Why Prius suits us better than the Volt

I assume you are talking about the size of the gas tank? Large tanks are about two things:

1. Reducing the frequency of going to the gas station while doing routine local driving.

2. Reducing the frequency of refueling during a road trip.

Recharging the battery overnight takes care of item 1. As I said, typical gen 2 Volt owners will be going to the gas station about half as often as someone with a 600 mile tank on a non-plugin car.

That leaves road trips. Is it really that much of a burden to stop 5 minutes for gasoline every 300-400 miles? I've done several long road trips in my Volt including one from California to Ohio. It really wasn't a problem to stop every 4-5 hours to gas up, urinate out, and buy more food for myself at Starbucks, Taco Bell or whatever. Plus, whenever it was convenient on the road or at my destination I could plug in and recharge my car if I wanted to.

 

i hate when i forget to plug in.

 

My old 98 explorer had a 22 gallon tank and only had about 280 miles of range, so really all of these cars are great in comparison. I never really had a problem with the inconvenience of refilling, pure MPG is all that really bothers me. I choose the Prius because it can carry more cargo, and it was the most fuel efficient and high tech(touch screen, bluetooth, MFD, navigation, etc) car I could get for 20k$

 

Well...it's cheaper to drive than my V10 3/4 Ton at least.

 

I actually think he was talking about the hatchback space. And it is smaller in the Volt...although significantly may be overstating it. As someone who has a PIP and a new Volt, I'm stunned by the angst people seem to have about plugging in overnight. If you have a garage it takes 5 seconds. In my Volt, I wake up with around 65 miles of battery charge available (now that the weather is nice), which is more than I use most all of the time (I went almost 1500 miles on my original tank of gas before adding a few gallons to complete a long trip). If I do forget to plug it in I get 43mpg on the gas engine. Maybe it's not for everyone, but the Volt is a really good solution for a lot of people who aren't quite ready for a full EV.

 

it's amazing, a lot of people ask me if it's a pain. they just can't conceive of going to all that work.

 

I'm not sharing your point of view, not that I will tell you are right. Your concept and needs are with out much foundation

 

The Volt does seem like the perfect car, and I've wanted one for years, but it and plug-in's will always suffer from two critical flaws, you need a place to actually plug it in, and earn a high enough household income to take full advantage of the tax credits to make it economically viable. Most Apartment dwellers won't be able to consider these cars, like me and an increasingly growing percentage of the population, and as a single younger guy, I don't earn enough to qualify for the maximum amount of tax credits available. Maybe in another decade or so, Plug-ins will drop lower in price, and more infrastructure is built up to support these cars for the masses to consider.

 

in the meantime, we need people with money, garages, the gov and the mfg.'s to keep pushing.

 

I'll be going from a 125 MPG commute average to around 999 MPG.

I plug in at work, taking advantage of the huge (85 kWh) solar-array for recharging. My commute is 38 miles round-trip.

 

see, with the volt, there's no need to plug in.

 

The reliability is much better than in the past, and growing up with mostly GMs, I'd say they were good then too.

How long would the Volt sit at the charging locations? How much charge do you expect the car to have when you get there? Perhaps a plain dedicated outlet is all or need, or maybe you don't need to charge at all those locations. The 53 miles EV is quite a bit for most before the ICE comes on. While 42mpg or so isn't Prius great, it is really good compared to what 95% are buying.

What do they do with their phones? Toss them?

 

No, I'm talking about the storage space.

 

Do these apartment dwellers have a parking spot? If so, they have a spot to charge.

 

how?

 

Are you're asking me? If so.....

If they have covered parking, there are electrical conduits already there for lighting. If uncovered, wireless charging can become an option or 120v routed to each spot alot like wiring for block heaters up north. Many apt. dwellers around here even have the choice of personal garages.

 

thank you.

 

I read a article a corporation had a fleet of volts, cmax energi and prius plug in, employees was fighting over the volt! AFTER all the work and mods done on my Prius its much better than my wife's volt!