In TX, Iowa, and other necks of the woods, a nice house costs 1 dolla. Many people would much rather live in a rat's hole that costs $500K here than a nice house that costs 1 dolla there.

When I went to those necks of the woods, people kept shoving land and home titles in my face and begging me to sign to take their lands and homes for free. Then I was like, "Back off! I have no need to take your 1 dolla." Then they were like, " ".

 

I suspect Cali will figure out something to deal with the electricity prices for EVs and plug in hybrids. The Cal government wants these cars so they don't want to make the cost of ownership unreasonable. I mean it would be silly to offer a big rebate on EV purchases then make it crazy expensive to charge them. With the advent of smart grids and off peak hour charging I suspect Cali will try to address the electricity cost issue.

 

I'm not even sure what all of this means. If it means you'd rather live in Cal. that's cool. I like to visit Cal., I'm just not ready for all the nonsense that goes along with it. Last time I looked the state was deeply in debt with no plan to get out other than ask the Feds to raid my pockets again.

Based on the electric charge tier structure I saw, an electric car will be a tough sell on an economic basis in Cal. As Quikag states, it will take some special programs, but you still have to come up with the generation and transmission. The electricity isn't just going to appear in the batteries.

 

 

I think it's pretty clear that steppedon is just a troll. He is very quick to throw out the race card and obviously has a large chip on is little shoulders. I'm rather surprised he hasn't been shown the door given some of his comments. At least one thread was simply removed from the forum due to his posts.

 

Dude you need to get an EDUCATION!!

 

Anybody read the new C&D? It has a long article on the Volt. I must say - the car really is quite impressive. You can easily avg 100 MPG if you mainly do city driving. The car handles quite wel(0.83 G cornering) and has plenty of TQ when you get on the gas. It is a bit smaller and probably less refined than a Prius but IMHO is an impressive piece of engineering.

 

Ok so let me get this straight:

- The leaf is all-electric and you need to plug it in. It does not have a gas motor.
- The prius has both a gas engine and a battery and uses both in its daily operation. You do not plug in the prius.
- The volt plugs in and is able to use the battery full-time, failing over to the gas engine if it runs out of a charge.


Ok so those are all different hybrid strategies. I get it. So why are the leaf and prius in the $20s and the volt costs $40k?

 

Not exactly.

The Prius has a relatively speaking small battery that cost far less than those in the other two. The car is probably selling for mid $20s most of the time.

The leaf is a $33k car before government rebates. The Volt is a $40k car before rebates. If we call the Leaf a $26k car then the Volt is a $33k car. The leaf is, relatively speaking a much simpler car thus should be less expensive. It is also surprisingly ugly in person.

The Volt would cost the most given it has a large, complex battery and all the gasoline running gear as well. No surprise there.

MDX,
From what I've read, the Volt beats the Prius in terms of refinement.

All around it is a very impressive car. Is it worth the money? Hell no but neither was the first gen Prius. The question is will the future versions of the car mature as the Prius did... or as the Insite did (ie died the came back as a second string Prius).

 

I don't think you can get 100 mpg average without using electricity from the grid. This is like saying the Leaf gets infinity mpg since it never needs gas.

I still laugh every time GM marketing tries to use the 240 mpg on the Volt.