Chevy Volt, an electric road trip to Parry Sound

The Chevrolet Volt's strongest point? It's a normal car when you need it to be. You can just get in and drive it pretty much like any other car.

It's obviously way more than that, though.

As a long-time Prius owner, the feel of the butter-smooth transmission felt quite normal to me. The
electric launch can feel strangely slow because it is silent and very progressively smooth. Punch a gas engine and it downshifts and roars. Punch the Volt and it just goes fast very quickly without the usual revving and shifting of gears.

I was a little disappointed by the range on my first drive up the Don Valley Parkway from the Star at One Yonge St. I only got up to the Bloomington Sideroad before the gas generator started making power.

The transition was so smooth that had I not been watching the range indicator as it ran down, I would not have even known it had happened. 41.9 km seems like a poor result. I was basically going uphill the entire way and let's just say I wasn't going slow.

On the way back from Parry Sound, I drove a little more sedately and got around 60-70km on that charge.

The exact distance was confusing because I ran a quick 10 km shopping trip in the morning on the full charge and plugged it back in for awhile. The computer added the distances together in the  range screen, treating it as the same charge (the second short charge never got it back to full).

Bottom line is, you can get more if you try to.

Basically I loved the car. I would have no problem driving it every day and I never really got into the
computer functions built into the screens. They were intuitive enough that I managed to do all the stuff I needed to — set the radio, find and turn off the electric seat heaters — without getting lost in endless menus.

Now, if they could only sell it for under 29k, I might buy one.
 
David Cooper, Chief
Photographer, Toronto Star

Comments

[A Facebook User]

A good real world review... But don't stop now! You should mention the weather, as well as the loading of the car ( did you have a passenger? ) .