Car review: 2016 Chevy Volt Premier
You have to admire Chevrolet and GM and its dogged support for its cool Volt line of hybrid gas-electric plug-in sedans.
My five-seat tester, a Volt Premier Hatchback, came in a beautiful “mosaic black metallic” and frankly looked slick just standing still in our parking lot.
Completely refreshed by Chevy for its second year on the market the 2016 Volt I test had naturally crazy good mileage and a great electric-only range of 53 miles.
Car review: 2016 Nissan Altima SR
My review car came with 17-inch alloy wheels and a rear spoiler. Inside you’ll find premium upholstery and a dashboard that is logically laid out. In the center is a 8-inch media-navigation screen that’s user friendly. The Volt’s sound system includes a Bose CD player and six speakers.
Be warned, however, that like all plug-ins, this vehicle won’t exactly blow your hair back in the speed department. My tester took a little more than 8 seconds to get to 60 mph.
But speed, frankly, isn’t what you care about if you’re truly in this market -- mileage is is what counts. And, in this department the Volt could well possibly change your life and certainly place a lot less strain on your family pocketbook.
But here’s the thing -- and this is an important head’s up -- you can run out your 53 of pure electric range fairly quickly and then the vehicle seamlessly switches over the I-4 gas engine which gives you roughly 350 miles of range.
The really annoying thing is that at least here in Monterey County on California’s Central Coast not all of the charging stations you’ll encounter are made the same. It seemed like each one I stopped out was run by a different network provider.
The hard thing to accept is that none of these charging networks made just using your credit card for a charge easy. A couple of the stations were out of order and one had all sorts of -- wait for it -- cobwebs on it.
Late last fall I was given special opportunity of testing a Tesla Model S for three days (review diary coming soon!) and I have to say Tesla totally gets EV vehicle “range anxiety” issues and compensates for the problem by have created its own national network of what the company calls “supercharging” stations built exclusively to quickly charge Tesla vehicles. When add a giant almost desk-top size computer screen into the cockpit telling you exactly where the next Tesla facility is, you get why the upstart company is the industry leader in EV’s.
Now, to be sure, Chevy covers for these issues by included the gas engine and that does help.
(My Volt featured a peppy 1.5-liter inline 4-cylinder gasoline engine and two electric motors and a continuously variable transmission that’ll combine to kick out 149 hp total and 294 lb-ft of torque.
But I think until we see as many EV charging stations around each corner like we do traditional gas stations, some consumers will shy away from going full EV or EV-gas like the Volt. The good news is that the industry is too smart to continue to shoot itself in the foot like this and I would guess that with five years or so “range anxiety” and ease of finding a charging station -- much less being able to use one -- will be a thing of the past.
Car review: Toyota Avalon XLE Touring SE
Again, bravo to Chevy for making Volt even better, quicker and sleeker for 2016.
I really do recommend that you get out there and test drive this technological marvel. Naturally a wise consumer will also test drive others in Volt’s class like the Toyota’s Prius the Ford C-Max Energi, and the Honda’s Accord Plug-In. In the end I suspect you’ll come back to the Chevy and feel good again about buying domestic.
Finally, the MSRP on my Volt Premier Hatchback came in -- as trimmed out with all the goodies you’ll like -- at $ 39,830.
My Recommendation: Shop around for the best price but have confidence in buying this cool high-tech slice of the future.
Jeff Mitchell, who channels F-1 Champion Emerson Fittipaldi in his mind, writes for Gannett Newspapers, Inc. and is based in Monterey County, Calif. with the Californian Media Group, Reach him at [email protected]