Smidge204 said:
I don't agree that the 120 mile round trip is THAT far fetched - I know plenty of people who live out on Long Island and commute, by car, into NYC which is a 50-60 mile trip.
Sure, there exist people with long commutes such as that, and if they have work charging, I already conceded that a Leaf would work better in that situation. But there exist many, many more people for whom the Volt range is sufficient. I am just trying to get you to admit that except for the very small % of people who refuse to use any gas ever, that for those with the shorter commutes, with rare driving in the 40-80 mile zone, a Volt can be equivalent or better than having (Leaf + ICE). But both you & AndyH repeatedly come back with examples of people with 100-120 mile round trip commutes with workplace charging, on which the point has already been conceded, instead of addressing my substantially more common scenario of < 35 mile commutes without charging.
Nor do I agree that 40MPG is a valid number to use in real world situations unless you drive on the slow side
Why not? I got something like 42.8 at 67 mph cruise control. Maybe 40MPG isn't right if you like to cruise at 80 mph.
1) How often is that non-daily driving?
2) How much of that non-daily driving is within the range of a BEV (60 miles being very conservative, 80 more realistically)?
For me, the non-daily driving is maybe 16-20 trips per year? Only maybe 20% of those trips would be covered by the extra Leaf range. A much smaller percentage of the total miles & total gas used, since by definition those are the shorter trips. And as I demonstrated earlier, the ability of the Volt to be used as partial EV on the longer trips can cancel those shorter trips out.
3) If your driving is such that you never ever exceed the ~40 mile electric range of the Volt, ever, then you are still wasting whatever little fuel the Volt burns. The premises of my argument is a) minimizing fuel consumption, b) that the Volt drastically reduces but does not - can not - completely eliminate fuel use, and c) there are circumstances that the Volt is a poorer choice for fuel savings than a BEV with even a mediocre ICE vehicle as a backup.
But "never ever exceed" is totally far fetched. Why would a Volt owner never ever exceed it? We bought the Volt because we knew we would want to occasionally exceed both the Volt range AND the Leaf range. If I knew I'd never exceed Leaf range, I would have gotten one, but I know that I do need more range with some frequency, so I didn't.
I agree with c), but only in the situation where the 40-80 mile extra range is utilized with a sufficient amount of regularity.
Less is good, none is better.
None is unobtainable for most people, counting their use of 2nd ICE cars, rentals, rides from other people. For those not driving regularly in the Leaf extra range, the Leaf doesn't save a substantial amount of gas over the Volt, and loses the flexibility to be used on long trips, including doing some EV driving on the long trips where possible.
Really, the logic applied here draws eerie parallels to the logic some people use to justify buying a F250 pickup as a daily commuter: I might need it some day!
I think my logic is fine. The Leaf's extra EV range capabilities are useful vs. a Volt's if you will use that range on a regular basis. If you aren't going to, then it really isn't.
Yes, between maintenance mode and the Leaf range trips, I might burn a few extra gallons a year in a Volt than a Leaf for those particular trips. But I'm going to save more than a few from the EV driving in the more numerous longer trips. For my particular driving patterns, a Volt uses less gas. If my pattern were different, if I had reason to go on 60-70 mile round trips quite often, the equation would change and the Leaf would come out on top, and I might well have made a different purchase decision.
A Volt is not at all comparable to using a pickup for commuting. Using a pickup for commuting is getting a penalty of burning extra gas every day. Using a Volt, with a Volt-range commute, only has the worst case of ~0.6 gallon/year maintenance mode penalty, which is rather insignificant compared to potential gains on longer trips.
Or that the owner simply chose not to seek charging for whatever reason. One thing I hypothesize is that PHEV owners, secure with their fossil fuel safety nets, may not make as big a deal over opportunity charging as BEV owners.
A lot of us have what we have termed "gas anxiety", we really like to avoid kicking in the gas if feasible. On days where I am going to drive a few extra miles over my normal Volt range, I'll make an effort to take a slower route, drive slower, & use less climate control to stretch the range to cover.
So we will still utilize opportunity charging if we need it to avoid the gas, it it's conveniently located. If it's reasonably priced, which is < price of running on gas IMO. But if it's charging $3.00 / hour as a few places have started, I doubt we'll pay that, since that's basically equivalent to $12 a gallon gas.
