a problem yet. (I traded it in an upgraded model during the battery tunnel enhancement program. They increased the gauge of the pig tail). But ~20K miles and no problems of any kind (car or chargers).

Most people with problem on gm-volt were using it at work or other places.. it may not tolerate unclean power. The fuse could easily be the issue. The really "cheap" version was the SPX L2.. which used very small wires for a L2.. then again when it was offerecen it was $400, compared to other selling at $800-1200 so people knew it was "cheaper".

No I was just wrong. (. 8 amps * 110v = 880 watts.. not kw big difference).

 

45% of the parts in Volt are US/Canadian. 18% is from Japan. 17% is from Korea. The other 20% is from elsewhere.

 

I'm talking about stuff like GM replacing almost all Chevrolet Volt power cords and comments by the OP of The anatomy of a Volt EVSE.

 

Yes, I've heard that some of the moderators at gm-volt.com are rather intolerant of negativity towards GM and/or the Volt.

As for i3, it will not go on sale in the US until 2nd quarter of 2014 per BMW i3 gets official worldwide [UPDATE, w/video] - Autoblog. if I'm not mistaken, it hasn't gone on sale yet in any market.

As for VW, that's a decent theory. It's strange that amongst some people, VW has a positive aura/draw about it.

 

Yep, just like a train wreck.

 

Is it a "cheap tire inflator"? Actually, I think it's nicely designed and it seems to work well.

I had a puncture and leak in the tread of one of my original Fuel Max tires a week ago after 57,000 miles of trouble free driving. I had been driving on a gravel road to get to a trailhead for a hike. It was a Sunday and all the local tire stores were closed.

I used the tire goo for the first time and it worked great. It couldn't have been simpler. I switched the Volt's 12v tire pump to the "fix" position, inflated, drove around for 5 miles, adjusted the final pressure level and I was good to go up to 55 mph for the next 100 miles. About 90 miles and 24 hours later, I pulled into a tire shop and bought a new set of tires (I was planning for that before winter anyway). My TPMS was just fine.

I haven't read of any (multiple?) Volt owners having to pay "$1,000" to replace a TPMS sensor etc. after using the tire goo but I'm sure someone got ripped off somewhere. That story sounds rather extreme.

UPDATE: I suspect you are thinking of the nonsense thread I have linked to below. The OP there tossed around some fevered and baseless assertions including his own "guesstimate" of $500 which wasn't based on anything he actually paid. The TPMS sensors are apparently $50-$100 retail and some people have said in that (and related threads) that any TPMS damage attributed to use of GM's goo cartridge has been covered by GM warranty and isn't supposed to happen normally.

Tire shops apparently don't like having to clean up the tire or wheel rim after the goo has been used but they do it anyway on a routine basis. Various people in various threads also assert that tire goo damages TPMS sensors in various ways but they never seem to provide sources to back up the assertion. It's hard to tell if the claims were valid with older goo formulations or TPMS designs or if it's all just "common sense" that is assumed to be true without any empirical grounding.

Source link:
DO NOT USE YOUR FLAT TIRE REPAIR GEL!!!!!!

Yes, the soft rubber scraping is a bit annoying once or twice a day. At least a year or two ago the shorter air dam was free if you asked for it to be installed. A number of people on gm-volt.com had that done and reported little or no perceivable loss in efficiency. There must be some efficiency loss or GM wouldn't have bothered with the longer one but I see no evidence that it "costs a few miles".

 

There's threads here about the lack of a spare for the PiP and the high price of having a flat replaced, so it's not exclusive to the Volt.