Consumer Reports on the Volt

I'm a big fan of Consumer Reports--especially their reviews of autos every year in the April issue. I always liked the little red circles indicating good reliability records that showed up next to the Toyotas and Hondas and felt bad about all the little black circles indicating lousy reliability that showed up next to the U.S. cars.

So of course I was interested to see what Consumer Reports would say about the Volt. Their article is sub-headed "GM's plug-in hybrid goes gas-free for short trips, but is pricey". Now I won't argue too much about the pricey point. I do think the price needs to come down for the car to be more affordable. However, I would still contend that, with the $7500 tax credit, and with $4 a gallon gas, the car is a good investment. If the price can come down another $5000 and if the tax credit can hold, it will be a great investment.

My bigger argument is with the phrase "short trips". Our Volt goes about 35 miles before it switches over to the gas generator that keeps the electric motor running. Now, to me, that is not a "short trip". In fact it covers more than 80% of the trips I normally make here in Oakland. For our last 1600 miles, we used 8.6 gallons of gas. At 37 miles per gallon that means we went about 318 mles on gas and 1278 miles on the batteries. (that's 186 miles per gallon in case you wondered) Now I admit that when we were in San Diego on vacation, I routinely drove over 35 miles per day--it's hard to avoid driving lots of miles in that sprawling city. However, for those who live in older, denser cities, like Oakland, Chicago, and eastern cities, 35 miles per day should be enough for the vast majority of trips.

Consumer Reports was not aware that our utility, PG&E, charges about 5 cents per kilowatt hour if we charge the car overnight. This brings the cost per mile down to about 2 cents per mile. This is assuming about 2.5 miles per kilowatt hour. Consumer Reports assumed 2 miles per kwh based on their need to use the heater a lot more that we do here in Oakland. Still even at 2 miles per kwh the cost would be 2.5 cents per mile if utilities adopted PG&E's overnight rate. Consumer Reports also assumed $3 per gallon for gas, a price that we probably won't see again.

So I think the Consumer Reports article is correct--if you drive over 35 miles a day, the Volt may not save enough to pay for itself compared to a Prius. I think that is also true if you drive very little--say less than 20 miles a day. But I think there are a lot of people in the 20 - 35 miles per day group who would save money by having a Volt.

And the article did not mention any of the most important benefits of getting off of gasoline--no pipelines through Alaska, no wars for oil, reduced global warming, reduced emphysema. . . The bottom line is important, and I do believe that electric cars will save people money, but all of these externalities are the real joy of driving an electric car.