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They call the percentage of electric-only miles the Utility Factor (UF). To determine the UF of a given plug-in hybrid, we simply insert the vehicle's electric range into the SAE's chart. The Volt's 40-mile range returns a UF of 0.62, which means the average Volt will spend 62% of its life running on electricity that came in via the plug and 38% on electricity generated by the gasoline engine.
See here regarding "Utility Factor".
So ... if the Volt only runs the ICE 38% of the "time" ( and we assume that also means "miles" ), does that mean it requires an oil change only every 3,000/38% = 7,895 miles (if you're a 3k believer) ? (You can extrapolate the numbers for 7,500 or 10,000 oil changes. Except that "calendar time" will likely occur first.)
walk_n_wind
I think GM would indeed want to carry the BEV label. But they only have a 40-mile BEV, which is nothing compared to the competish. My opinion is they tried to minimize risk and benefit from consumer range anxiety by avoiding serious engineering decisions and making what they could easily do - a 40-mile EV. Then they stuck an ICE engine in to fill the void in their capabilities.
I love me some ICE engines, but one of the benefits of EVs are that we don't have to crawl under them and change their oil. No more ignition maintenance. No more impossible-to-troubleshoot oil leaks. The Volt loses all those benefits.
But I digress. It's a hybrid by definition. As far as the NHTSA moniker (or whoever comes up with the EV, BEV, EREV, XYZ 123, etc.), who knows what it is.
The Sad Fact is that public charging infrastructure is being "cherry picked". Placed in very certain places that make EVs look favorable. While other locations are totally ignored mainly the north east of the USA.
Holy crap, this article on a possibly huge dealer-markup for the Volt makes me glad Tesla owns all it's stores as it reduces this kind of markup.
Report: Chevrolet dealer ready to charge $20,000 over MSRP for Volt... will more follow?
Yes, Tesla could increase the price on any of it's models but at least it's the same price at any store.
wait....wait....wait..... I cant even fathom that... 20k over msrp?!? that has to have been faked... This is another reason I loathe the dealership model
Edmunds didn't name the dealer...so it could just be a publicity grab on Edmund's part.
Yes, this is one down fall of the dealership model. Almost any car that has high selling potential gets a markup;
when the Thunderbird was reintroduced a few years back they had $10k markups (on a ~$35k MSRP) at all the dealerships I visited.
I'm not sure if Chevrolet can do anything about dealer markups or not. If they can they probably will (especially one that high!) but I'm not sure what they can legally do about it.
Recently, with all the development of electric vehicles that has been going on, the automotive lexicon has expanded greatly, and now GM seeks to trademark part of that expanded vocabulary; the company has filed for a trademark on the term ‘range anxiety’.
...
“By all means, GM can have ‘range anxiety,’” Tesla VP of Communications, Ricardo Reyes. “To Roadster owners, the term is as irrelevant as ‘gas stop’ or ‘smog check.’ We are, however, looking into trademarking ‘Tesla grin.’”
Let's say you start the day with a full charge and travel for 340 miles without a stop, your fuel mileage will be a reasonable 36.5 mpg. What if you forget to plug in overnight and embark on a 300-mile trip with a drained battery? Well, that's more like 32 mpg. Not amazing numbers and we all know that the Toyota Prius does a lot better, but can that car travel 40 miles under electric power alone? Nope.