BF recently got in a car accident that totaled his beloved GTI. Budget was super tight, so it felt like the best way to get into another decent, modern vehicle was to use the IRS's $4K Used EV tax credit as the down payment. That didn't leave a ton of options. Thing is, he doesn't really like EVs (although I think our hassle-free road trip to LA in my Tesla is starting to slowly sway that). He can fortunately charge at home via a regular wall outlet (Level 1). Many EV people think it's useless but I've been charging like that at my home for years now and it's been totally sufficient for my needs and I rarely use public charging.
He liked the looks of the Fusion Energi (the plugin hybrid version of the Ford Fusion), so that was what we looked for first, but all of them that we found locally online at dealerships were magically unavailable when we got there. Very frustrating.
So, we looked at a Bolt, my personal favorite value vehicle, but after a bad experience dealing with charging a Bolt he rented a few years ago, he wasn't super thrilled about it. The same dealership we were looking at the Bolt at also had this Volt, and after a quick test drive, he decided to go for it!
Anyway, it's a 2017 Volt LT, 61K miles. Paid about $13K before the rebate. Most important features are AC and CarPlay which both work great. I did notice this car has the FASTEST power windows I've ever seen on any car in my entire life, and I've owned and driven MANY vehicles. Anyone else with a 2nd gen Volt out there notice the same thing? haha they ZOOM up and down.
After charging it fully the estimated EV range is 42, not great compared to the EPA rating of 53 when the car was new, but I'm thinking this number is just low because it's based on your driving and the way home was mostly highway? I'm curious what it will be after a few charge cycles of his normal driving. When I had my 2015 Volt a couple years ago, it was still getting over 40 miles of EV range, which was the original rating for that year, so I'm hopeful this 2017 one has similar (non-existant) degradation. A lifetime MPG of like 52MPG makes me think the previous owners mostly used the car as a regular hybrid and didn't plug in often? I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing?
His initial impressions of the Volt after driving it home was that he is happy with the vehicle based on the dirt cheap payment with nothing down and that it's got plenty of pep due to the EV part but the GTI had a better quality interior and much better sound system. A fair conclusion I'd say.
He liked the looks of the Fusion Energi (the plugin hybrid version of the Ford Fusion), so that was what we looked for first, but all of them that we found locally online at dealerships were magically unavailable when we got there. Very frustrating.
So, we looked at a Bolt, my personal favorite value vehicle, but after a bad experience dealing with charging a Bolt he rented a few years ago, he wasn't super thrilled about it. The same dealership we were looking at the Bolt at also had this Volt, and after a quick test drive, he decided to go for it!
Anyway, it's a 2017 Volt LT, 61K miles. Paid about $13K before the rebate. Most important features are AC and CarPlay which both work great. I did notice this car has the FASTEST power windows I've ever seen on any car in my entire life, and I've owned and driven MANY vehicles. Anyone else with a 2nd gen Volt out there notice the same thing? haha they ZOOM up and down.
After charging it fully the estimated EV range is 42, not great compared to the EPA rating of 53 when the car was new, but I'm thinking this number is just low because it's based on your driving and the way home was mostly highway? I'm curious what it will be after a few charge cycles of his normal driving. When I had my 2015 Volt a couple years ago, it was still getting over 40 miles of EV range, which was the original rating for that year, so I'm hopeful this 2017 one has similar (non-existant) degradation. A lifetime MPG of like 52MPG makes me think the previous owners mostly used the car as a regular hybrid and didn't plug in often? I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing?
His initial impressions of the Volt after driving it home was that he is happy with the vehicle based on the dirt cheap payment with nothing down and that it's got plenty of pep due to the EV part but the GTI had a better quality interior and much better sound system. A fair conclusion I'd say.
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