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GM grabbed headlines this week with the proclamation that their Chevy Volt gets an EPA rating of 230 miles per gallon. That's a number that comes from trying to translate performance of a car that runs on electricity into terms associated with cars that run on gas. The important question is, "How much does it cost to drive this thing?".
I just heard Stewart Varney interview a GM Vice President who stated that if you were to fully charge the battery and fill the tank, you could go 340 miles before you were out of gas and out of juice.
The gas tank capacity is said to be somewhere between 6-10 gallons (they haven't decided yet). If you take the low number and assume you'll still get your 340 miles, that works out to 56 mpg. That's still very good, but not quite 230. The 56 mpg number also ignores the cost of fully charging the battery. Of course, you'll do much better if you stop and recharge rather than using the gas, but if you're on a long drive, you're probably not going to stop and recharge for 3 hours.
Bottom line, it looks to me like you might cut your gas bills in half by going with the Volt. You'll pay a $15,000 to $20,000 premium for those savings. At current gas prices, assuming you currently get 25 miles per gallon or less and drive 12,000 miles per year, you'd save about $600/year. It'll pay for itself in just 25 years or so, if you don't need to replace the batteries by then. Note: Before you start challenging this number or that, consider that if this vehicle got infinite gas milage and electricity were free, it would still take over 12 years to make up the price premium.
The good news is that there are a lot of folks who just have to have top of the line new technology regardless of the cost efficiency. These are the folks who make the third, fourth and fifth generation technology possible. If there are no severe, unforeseen problems with the technology, all electric cars could actually make fiscal sense in a few years.
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