Skip to main content

Why I Got a Chevy Volt

Why I chose the Volkswagen "Buy Back"


Last month, I sold my VW Golf TDI back to Volkswagen.  It was included in the emissions scandal, and I had the option to sell it back for more than I paid for it.  Even though I mostly loved the car, I had my reasons for choosing to sell it back. Here are some of the reasons which tipped the scales for me:

  • There were quirks that drove me nuts (3 sec. delay in acceleration, always complaining about my key not being in range, bluetooth microphone not working for media audio, worthless voice recognition feature, many more)
  • The mileage and age of the vehicle were getting to the point where things start getting expensive to maintain (90K).  
  • The fuel mileage was averaging about 35 mpg, which is not hard to beat using even a NON-hybrid modern gas vehicle.
  • To further this issue, a gallon of diesel comes at about a $.50 premium over gas, negating any fuel mileage advantages.
  • Also furthering this issue, is the relative difficulty of finding good sources of diesel (vs. good sources of gasoline).  

Why I chose the Chevy Volt

I have wanted an EV for a long time now, but at least once a week, I have a 140 mile round-trip commute with no access to a charging station.  The Tesla 3 is out my price range (and, although they are neat-o, the value proposition is just not there for what they are offering).  So I knew I needed a plugin hybrid. Sadly, Volkswagen does not have anything right now.  I considered the Prius Prime and the Chevy Volt.  I settled on the Volt because:
  • It has twice the range of the Prius (50 miles vs 25 miles)
  • It looks better
  • It has more torque and better handling
  • The trunk of the Prius Prime is compromised by a massive bump-up of the floor, whereas the Volt is like a regular hatchback.
Those are the main reasons.  After some searching, I was able to find a used 2016 Volt (2nd Gen) that is fully loaded.  It was tricky, because the used market on these cars is still pretty sparse.  I had to get it with Carmax and have it shipped.  Next year, these will really start coming off leases and the market will pick up.

In future posts, I will describe my experiences and thoughts associated with practical use, but so far I have not been the least bit disappointed.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Timbaland rips off a Demoscene artist

I knew this day would come. The new Timbaland/Nelly Furtado song "Do It" uses a song made in 2000 by Finnish demoscene artist "Tempest" (Janne Suni). It's a 4 channel .mod (the ripoff is from a playback using the C64 SID soundchip). The song was hosted on scene.org's servers (the main repository for all everyones demos and tracked music, etc.). As you might expect, no permission or royalties were paid to Tempest. Just to clarify, we're not talking about some kind of coincidence here. There is no question that this track was used to create the song "Do It". In an interview, Timbaland tries to downplay it, saying things like "he sampled it from a video game". (This track was not written for a video game- it was actually written for the 2000 demoscene music competition, in which it won 1st place). Regardless, he basically claims he has no legal obligations because it's just like all the other pop artists that sample other m
1 comment
Read more

Reaper, Linux, and the Behringer X-Air - Complete Studio Solution, Part 1

Introduction and Rationale This is part one of a major effort to document my experiences with recreating my home studio, entirely using Linux.  Without getting into too many of the specifics, a few months ago I decided that I was unhappy with Windows' shenanigans - to the point that I was ready to make a serious attempt to leave it behind.  For most in this situation, the obvious choice is to switch to Mac OS.  With its proven track record, support, and options for multimedia production, it is naturally the first alternative to consider if your goal is to simply use something other than Windows. For me the choice was not so simple. I despise Mac OS and, in general, the goals and philosophies put forth by Apple in an effort to ostensibly provide users with an "easy" working environment.  It does not help that I have also failed to find any aspect of the Mac OS UI intuitive, but I realize that this is a subjective matter. With my IT background and user-control* favori
Post a Comment
Read more

Windows 8 audio clicks and glitches narrowed down to Malwarebytes

Ever since I got my Windows 8 PC, I have been having serious problems with audio.  Basically all sound playback on my system experiences a brief  but frequent click, skip, glitch, stutter, whatever you prefer.  I can reproduce the issue on any sound card or firewire sound interface (devices tested include the onboard Conexant SmartAudio HD, my external Phonic Helix 12, and my Edirol FA-101).  All of them seem to have audio clicks, with the firewire interfaces' clicks seeming more harsh for whatever reason.
3 comments
Read more