Math Is, Indeed, Hard

Jay G started this.  Read his post first.


The draw on a Chevy Volt is 3,300 watts charging from the 240v charger that's required to get that range in 4 hours.

13.2 KWh per charge.  What does your electric company charge per Kwh?  Mine's pretty complicated, but it would cost me $1.312 per charge most of the time.  That's an extra $39.38 a month to my electric bill assuming that I am running under 1,000 kWh a month total.  Since I never come in under 1,000 kWh, adding a Volt would be adding electric use on top of that, so it's really $1.696 per charge.

$619.16 a year that my normal powered car doesn't cost me.  That carries me 12,775 miles optimally.

Lets assume that I only drive that 35 miles every day and never go farther.

A brand new Civic EX sedan gets 39mpg and is under $21,000.  So I have saved $25k on the car itself.  At $3.219 a gallon that's 7,766.4 gallons of gas!  Which is 302,899.1 miles.  A 23.7 year supply of fuel in the difference in the purchase price.  Owning a Civic for 23.7 years SAVES more than $600 over a Volt.  Even if fuel spikes to $4.009 a gallon I still have a NINETEEN year supply of fuel from the savings of the actual purchase (and I still save that $619.16).

Will a Volt even last 19 years?  I've seen lots of 1991 Hondas still on the road; no so many Chevys.

And let's look at something else.

My 1991 Biscayne gets a whopping 15 mpg in and around town.  It's paid for.  While I would have to pay $3,414.33 a year in gas to get those 35 miles a day like the Volt does for $619.16; I saved $46,000 when I didn't buy a new car; and that assumes I paid cash, doesn't account for tax, title or license doesn't take in interest on a loan...  There's your real math kids.  My land yacht is $43k ahead of a Volt in the first year; plus it's done depreciating.  Even if something major breaks I have at least ten years of driving the B-Body before I hit the purchase price of a new Volt.  I have every confidence that the Biscuit will make it to 2021 too.  There are still 1955 Chevys on the road because there's a Hot-Rodder community for them, just like my car.  I just don't see such a community popping up around the Volt.