Chevy Volt excels in Mackinac Bridge round-trip testBy Bob Gritzinger, AutoWeek Magazine - Unless you've been living under a particularly thick rock for the past four years, you have no doubt heard, read and seen everything you could possibly want to know about the General Motors' green darling, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt.
Until now.
Up to this point, most of the stories about the Volt have been somewhat speculative, based on drives conducted under the watchful and overprotective eye of the General. Individual consumers' impressions have been largely colored by their pride of ownership and their righteous zeal to wring the maximum level of efficiency from their shiny electric chariots.
Now, with 2,000 Volts built since last December's start of production and 1,000 in consumers' driveways in seven states, it's finally time to get out on our own and put the Volt to the test in everyday use -- with no one chasing around after us with a giant extension cord to make sure everything is running right.
Know what? The thing works, surprisingly well. But there are a few caveats after a day of driving the length of Michigan's mitten, to the Mackinac Bridge and back.
First off, unless your neighborhood is temperate, your battery-only driving range will fall on the short end of the 25-to-40-mile scale. With an overnight charge on household current and with temps hovering in the mid-40s, we posted 26 miles on electric power before the 1.4-turbocharged gasoline engine fired up to spin the onboard generator to provide electric power to drive the trasction motor and propel the car farther down the road.
Got all that?
That said, under most circumstances, the transition from stored battery power to onboard-generated power is virtually seamless, as it ought to be, considering that the motor providing the locomotion doesn't change, just the source of energy driving that electric motor. The gasoline engine does drone at higher rpm on occasion, but typically, its operation is barely perceptible.
That doesn't change, regardless of distance traveled; the Volt rolls along with the same steady feel whether you're at mile 1 or mile 330.
That 330 number is significant, however, because that's just about the maximum highway range you can expect from a Volt before running the 9.3-gallon tank of premium unleaded gasoline dry. Depending on temperature and driving habits, you might see another 70 miles but not before running the Volt precariously low on fuel. We posted 36.5 mpg (with the 26 EV miles included) during a 560-mile trip.
When the Volt does run out of fuel and the gasoline-powered generator shuts down, unlike most cars, you're not immediately stuck on the shoulder waiting for a courtesy van with a gas can.
We ran the Volt dry, and although the instruments issued warnings, the speedometer never wavered from 70 mph as the car immediately tapped into the battery for extra power. Think of it as an electric reserve tank, designed to provide an extra three or four miles of range if you run out of gasoline. Sure enough, about three miles later, we ran low on reserve juise and safely slowed to a stop on the shoulder. After we added a few gallons of fuel on the roadside, the generator ran at maximum capacity for the next three miles to replenish the battery before the powertrain settled back into normal operating mode. Very little drama.
The bottom line: Chevy's little electric sedan might seem like a pricey science experiment, but for us, it's earned its real-world stripes. Next time, we're not stopping after we cross the Mackinac Bridge.
Until now.
Up to this point, most of the stories about the Volt have been somewhat speculative, based on drives conducted under the watchful and overprotective eye of the General. Individual consumers' impressions have been largely colored by their pride of ownership and their righteous zeal to wring the maximum level of efficiency from their shiny electric chariots.
Now, with 2,000 Volts built since last December's start of production and 1,000 in consumers' driveways in seven states, it's finally time to get out on our own and put the Volt to the test in everyday use -- with no one chasing around after us with a giant extension cord to make sure everything is running right.
Know what? The thing works, surprisingly well. But there are a few caveats after a day of driving the length of Michigan's mitten, to the Mackinac Bridge and back.
First off, unless your neighborhood is temperate, your battery-only driving range will fall on the short end of the 25-to-40-mile scale. With an overnight charge on household current and with temps hovering in the mid-40s, we posted 26 miles on electric power before the 1.4-turbocharged gasoline engine fired up to spin the onboard generator to provide electric power to drive the trasction motor and propel the car farther down the road.
Got all that?
That said, under most circumstances, the transition from stored battery power to onboard-generated power is virtually seamless, as it ought to be, considering that the motor providing the locomotion doesn't change, just the source of energy driving that electric motor. The gasoline engine does drone at higher rpm on occasion, but typically, its operation is barely perceptible.
That doesn't change, regardless of distance traveled; the Volt rolls along with the same steady feel whether you're at mile 1 or mile 330.
That 330 number is significant, however, because that's just about the maximum highway range you can expect from a Volt before running the 9.3-gallon tank of premium unleaded gasoline dry. Depending on temperature and driving habits, you might see another 70 miles but not before running the Volt precariously low on fuel. We posted 36.5 mpg (with the 26 EV miles included) during a 560-mile trip.
When the Volt does run out of fuel and the gasoline-powered generator shuts down, unlike most cars, you're not immediately stuck on the shoulder waiting for a courtesy van with a gas can.
We ran the Volt dry, and although the instruments issued warnings, the speedometer never wavered from 70 mph as the car immediately tapped into the battery for extra power. Think of it as an electric reserve tank, designed to provide an extra three or four miles of range if you run out of gasoline. Sure enough, about three miles later, we ran low on reserve juise and safely slowed to a stop on the shoulder. After we added a few gallons of fuel on the roadside, the generator ran at maximum capacity for the next three miles to replenish the battery before the powertrain settled back into normal operating mode. Very little drama.
The bottom line: Chevy's little electric sedan might seem like a pricey science experiment, but for us, it's earned its real-world stripes. Next time, we're not stopping after we cross the Mackinac Bridge.
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