

Chevrolet Volt window sticker
93 mpg on battery power, 37 mpg on gasoline power






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RE: 60 "Combined" ? How is this calculated?
By nafhan on 11/24/2010 5:22:58 PM , Rating: 2
I think they take into account the fact that most people won't be driving it to empty. Do the same calculations, but replace 379 with 50, and you end up with ~60MPG. In other words, they expect most people to drive about 85 miles.
Either way... I think using MPG on an electric vehicle is confusing at best.

By rangerdavid on 11/24/2010 7:11:21 PM , Rating: 2
Maybe just ditch the "MPG equivalent" and just state the range per 4-hour charge?

Or better yet, just state the miles per 10 Kw hours or something? That would take into account the progressively more efficient electric motors and transmissions, so you could compare electric-to-electric better in the future, i.e. "My new car gets 25 Miles-per-Kilowatt-Hour, my old one only got 21"

RE: 60 "Combined" ? How is this calculated?
By Solandri on 11/24/2010 7:38:37 PM , Rating: 3

This is a common mistake people make with MPG. When you average two MPGs, it's not

(MPG1 + MPG2) / 2


2 / [ (1/MPG1) + (1/MPG2) ]

For cases where you're averaging different numbers of miles at different MPG, it's

(miles1 + miles2) / [ (miles1/MPG1) + (miles2/MPG2) ]

You have to do this complicated conversion because MPG is the inverse of fuel consumption. MPG tells you how many miles you can go on a gallon of fuel, not how much fuel is needed to travel a certain distance. The rest of the world uses L/100km for this reason (kinda like gallons per 100 miles). You'll notice the EPA is trying to correct this with the electric/hybrid ratings - it's listing electricity consumption in kW-hr per 100 miles.

By Targon on 11/26/2010 5:51:18 AM , Rating: 2
As others have mentioned, the key is to look at how far you have to drive each day, and "averages" won't work here. The mpg rating(using miles per American gallon) does not break out highway miles vs. city miles per gallon. For those who live right in the city they work in, you may be able to get away with all electric on your commute, but MOST people live outside the city they work in, and a place like New York City has a VERY large area where you could have a 30 mile commute each way and still be "in the city".

