Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel's "Follow the Money") test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.
For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.
Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles. It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.
According to General Motors, the Volt battery hold 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery.
The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity.
I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh.
16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery.
$18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery.
Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine only that gets 32 mpg.
$3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.
The gasoline powered car cost about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000.........
So Government wants us to pay 3 times as much, for a car that costs more that 7 times as much to run, and takes 3 times longer to drive across country.....and, as an incentive to buy this lemon, Obama's proposed budget offers a $10,000.00 tax rebate to volt purchasers...... REALLY ?
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3 comments:
Ok, I just looked at my Ameren Power bill, just the electricity in kWh of 429 and the total cost I paid there in of $54.17 (that includes all umpteen fees and costs applied to each kWh. It comes to 12.6c per kWh. If I must charge the battery for 16 kWh to charge it full from empty, that comes to 12.6c X 16 = $2.02. Either your math sucks or I would seriously hate to have your power bill as you're paying 9x as much per kWh as I am! -Mike
I concur with Mike. If you are going to do an analysis, it would be wise to use proper data. My cost per Kwh is about 14.9 cents, including delivery, taxes, other regulatory charges. .149x16= $2.38.
Using this number, the cost of driving a mile on electric is about a penny less than the example given the gas portion.
This is still not a great advantage over a fuel efficient small car but more accurately supports the argument for the latter.
You're both too high. The monthly customer charge ($8.00) applies anyway, so that's not relevant to the added cost of charging the car. It's the per-kilowatthour charge that matters. In Missouri that charge is 10.7¢ in the summer (Jun-Sep) and 5.1¢ - 7.6¢ in the winter (lower rate applies for usage above 750 kilowatthours). Add about 10% for taxes and the 12 month average cost is no more than about 9¢ per kilowatthour. Illinois has market-based rates, so the cost there can be quite different.
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