General Motors’ shift from an internal combustion engine-producing company to one that makes electric motors is sputtering. EV sales are up, but growing slower than expected. The company’s next-generation Ultium platform, in particular, isn’t meeting expectations. GM’s new electric trucks and SUVs seem perennially delayed — or full of buggy software.
I think I have an easy solution to a lot of these problems: bring back the Chevy Volt.
Remember the Volt, GM’s scrappy Toyota Prius fighter from the mid-2010s? The company was lauded when it first came out in 2010 as a prescient bet on vehicles with electric powertrains. And it was undeniably a very good hybrid. The first-generation model got 36 miles of electric range before the gas kicked in, while later versions would get a whopping 53 miles of electric range.
Eh GM ditched CarPlay/android auto so pretty hard to consider any car they build as a serious option
Subaru also started adding seat heating controls and other “previously a knob” items to their shitty large and laggy screen.
It’s like they are on a race to alienate consumers with dumb decisions. Previously you could rip out the garbage they put in and called infotainment, now you are stuck with it since it is “part of the car” and serves some function not available otherwise…
Oh wow. We got the first ascent which was visibly bigger in size than the following models. They made the screen bigger which doesn’t seem like an upgrade. They made a pretty good user friendly console and a good driving assist with Eyesight. They shouldn’t “update” those.
Just give me a forester boxy wagon with a turbo, JFC or a turbo hybrid!
Was a fan of the Volt when it first came out, but since buying a Bolt a year ago, I’m a full electric convert. Unless you do a lot of road trips, I think a pure EV would be better for most whose daily drive is usually <100mi (for the 1-2 big trips we do, a rental works better anyway). A big draw for going fully electric was practically no maintenance, zero trips to the gas station, and more cost effective to charge (we have solar). A PHEV still has to contend with some of these.
The other benefits were just icing on the cake, such as one-pedal driving, no noxious emissions, and federal/state incentives (tax credits, carpool lane access, discounted tolls, utilities rebates, etc.)
But I can still see the appeal especially if one doesn’t have easy access to a L2 charger.
Plug in hybrid is going to be my next car. We live 100 from the closest EV charger. I’ll of course put a charger in at my house, but even the closest Walmart is a 30 mile drive one way.
I cannot justify an electric vehicle right now purely because I’m going to rely on only my house to keep my car charged. The day we get a L2 charger anywhere within a 10 minute drive of my house, I’d love to make the switch.
Honestly, it sounds like you do a lot of driving and a full-electric car would save you a lot! I can understand not wanting to put all your eggs in one basket charging at home, but if you also have an ICE car you won’t be totally stuck by an extended power outage or whatever. Give full-BEV some thought. Eventually you realize you don’t need to charge anywhere but home, aside from road trips and rare power outages. The only times I use public charging within 50 miles from home is when it’s free (who am I to turn down free juice?) Plus, as far as power outages go, an EV is an asset: my car doesn’t support vehicle-to-load (V2L) or anything, but I have an inverter I can plug into the 12-volt battery that can run a fridge for a few days or so.
Fwiw, after two months of owning an EV, with a L2 charger at home, I’ve used an outside charger only once, and it was 110 miles away. I also converted to an induction stove this year, so the stove circuit cost about the same as the charger circuit (plus the charger was $500) … both are 50a
So far, the range thing is a real issue. My car supposedly has a 330 mile range under ideal conditions, but they never are. In the cold, with pre-heating and a loaded up car, and my son the speed-demon driving, 110 miles was 52% of the battery. If you do consider an EV and live where there is winter, my experience is to expect only 2/3 the advertised range
Which is my concern. In the middle of nowhere where I’m at we regularly go to that city with a charger 100 miles away. It’s where hardware stores, furniture stores, cheaper groceries, clothing stores and pretty much anything else you can’t buy at a gas station are. If we go in the winter, unless we go to the mall where the charger is and deliberately walk around every. Single. Time. We won’t have the range to go to that city and drive to every store we would usually go to.
Yeah, I’ve been living in an urban area long enough to forget what that’s like. Certainly it’s tougher where things are spread out more.
If you get a EV that has 200 or so miles of range and having a home L2 charger is a game changer, you don’t need public charges only on a road trip. Let’s take the Kia EV6 will go from 18% to 80 percent around twenty minutes, so when you plug in on a fast DC charger you’re pretty close to 200 or so miles into the road trip. You’ll only need two 20 minute charges for 400 miles. That’s not a big deal however a Chevy Bolt would take a hour and 20 min from twenty percent to eighty percent so a Chevy bolt isn’t an attractive road trip car but a great City car.
I’m guessing that updating the batteries while leaving the rest unchanged could really boist those already great range numbers. It could essentially be electric for commuting, hybrid for travel.
That’s how every PHEV works…
Absolutely. I have a 2016 Volt and I love it. I’ve gone 4200 miles between fill-ups; I charge at home and only fill up when I go on a long trip or the car decides the gas is too old. I get all the benefits of an EV, all the benefits of a hybrid, and all the benefits of a gas-car. Plug-in hybrids are a better way forward than full EV’s.
I have a 2014 bought used in 2017 and it’s been a great car. Oil change every 2 years and gas for road trips or every few months. Day to day driving rarely runs the engine. I just wish it had 3 seats in the back instead of 2.
I’d like my next vehicle to be an electric one, and a used Volt was the main one I was considering. I hope GM brings it back.
My issue with the Volt is just that is was really crappy to be inside. It was a terrible Chevy interior combined with lack of space due to them trying to fit batteries into a platform that wasn’t designed for it.
Yes, it was great on paper. But when it came time to test drive one I was really turned off.
Chevy should indeed bring back a PHEV option because they’re just the most sensible choice for the most people until the charging infrastructure gets better. But the Volt kinda sucked so they should do something better like the Bolt.
Say what? I loved the Volt interior. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that the heater controls were a touch button you had to hold for like 60 seconds to go from hot to cold. Everything else was really nice. The little polite “beep beep beep” horn button on the end of the turn signal was brilliant, every car should have one of those.
I always thought the Volt was the smartest hybrid implementation.
The Volt is a great car! You can even use them for cross country road trips since the gas generator is very efficient.
40ish mpg on gas, 5mi/kwhr on a nice day with no AC. I love my Volt.
Yeah they’re great! I drove one from Seattle, WA to Wenatchee, WA and back with zero issues. It was a comfortable and fun ride. When you’re running on electricity they’re really quick off the line too. They feel sporty and fun, with nice interior features commonly found on luxury cars.
Literally the only thing I didn’t like about mine was that the A/C temp selector is a touch sensitive button instead of a knob. It takes way too long to adjust. Everything else was perfect. I loved and miss the little “beep beep beep” polite horn button on the turn signal. That was great for driving around here where everyone drives like they’ve stoned (they probably are stoned). You can get people’s attention without seeming rude.
That would be cool, but since GM have decided they are no longer including Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, any renewed Chevy Volt would be worthless pile of steel, lithium, and carbon. Might as well have the factory dump them straight into a landfill.
I’d prefer to buy a vehicle without these things.
Well you wouldn’t want GM’s alternative. They are killing these features so they can charge you a subscription for shittier versions of things you already get for free on your phone, like GPS navigation.
