Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle? | Page 42 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

Scuba Steve said:
That is after tax with the rebates

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Maybe do the math this way


do you plan on keeping this car until it dies...then lean to new
you will get 100% of the benefit of the battery and warranty...buy what you want and enjoy it.
You are saving on gas and insurance rates.

vs. used
If you have time to look around and wait for that solid deal and be ready to jump on it in that hour...then wait.
 
-D- said:
Maybe do the math this way


do you plan on keeping this car until it dies...then lean to new
you will get 100% of the benefit of the battery and warranty...buy what you want and enjoy it.
You are saving on gas and insurance rates.

vs. used
If you have time to look around and wait for that solid deal and be ready to jump on it in that hour...then wait.
Click to expand...

Agreed....you're looking at going from around 20k+tax to around 32k....so is the difference worth it over the course of ownership. That's a tough call....both have pluses, but you can see in this thread that the people that bought them used seem happy with their choices on the overall...

My buddy leased a brand new one...200/month all in with nothing but his trade (about 9k) for 3 years. He wants full warranty and to see how it does before committing and buying the thing outright.
 
So I've had my Volt for a bit over a month now. I finished my rough calculations and though it isn't the best comparison it's close enough.

The month before in my G37 I drove a little over 3,000kms in the month.
It cost me $497 in gas.
My Hydro Bill was $58

The month with the Volt I drove aprox 4,000kms.
It cost me $96 in gas.
My Hydro bill was $98.

So $40 more in Electricity and $401 less in gas.

On top of that I'm saving around $70 less per month in insurance.

Keep in mind I haven't been driving the Volt 100% the way I should be. I've been doing an unsual amount of long distance driving. For example the 2nd day I got it I drove it to Ingersol so that was mostly on gas. I expect this month savings to be low compared to what I have to look forward to. Not to mention the lower maintenance costs of the Volt.

Also, I would be saving more money if I had a Lvl 2 charger as sometimes I don't get enough charge between trips.
.....and work still won't let me plug in :rolleyes: That would help me out some too.

So in conclusion I've saved around $430 this month.
 
Originally Posted by PrivatePilot
Total distance travelled, 1286KM, 33.7L - that comes out to 2.63L/100KM

Compared to the ~12L/100KM the old 300 was burning (which would have been around 156L burned vs 33L), that constitutes a 123L saving. At the current ~$1.20/L for gas we saved just under $150 over this tank of gas....and we are only in our third week of ownership.





mxs said:
Just a correction ... the savings are per your trip of 1286km ... not per tank, agreed?

But, regardless, it makes perfect sense in your case to be in a such vehicle. Really no-brainer.
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I like the volt, shame it never took off like it ought to have, maybe the Bolt is doing better?
The one big problem that I encountered when shopping for hybrid/electric is the higher cost of insurance.

You're also negating the marginal cost of electricty to top up the car at home. Small, but to be considered if you live out in the sticks with high delivery charges.

My math to whether electric makes sense, compared to a sedan that averages 10L/100km

Based on 25,000km average per year, compared to a dead reliable old, BIG SUV like a v8 4runner, insurance for a volt/Prius was $600 more a year($1600 vs 2,200)--owing to higher cost of a new car replacement, and perhaps they are statistically more likely to be involved in accidents. Less attentive hipsters at the wheel, LRR tires leading to longer than average stopping distances?

If my sedan died now, I'd look into a used Volt, that's for sure--but definitely not a new one.
@25,000km, the annual savings (let's assume a super optimistic 2L/100KM, @$1.1/L) will be ~$550 in fuel a year.
If comparing to a sedan that averages 10L/100KM @$1.1/L will be $2,750 in fuel a year.
Fuel savings alone will be, at best $2200/year
Less insurance premium of $600 = $1,600 savings a year
Less whatever hydro to charge the car - call it $100/year?
$1500/year in savings

It could make sense. Daily drive is less than 60km round trip, and whatever the penalty for roadtrip is will still be comparative.
Correct me if I'm mistaken in my math, and pardon my blabbering, just speaking out loud because my car has a slight headgasket leak, but the car itself is not worth fixing, so I'll just continue to monitor and pour in $10/gallons of coolant till it dies.
 
MSRP said:
The one big problem that I encountered when shopping for hybrid/electric is the higher cost of insurance.
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Dunnoh why it'd be more expensive for you, but it's cheaper as far as I can tell.
Maybe if you're going from an older SUV with minimum insurance to a 2014 Chevy Volt? :confused:

eljay said:
Aviva gave me 5% off for hybrid. I'm $50 cheaper per month than a Corolla (not beige lol).
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Yeah I got a discount as well. I'm with Novex/Intact. Much less insurance costs for me
 
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eljay said:
Aviva gave me 5% off for hybrid. I'm $50 cheaper per month than a Corolla (not beige lol).
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slowbird said:
Dunnoh why it'd be more expensive for you, but it's cheaper as far as I can tell.
Maybe if you're going from an older SUV with minimum insurance to a 2014 Chevy Volt? :confused:



Yeah I got a discount as well. I'm with Novex/Intact. Much less insurance costs for me
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What are you guys paying for the Volt? Following are With Allstate, with the bike, 1 car, +house insurance.
I'm 1200 (full comp) each for both my old suv and vw golf (with Intact) prius/volts were in the $1800 range.

(regrettably), the Prius V is probably the car-van that makes the most sense.
If I have to hate looking at the thing that saves me gas, might as well be a physically bigger piece of **** that can be the brunt of more jokes.
 
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MSRP said:
What are you guys paying for the Volt?
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What I pay is kind of irrelevant as rates change for different people depending on many many different circumstances.

I pay waaay too much insurance for my car, bike and tenant insurance. Much more than what you are. But it was a significant savings when I switched to the Volt.
 
I have a Prius V and a Rav4....about the same size interior but I pay half the gas and my insurance is almost identical....

No one has ever called it cool but it does what I need it to do and has lots of room (slightly more than the rav) and is reliable as you're going to get.
 
If you are looking at the Prius V, also look at the Ford C-Max and the new Kia Niro. If you need a ginormous family hauler, look at the new Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid.
 
Pulled the trigger on a new volt in blue found a dealer willing to take another 1500 off, factory order should be in in another month or 2.

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slowbird said:
So I've had my Volt for a bit over a month now.

...

So in conclusion I've saved around $430 this month.
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Awesome - you're doing even better than we are. ;)

MSRP said:
I like the volt, shame it never took off like it ought to have, maybe the Bolt is doing better?
The one big problem that I encountered when shopping for hybrid/electric is the higher cost of insurance.
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I wouldn't say "never took off" as there's lots of them on the road, just not eleventy million of them like many other cars you would see every day. One thing I've noticed since we bought a Volt is that we see a lot more of them out there now.

Unfortunately EV's still suffer from the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) factor spread by the misinformed. People have preconceived ideas (this thread again is a great example) that EV's are depressing quasi Go-Carts that can't do highway speeds, have no power, cost more to charge than gas, and only go 20K before stranding you on the side of the road. All it takes is one person to agree with those perceived ideals (no matter how false they all are) and that potential customer discounts an EV and buys a traditional ICE car.

Anyhow...yesterday on the 401 I saw a second gen volt with the "Ontario" government decals on it, so it seems the Gov has got into the game as well. Have to wonder if the people operating them are actually plugging them in regularly and netting the electric benefit of it they're just a feelgood car that most employees are driving as a hybrid for the most part.

MSRP said:
You're also negating the marginal cost of electricty to top up the car at home. Small, but to be considered if you live out in the sticks with high delivery charges.
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You could charge at the highest peak electrical costs with high delivery charges and it'd still be less than the comparative mileage cost of gasoline.

As for insurance, I think you should call around - the insurance on our Volt vs the 300 it replaced was *slightly* higher, but it had 90% to do with the fact that the Volt has full coverage on it and is worth many, many times what the 300 was worth....but we more than saved the difference in cost inside the first month in gas savings.

Scuba Steve said:
Pulled the trigger on a new volt in blue found a dealer willing to take another 1500 off, factory order should be in in another month or 2.
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Congrats! Another one joins the crowd. I must admit I'm flattered that this thread has caused people to actually buy EV's. :)
 
So, following up on our own Volt - it went in today for the OnStar hardware upgrade as well as the rear brake issue.

Glad to say both are resolved and OMS did cover everything 100% no charge. They also replaced a swaybar link that the tech noticed was marginal while they were under the car. It got new rear rotors, pads (they had chamfered on one side given as how they were not applying evenly), and they cleaned up the caliper hardware and lubed everything to make sure the rear brakes are functioning properly now. It all looks good but I'll be watching to see how they burnish in the coming days.

The OnStar hardware upgrade was also completed. That was the easy part.

Unfortunately, getting OnStar actually activated on the car was not. I hit the OnStar button on the way home from the dealer and got connected with an "Activation Specialist" . Went through the entire process and was told the car was now "active", so of course I stopped and tried to login to the smartphone OnStar app to check out the stats - and nothing. Everything showed as deactivated still. Hit the OnStar button again and I get a recording saying I have only "basic" service despite the fact I'm supposed to have 5 months of the super-premium trial service. Get connected to another "Activation specialist" who finds the issue - the first specialist had put in the wrong dates so the car wasn't going to be active until tomorrow. He fixes that issue, I hang up...and now *some* of the features are showing on the app, but not everything - still couldn't view the stat page (that shows EV vs ICE total historical miles, charge status, etc) . Call back a THIRD time and the person does a few things and tells me to logout and login again on my smartphone apps, and now most things show...except the hotspot feature still shows as deactivated. No amount of tinkering could fix that, so they resorted to creating a trouble ticket and sending it off to a higher level IT support who will apparently contact me in a few days.

So...OnStar is working now short of the hotspot feature which, hey...we can live without for a few days. I'm just surprised that the whole activation thing went so crappy honestly, although that's nothing to do with the Volt nor OMS, just sloppy work by the OnStar employee who first set things up.

Anyhow, I did get into the stat page finally and discovered that out of the cars 134,000K about 45% of them have been on electric - fairly impressive actually, it shows that the previous owner did actually utilize the EV side of things quite a lot, but might have been someone with a similar commute to my wife.
 
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Wow PP. Sorry to hear your Onstar stuff went all wonky. Mine wasn't like that at all.

Are you able to adjust your "notification settings" under the vehicle status section of your app?

Scuba Steve said:
Pulled the trigger on a new volt in blue found a dealer willing to take another 1500 off, factory order should be in in another month or 2.
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Congratz!! Welcome :)
 
slowbird said:
Wow PP. Sorry to hear your Onstar stuff went all wonky. Mine wasn't like that at all.

Are you able to adjust your "notification settings" under the vehicle status section of your app?
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No, last night I just kept getting an error there as well, but I kind of figured it might have been to do with the activation issues. Just checked it again this morning and I get "unable to retrieve notification settings" on the OnStar app, and "System error. Please Try again later. If this isue persists, please contact Support for assistance (900)" in the MyChevrolet App. Are these the same errors you're getting?
 
PrivatePilot said:
No, last night I just kept getting an error there as well, but I kind of figured it might have been to do with the activation issues. Just checked it again this morning and I get "unable to retrieve notification settings" on the OnStar app, and "System error. Please Try again later. If this isue persists, please contact Support for assistance (900)" in the MyChevrolet App. Are these the same errors you're getting?
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Yup! Same errors.
 
slowbird said:
Yup! Same errors.
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If I recall correctly you said you had a trouble ticket being worked on for this issue? No remedy or follow up yet I presume?
 
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