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I might be wrong, but it seems silly to try to get a lot of mileage out of an purely electric vehicle. I mean... Most trips (probably over 90% of the distance

I might be wrong, but it seems silly to try to get a lot of mileage out of an purely electric vehicle. I mean... Most trips (probably over 90% of the distance ran) are very short, for city people. It seems that you could get pretty much all the enviromnental benefit, and nearly all the savings, using a smaller battery pack. And authonomy would come from an ICE to rechange the pack So, maybe the volt (or at least the idea behind it) is more resonable than tesla?

josinalvo 11y ago
To get the question really interesting, we could try to weight the pollution of the bigger battery pack (production and discarding) versus the pollution of the (relatively few) trips with more that 50 kms...
mikeash 11y ago
The Volt itself doesn't really compare. Only four seats compared to 5+2 in the Tesla, and terrible cargo space. I loved the idea of the Volt but when I actually thought about getting one, it was just not practical for me. How about the idea of a plug-in hybrid, but done better? Maybe. But you're talking about two separate drivetrains, which is going to inherently hurt things like cargo space. There's nothing silly about road tripping in a Tesla. The charging infrastructure is great and road trips are smooth. The author just didn't do his very well.
- malyk 11y ago
  I believe the 2016 volt will be a 5 seater. I have a '14 and the storage space seems fine to me. No kids though. I did put 14 large bags of mulch in the back once... The Volt also does a really great job with range vs. the driving habits of it's owners. According to Chevy[1], 80% of volt trips don't use any gas. Could be some confirmation bias there, but my personal rate is somewhere in the 70% of trips don't us gas. [1] http://www.cheatsheet.com/automobiles/2016-chevy-volt-may-be-the-total-green-car-package-at-27k.html/?a=viewall http://www.cheatsheet.com/automobiles/2016-chevy-volt-may-be...
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Individual needs will, of course, vary. But if you need more space, the Tesla will give it to you. The Volt's trunk volume is only about 10ft^3, whereas the Tesla has 26ft^3 in the trunk and another 5 or so in the front. I'm leaving on a small road trip tomorrow, taking four adults, two children, and luggage for an overnight stay. Total driving will be about 350 miles. All electric, obviously. I should only need one charging stop, at a supercharger, but may take advantage of public chargers in garages and such while I'm parked, just for convenience. Obviously a lot of that difference is just because the cars are different in general, and not the drivetrains specifically. But the Volt does sacrifice a lot of volume because of the need to support two entire drivetrains at once.

josinalvo 11y ago

To get the question really interesting, we could try to weight the pollution of the bigger battery pack (production and discarding) versus the pollution of the (relatively few) trips with more that 50 kms...

mikeash 11y ago

The Volt itself doesn't really compare. Only four seats compared to 5+2 in the Tesla, and terrible cargo space. I loved the idea of the Volt but when I actually thought about getting one, it was just not practical for me. How about the idea of a plug-in hybrid, but done better? Maybe. But you're talking about two separate drivetrains, which is going to inherently hurt things like cargo space. There's nothing silly about road tripping in a Tesla. The charging infrastructure is great and road trips are smooth. The author just didn't do his very well.

malyk 11y ago
I believe the 2016 volt will be a 5 seater. I have a '14 and the storage space seems fine to me. No kids though. I did put 14 large bags of mulch in the back once... The Volt also does a really great job with range vs. the driving habits of it's owners. According to Chevy[1], 80% of volt trips don't use any gas. Could be some confirmation bias there, but my personal rate is somewhere in the 70% of trips don't us gas. [1] http://www.cheatsheet.com/automobiles/2016-chevy-volt-may-be-the-total-green-car-package-at-27k.html/?a=viewall http://www.cheatsheet.com/automobiles/2016-chevy-volt-may-be...
- mikeash 11y ago
  Individual needs will, of course, vary. But if you need more space, the Tesla will give it to you. The Volt's trunk volume is only about 10ft^3, whereas the Tesla has 26ft^3 in the trunk and another 5 or so in the front. I'm leaving on a small road trip tomorrow, taking four adults, two children, and luggage for an overnight stay. Total driving will be about 350 miles. All electric, obviously. I should only need one charging stop, at a supercharger, but may take advantage of public chargers in garages and such while I'm parked, just for convenience. Obviously a lot of that difference is just because the cars are different in general, and not the drivetrains specifically. But the Volt does sacrifice a lot of volume because of the need to support two entire drivetrains at once.