2018 chevy volt fuel economy driver#

You'd only wind up getting about 38 miles per gallon, which wouldn't make much sense, not when the Prius has a combined EPA fuel economy rating of 50 mpg.īut since most people don't drive hundreds of miles a day, the Volt will actually use less gas than the Prius, provided your average daily mileage is up to about 117 miles. The thing is, driving the car until its gas tank is empty without recharging as a regular practice would be foolish. After that, however, the Volt's gasoline engine allows the car to travel another 310 miles or so before you need to fill its gas tank. The Volt shares the Leaf's all-electric ability, but it's limited to 40 percent of the Leaf's range. While the Leaf is unquestionably the 'greenest' car on the road, using no gasoline whatsoever, it's Achilles heel is its inability to drive past its 100-mile range. But after you've exhausted its battery, that's it, you'll be waiting for it to recharge on a dedicated 240-volt charger, either one you've installed in your garage or at a public-use facility. Of course that means that it may go a bit further under ideal conditions, while it will also have a shorter range if you're driving it like an Indy car. Nissan says the Leaf can drive 100 miles per charge. Let's start with the Leaf, as it's pretty simple to understand. Which ride is right for your commute? If you travel around 100 miles per day or less, it doesn't get more efficient than the Leaf and Volt, but the Prius starts to look better over longer hauls. So we've done some math to make a comparison among the Volt, Leaf, Prius, and the forthcoming plug-in Prius. Not an insignificant amount of money, as it's enough to buy 200 gallons of gas.īut charging aside, what most people seem to be concerned with when looking at the Volt is how much gasoline they'd use, and how that would compare to other green cars. If you were to plug in and recharge an empty Volt battery every day, you'd be spending $562 a year on electricity for the car. That's about $1.54, or a little more than the cost of half a gallon of gas at today's prices.

2018 chevy volt fuel economy driver#

But since the process is not 100-percent efficient, it actually takes more energy than that, about 13.4 kWh using a standard 120-volt power outlet, according to Car and Driver magazine's testing. To completely recharge an 'empty' Volt battery (which is actually only 65-percent drained, because the car always maintains some charge in the pack) means putting about 10.4 kWh of electricity back in. Energy Information Adminstration, the average retail cost of electricity for residential customers stands at about 11.5 cents per Kilowatt-hour (kWh). Lest we be accused of entirely ignoring the costs associated with charging the Volt, let's look at some numbers. It's how far you go after you exhaust the roughly 40-mile electric range that determines how much gas you'll use in a Volt.

Below about 40 miles per day, you won't need to use gas at all, provided you recharge the vehicle overnight. So to go about comparing the Volt to other cars you need to be able to make an estimate of your typical daily mileage.

That's because the Volt's gas mileage is entirely dependent on how far it is driven between recharging. Even though some media outlets have reported observed mileage numbers - like Motor Trend's 126.7 mpg - these numbers are as meaningless as GM's original 230 mpg claim.

What kind of mileage does the plug-in hybrid Volt get, and how does that compare to other cars, from hybrids like the Toyota Prius to electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf? The answer is that there's no perfect way to compare the Volt to other vehicles. If there's one thing that seems to confuse people about the new Chevy Volt, it's fuel economy.