

The Volt's gasoline capacity is being cut back









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RE: Somewhat understandable
By 67STANG on 7/9/2008 12:05:07 PM , Rating: 2
Nice I was downrated for calling Americans chubby I suppose?

In all reality, who drives 60mph on the highway? In California, our highways are 70mph, and unless you do 80-85... you'll get run over. So, at 80mph you can drive at the most, 5 hours (assuming the 360mi isn't already including the 40mi electric range and that economy doesn't fall drastically at a speedier pace).

Not that big of a deal, but take my commute for example. I drive a Honda Accord 170mi per day round trip. I have to fill up every 1.5 days because the tank doesn't hold much fuel. On the weekends I put maybe 30mi putt putting around town.

I am no fan of GM, but I was actually hoping to get one of these specifically for their range. I could fill up twice a week instead of 3 or 4 times and run on electric all weekend around town. Now, the Volt is barely an upgrade in range over my Honda...

RE: Somewhat understandable
By Suomynona on 7/9/2008 12:19:58 PM , Rating: 5
A 170-mile commute is extremely rare. For the vast majority of people, this will be a benefit.

RE: Somewhat understandable
By Spuke on 7/9/2008 1:02:32 PM , Rating: 3
That is a fairly rare length of commute even for Californians. My commute is 60 miles so I would be running the gas engine on the way home. At 360 miles, it's not much more than my present car (330-350 miles) but I imagine that 40 miles of that is on electric.

At 7.2 gallons, it would only cost me $33 to fill up versus $55 now. I wouldn't buy it for me but my wife could sure use a car like that. The only problem is the car costs ~$40k and, at that price, my truck would be cheaper to operate even at the present price of gas.

RE: Somewhat understandable
By Jedi2155 on 7/10/2008 12:25:19 AM , Rating: 2
A lot more people than you think nowadays. I drive in SoCal for my commute (typically the 5,10,22,57,60,91,210 freeways) and I've noticed that pretty much all of them except for the 57 and more eastern parts of the 91 drive more less around 60-75.

I'm starting to notice a lot more drivers being more conscious of their speed as they've probably heard that speed affects their gas consumption and as result is slowing down. On the other hand....most drivers in the LA area don't really have choice with all the traffic....

I've spent a lot of my time on the road just examining the habits of drivers and I would wager that maybe 20% of the drivers at most consistently drive faster than 75 MPH, while most would just follow the speed of traffic than go significantly faster than it.

RE: Somewhat understandable
By kmmatney on 7/10/2008 2:19:02 AM , Rating: 2
That's pretty much why I don't want to live in Califrnia now, even though I grew up there for 25 years. Who wants to commute that far - I have a reasonable 8 mile commute in Colorado, as do many other people who live in other states.

RE: Somewhat understandable
By RU482 on 7/13/2008 2:48:42 AM , Rating: 2
So you want GM to design the car to accommodate the 5% (170mi/day commute) of the market you reside in? This will add cost and decrease electric range for the other 95% of us that have sub 50 mile/day commutes

