Buying a Volt: It's an American thing, not a Republican or Democrat thing...

An interesting poll is currently underway on gm-volt.com.  The poll is soliciting responses for those who own a Volt or are strongly considering owning one, asking "Did you vote for Obama or not?"  Presumably, the original intent of the poster was to find out who is registered as a Republican or Democrat, but as evidenced in the thread, there are a few self-professed Republicans that voted for Obama.  Nevertheless, while the poll isn't scientific, and is not as clear cut as I would like (Are you a registered Democrat, Republican, or Independent would have been better), the results still say a lot.

With just over 100 votes collected, the poll is evenly split.

I am sure to most Volt owners, this is a 'duh' moment.  But it seems to many in the media, and those blogging critically on the Volt, that owning a Volt is like having a drivable billboard advertising that you are a hardcore tree hugging liberal (I am using that term affectionately here, not intended as derogatory).  While there are plenty of those types of people that drive the Volt and other electrics, there are plenty of Volt driving Republicans that would disagree with that assertion.

I have long wondered how it is possible so many Republican leaders have gotten the 'electric car' issue completely wrong, pigeoning it as a left wing environmentalists brain child.   It's not even close to the truth.  Especially for the Volt, when it was pioneered by conservative GOPer, Bob Lutz, that professed he didn't believe in global warming.

This poll, while small, should be a wakeup call.  More and more Republicans, like myself, are rejecting undisciplined and unintelligent platforms, especially as it pertains to energy.  Republican leadership risks alienating more and more people, like me, when they spout and support ignorant and incomplete assessments or our country's dire energy situation.  They also risk being on the wrong side of history, and I think that's going to happen a lot sooner than expected.

As I tell critics, you could believe the entire environmental movement is complete crock, that global warming is a hoax, and that electric cars provide no benefit to the environment over traditional gas guzzlers, and STILL support this country making a concerted effort to significantly diversify our country away from oil and towards electric.  I explained all of my reasoning to this endeavor back in my first post.

The electrification movement is an 'American thing', and the sooner the thought leaders in my party get on board, the better it will be for all of us.

One Year of Volt Ownership: The Costs of Operation and Comparisons

[Attention visitors:  As this entry has received a lot of notice, a few points.  I have over 20 blog entries.  If a question you have isnt answered in this entry, it is likely in one of the numerous other entries.  I did not intend this entry to be a 30 page novel.  Just a quick summary.  If you will look at the 2012 entries, you'll find answers to a lot of questions.  Or you can just comment below and I will answer.  Please view my very first entry, Why I bought the Chevy Volt, to see my personal motivations.  They likely aren't what you expect.]

One year of Chevrolet Volt ownership was reached on January 6, 2013.  Today, January 7, 2013, marks the beginning of year two.  My previous blog entries go over a lot of my personal feelings on the car, so I am going to focus on just the numbers for this entry.


According to AAA, the average price of gas in 2012 was $3.60 a gallon, which set the record.   Below I computed my savings based on the average price of gas for 2012.  When I post these through-out the year, I use the weekly average for my numbers because keeping track of a yearly rolling average can be tricky. 

What isn't listed here in additional savings is that I had no oil changes for the year.  Throw in 3 oil changes (at around 7,500 mile intervals) that most of the comparison cars would have needed and makes the Volt even more attractive.  I also only paid for about half the electricity listed up there.  While I did use about $371 in electricity, the place I charge at work provides electricity at no cost to me (supporting their sustainability mission) and a lot of the malls and shopping centers I go to also allow me to charge for free.  I also received my level 2 charger at no cost to me, thanks to Progress Energy and being an early adopter.  While that giveaway is no longer available, new Volt owners are making this up with by often paying 3-4k below sticker price.  I paid almost sticker price for my Volt.  It is now possible to get Volts around 30k, after tax credits, at dealerships that push heavy volume Volt sales.

In retrospect, my actual numbers were pretty close to my early estimates for yearly driving assumptions and expenses.  I had initially thought I would drive 22k miles a year, but a long vacation abroad at the end of December ended up shaving about 1,000 miles off my anticipated total.


One of the more interesting observations after a year of ownership is the degree the EPA label underrates Volt performance and savings.  Many Volt owners have stated that the EPA label should be considered a floor.  In other words, in all likelihood, a Volt owner will do MUCH better than what is stated on the EPA label.  For example, the range of 35 miles for a 2011 and 2012 was generally only seen during winter months, and most owners that I have spoken to exceed 40 most of the year (including me).


So I decided to have a little fun.


I took the EPA label for a 2012 Volt then edited it to match my actual performance.  I changed their assumptions in the fine print to match my circumstances exactly, including REDUCING the 5 year price of gas average the EPA has on the label (as $3.95 a gallon) to the average gas I experienced in 2012 of $3.60.  I recomputed MPGe based on my average consumption of 31 kWh/100 miles.

Anything in GREEN is an improvement on the label.  Anything in RED was when the Volt underperformed.  The only thing in red was the combined MPG of 36 instead of the labeled 37.  My engine ran so little, often coming on for 1 or 2 miles throughout the year, that the engine was not able to warm up and gain any efficiency.  On the few trips where I traveled a long distance, the engine was averaging about 45 MPG.


Below is the original label.  The differences are pretty stark.  Without a doubt, I have some of the best electrical rates in the country, and have found ways to charge when I am at work to prevent the gas engine from ever turning on.  But this should give readers an indication of the ENORMOUS variability in calculating the costs of operating an electric car.  There is room for a lot of improvement over the EPA label.

Pictures speak louder than words.

This is how much gas the Volt used in one year

 

Had I driven a car getting 50 MPG, like a Prius, this is how much gas I would have used:

 Had I driven a car getting 30 MPG, like a Chevy Cruze, this is how much gas I would have used:

 

Had I driven a car getting 23 MPG, approximately the new car average, this is my fuel burn:

 And finally, if I elected to drive a car getting 17 MPG, I would have used this small amount of petrol:

This is one year.  Can you imagine how this is going to look in 5 years?

If anyone believes my power rate is wrong, please see the bottom of this post for an explanation.

One Year of Volt Ownership: My Reflections

Come Monday, January 7, 2013, I will have owned a 2012 Chevrolet Volt for one year.  It’s been one hell of a year.  What started out as a simple car purchase turned out to be a life altering event.  Why?   It’s a long list. 

The car vastly exceeded my expectations which were born from a technological car crush way back when the Volt was announced as a concept in 2007.  I followed the Volt’s development closely, mainly on gm-volt.com, for several years.  My goal was to own a Volt as soon as it was sold in my state.  And based upon my expected use cases, I figured I would average around 100 MPG combined with my 70+ miles per day commute, not the 1000+ MPG I would get after a full year of ownership and 20,000 miles.  Owning a Volt for one year has removed any doubts about the viability of the electric car movement.    While nay sayers will complain about the cost of EVs at the same time people like me can show these cars are already a cost effective solution for many, I have no doubts that the electric car industry will follow the same trend that every other piece of technology has gone through during our lifetime:  initially high adoption premiums, whose costs are rapidly diminished through economies of scale, and delivered not only cheaper, but better.  You would have to completely ignore history to believe otherwise.

I didn’t realize the influence I could have as an early adopter, helping usher in the electric car age.  I participated in several state wide Plug-in Vehicle Readiness Groups funded through the Department of Energy.  That work is helping our entire state get educated on electric vehicles, and promoting sustainable, thoughtful and appropriate policies for their adoption.  Not only that, but working with large and powerful stakeholders such as car manufactures, power companies, and legislators helped fill in any knowledge gaps I had about electric cars.  In this past year, I learned what it is like to be a true advocate, sacrificing a lot of personal time to help promote electrification.  This blog is only a tiny portion of that work.  I even battled a conservative radio talk show host, I believe successfully, for about 15 minutes on air.

As a result of owning this car, I pay a lot more attention to where I get my news, and how much I trust what I hear/read/see.  If you know the sky is blue, and the news sources that you trust so much tell you the sky is orange, you have a problem.  News sources I once trusted, probably to my own ignorance, such as Fox and Drudge Report, have not only distorted facts about electric cars, specifically the Volt, but they have told lies.  In fact, Matt Drudge in my opinion has directly libeled GM and the Volt, and should have been taken to court and sued for millions, as I believe he has negatively affected Volt sales in that amount.   If you have read this blog, you know I’ve written a few entries attempting to expose a lot of the lies told by the media about this car.  But my distrust of the news now goes way beyond just the electric car, as I am now forced to scrutinize almost everything else I see reported.  Thankfully, my critical thinking ability has been reinvigorated.  I can’t say the same the same for most Americans.

I have even reevaluated my once strong love of the Republican Party.  I still consider myself a Republican.  But much of the Republican Party has left me in its extremism, loss of a balanced approach to solving our nation’s complex problems, and a lack of intellectual integrity and honestly.  The fact that the Republican Party cannot see the enormous and repeated damage caused by our dependence on crude, foreign or domestic, and sees the only viable solution in expanded drilling is beyond comprehension.  Given that this was an election year, it wasn’t difficult to get the candidates’ views on electrification of the transportation sector.  Needless to say, electric vehicles are not widely supported by Republican leadership.  So I have a difficult time supporting candidates that don’t have a balanced, intelligent, and honest answer to our nations’ energy crisis, and as a result, can’t trust them to make good decisions on other issues.
 

So, all of this change and self-reflection from a simple car purchase…   Long live electric cars and long live the Volt!

For those that want all the nity gritty details, I'll be publishing a new post very soon with my details.

Why MPGe really doesn't matter much...

I have long hated MPGe.  Miles Per Gallon Equivalent is an often misunderstood rating, that is prominently placed and emphasized by the EPA in its window stickers, and successful in confusing consumers, dealerships, and reporters alike.  I have seen many well intentioned dealerships advertise the Volt as a car with a "98 MPG" rating (dropping the 'e' altogether).  I have seen critics wrongly try to showcase cheaper cars with a higher MPGe as better than the Volt.  Competing car manufacturers are using the MPGe metric to make their inferior electric car offerings look better than the Volt.  Certain electric hybrid automobile manufactures, with their offerings being short on range but high on MPGe, are playing a game of smoke and mirrors.  "Ignore the short range, and put all your attention to our higher MPGe!"  The devil is in the details, and I worry that too many consumers aren't going to understand how to properly evaluate their choices.

What is MPGe?

Well, it is really an efficiency rating.  The EPA determined how many BTUs of heat a gallon of gas would put off if you if burned it.  Then they calculated how much electricity would be needed to generate to the same number of BTUs.  This number is 34 kilowatt hours.  Then the EPA determined the range of a car after consuming 34 kWhs of electricity.  So, if you see a car that is rated at 95 MPGe, that means the EPA rated that car to go 95 miles on 34 kWhs of electricity.  If you see a car rated at 115 MPGe, that means it could go 115 miles on 34 kWhs. 

So, why is the car rated at 115 MPGe not necessarily better than the car with a 95 MPGe.  There is no doubt that on a given amount of electricity, the car getting the 115 MPGe is going to do more with a given unit of energy.  However, if the car getting 115 MPGe can only drive 10 miles on electricity before turning on the gas engine, and the car getting 95 MPGe can go 45 miles before turning on the gas engine, the overall efficiency of the longer ranged, yet inferior MPGe car, is going to best the shorter ranged, higher MPGe car, on all but the shortest of trips.

Looking at this from the abstract.  Let's say I need to hire a worker.  I tell that worker that he/she can work up to 8 hours a day.

Option 1: Your first hour of work is paid at $10 an hour.  All subsequent hours are paid at $2 an hour. (Compare this to Car option 1:  115 MPGe and 50 MPG on gas)
Option 2: Your first four hours of work are paid at $8 an hour.  All subsequent hours are paid at $1 an hour.
(Compare this to Car option 2: 98 MPGe and 37 MPG on gas)

With option 1, the worker can make a maximum of $24 for 8 hours of work.  $10 for the first hour, then $14 for the remaining 7.

With option 2, the worker can make a maximum of $36 for 8 hours of work.  $32 for the first four hours, then $4 for the remaining 4.

So what can we take from this?

1) Option 1 has the highest hourly rates.  The starting rate and secondary rate are BOTH higher than the second option's rates.  BUT FOR A FULL WORKDAY, OPTION TWO WILL PAY YOU MORE.

2) If the person that is going to be hired plans on working 1 hour only, option 1 is the best.  The benefits of the second option don't come into play until after the first hour, so if the worker is only going to be working one hour a day, the first option is obviously best.

3) You have to look beyond just the raw numbers, and see what fits your situation the best.

So, bringing this back to cars...  A car that promises a higher MPGe than the Volt, may not be better for you at all.   You need to look at the electric range of the car, estimate your daily driving habits, and come up with a combined fuel economy in your situation.  This obviously extends to the MPG rating on range extended cars like the Volt and Plug in Prius.  The Volt gets about 37 MPG when running on gas, with the Prius at 50 MPG.  Ignoring the fact that the Prius will turn on the gas motor even during the initial electric range if the car gets to 62 MPH or if you accelerate too hard, the Prius's superior MPG shouldn't matter much to Volt owners.  Volt owners use their gas engine so little that the added 13 MPG efficiency of the Prius won't cut much into the fuel savings.

What would I like to see done about this? 

Despite there being a lot of criticism on this idea, the EPA needs to consider adding other metrics to their label that reduce the bias of MPGe.  Given the cheap nature of electricity compared to gasoline, one car being 10-15% more efficient with the power it consumes isnt going to amount to much difference in the wallet of the buyer, but that car only going 11 miles on a charge versus 40 is going to make a big one.   It would also be nice to display the potential tax credits for the car.  With the Volts much larger battery, it gets 3x the tax credit of the Plug in Prius ($7500 versus $2500).  With this difference, the Volt has over 3x the electric range for about the same cost.

One final note... I know for 100% electric vehicles, MPGe is a good metric.  It could also be a good 'tie break' metric if two cars are identical in range.  Its just not a great starting point to evaluate electric cars, and the EPA can do much better.

Almost @ 1 year of ownership with the Volt. My fuel savings!

I am not going to do a big write-up on this one.  I think the numbers speak volumes.  At the end of the year, I will calculate the yearly average price of fuel (will likely be about 20 cents higher than  the current rates listed) and give a total.  Look for that post around the one year anniversary mark, which will be January 7, 2013.

If you drive a car that gets 23 MPG (the national average), the yearly savings based on my driving habits and electricity costs are going to be around $3000 PER YEAR.

Here is a snippet from my bill.  It has three components.  On-peak kWh is the top line.  Off-peak kWh is the second line.  Demand factor is the third line.  Demand factor by definition is the most amount of energy used during peak hours for any 15 minute period.  That number, the demand factor, is multipled by a rate that changes seasonally.  I can completely discount the demand factor from any costs associated with the Volt.  Why?  Because I know when we generate the peak rate.  It happens when the clothes are being washed, the HVAC is on, and I am cooking on the stove.  When I know those moments are going to happen, I simply throw the breaker on the car charger.  If I allowed my car to charge during those peak moments, it would likely add about '1' to the demand factor, increasing my bill anywhere from $3.50 to $6 a month.  Since I make the decision to disconnect the car during peak moments, my car does not affect the demand factor.  All that is left is adding up the on peak hours and off peak hours, and that will average out somewhere around 6 cents per kWh.

 

October Sales are in!

Electric cars are here to stay.  The market for electric cars was around 1,300 cars at the beginning of the year.  This month: nearly 6,500.  If you include Tesla, Fisker, Ford, Mitsubishi, and the other smaller players, the number is likely over 7,000.  The market growth is amazing.  Had sales numbers been stock prices, and we bought in at the beginning of the year, we'd all be very happy people right now. 

 

As I stated in my previous blog, electric cars are late bloomers.  Are they selling in the quantity that the manufacturers wanted straight out of the gate?  No.  Are they getting really close in a fairly short period of time?  Absolutely.  10 months into the year, General Motors is only about 5k away from their targeted sales rate of 40k a year.

 

How long can this growth maintain?  I'm not entirely sure.  I think the Volt could sustain about 40k-50k Volts a year with current gas prices.  If prices go lower, so do sales.  I do believe that come January, we will see a big drop in sales.  This is due to the nature of a heavily subsidized car.  Not only is January a bad sales month, but people will have to wait over a year to get their tax credit if they buy in January.  A lot of people will not want that.

 

I will also prognosticate that we will see a dip in November sales.  Is it demand related?  No.  Inventory is at year low levels due to the factory shutdown.  Demand has been so high, inventory has been stripped to a 30 day supply.  Back in January, we had close to a half a year supply of Volts on the lots.  It takes about a month for the supply chain to be cranking again.  Since the Volt assembly line restarted in the middle of October, dealerships won't see new inventory in significant quantity until the middle of November.  This is going to hurt sales a good bit.

 

But look for December to be the largest ever, possibly above 3,500 Volts delivered to customers.

 

It is an exciting time for electric vehicle advocates!!

 

 

 

 

Volt Sales Targets: Disappointment and Triumph

Missed Targets

General Motors is being repeatedly beat up about missing sales targets set for the Volt. They said they'd sell 10,000 in 2011 with a limited release of the Volt in select states across the nation. They sold about 7,500. They said they would sell 40,000-45,000 in 2012 once the car was rolled out nationwide, and it looks like they are going to sell about 25,000 through December. Without putting this into perspective, and following the Volt's tumultuous and short life thus far, it would be easy to label the Volt as a failure.

However, this is a new market. When it comes down to it, GM is attempting to sell a type of car that has never been sold before. It was difficult to gauge how well the public would initially take to liking the Volt. Would they be able to see past the initial higher purchase price to recognize the vastly cheaper operating costs as it compares to the total cost of ownership comparisons to gas vehicles? Would they put concerns about the battery behind them with a generous warranty that shields the consumer from any issues for a long time? Would gas prices remain high in order to make an alternatively fueled vehicle attractive? Would dealers embrace the car and promote it, or would they shun it in favor of more traditional vehicles?

I think those issues alone should have been enough to make General Motors give more conservative sales estimates. But they didn't. They put out bold numbers. Not being an automobile insider, I suspect there are good reasons for high sales estimates that go beyond the obvious. I suspect car companies need to negotiate good prices from suppliers based on volume estimates. A lower estimate is likely going to mean a higher price per unit. This is completely speculation on my part, but otherwise I don't understand why such high targets were placed on such a fledgling product.

Things get worse.

Then the unthinkable happened. In late 2011, widely publicized and congressional involvement in a NHTSA Volt safety investigation would stoke fears in potential buyers. A Volt caught fire at a test facility 3 weeks after a side impact test. NHTSA eventually concluded that the Volt was as safe as or safer than most cars on the road, and General Motors made a modification to further reduce the likelihood of a battery fire in the event of a serious accident. But the damage was done. The Volt had become a political lightening rod. The conservative media was hailing the 'combustible Volt' as an example of wasted government tax dollars in the wake of the General Motors bail-out.

Up until that point, the Volt sales looked to be on an upward pace near of the end of 2011 with consecutive sales increases, culminating with a sales record of 1,529 in December. But the NHTSA hearings, and enormous amount of negative press, mostly unfair and speculative, took its toll.

Enter 2012.

Volt numbers in January plummeted to just 603 vehicles sold. February wasn't much better with sales rising to 1,023. At this rate, GM would struggle to pass the 10k mark on the second full year of production. Then General Motors announced that the plant would suspend production of the Volt for 5 weeks, starting in the middle of March. Vultures were circling. Pundits were calling this the end of the Volt. Owners and advocates were desperately trying to explain the sales drops, stating that the media had been so unfair and harsh during the NHTSA trials, that people weren't willing to trust the Volt as a result. General Motors publically abandoned its sales targets for the Volt, simply stating they would match supply with demand. It was indeed, grim.

Early Spring.

Then something happened. In a rush to bring the Volt to the market, General Motors had underestimated the importance of producing the Volt to meet California emissions standards. The nation's largest car market was selling an alternatively fueled vehicle that did not qualify for the states' $1500 additional tax credit, nor did it qualify for single occupancy HOV lane access. The Nissan Leaf did. The Toyota Prius during its early years did as well. GM had missed a critical component to jump start sales. Back in January, GM had announced its intention to deliver California emissions compliant Volts by March. In the midst of the plant shutdown, rumors started to pop up. New Volt records? Could it be possible? How was this possible? The HOV compliant California Volts were produced before the shutdown, and were being delivered to dealerships. There was a line out the door to get them. Then we got the March sales numbers: 2,289 domestic units sold. The press was in a frenzy.  The Volt had a pulse! As a result of this unexpected jump in sales, General Motors decided to restart production a week early. Volt advocates sighed with tentative relief that perhaps the worst was over.  In April, it was reported by the Detroit Press that the CEO of GM, Dan Akerson stated that he expected sales of the Volt to be averaging around 2,000 to 3,000 a month by the end of the year, and that should be enough to silence critics.  Once again, GM had created a target for the media.

Fast forward.

It has now been 6 months since the Volt seemed to turn the sales corner. After the March spike, Volt sales retreated below 2,000 and began an unbroken series of consecutive month over month sales increases. The Volt market is in a period of sustained growth. It would take until August for the Volt to break through the March sales record, but in August and September sales were 2,832 and 2,851 respectfully. All indications show another month around or above the 3,000 unit sales for October.  Finally, a sales target that was met!

The anti Volt pundits will just look at the total. They'll say, the Volt has only sold 16,348 cars through September, well short of making the 40,000-45,000 initial goal of General Motors. While that is true, it isn't being fair to the facts or obvious trend for anyone closely following the car. The Volt will likely end October with 3 consecutive months of around 3,000 units. This will annualize out to about 36,000 cars a year. So, while General Motors has taken a little longer than expected to get there, they are likely to meet or exceed the 40,000 a year mark in 2013 given current trends.

The Volt is a late bloomer. The electric vehicle market as a whole is going to be a late bloomer. We aren't going to have 500,000 electric vehicles on the road in the U.S. by 2015, let alone a million. That doesn't mean that electric cars are a failure just because they may not have come out of the gates as strong as the government and some companies had hoped for. But given a little perspective, I think you'll see that the steady and improving adoption of the Volt and its competitors is a trend worth betting on.

 

Quarterly Sales Rates:
January -> March: 1,305 a month or 15,660 a year
April -> June: 1,634 a month or 19,608 a year
July -> September: 2,511 a month or 30,132 a year
* October -> December: 3,100 a month or 37,200 a year

* estimates based on generalized upward trend seen through previous quarters