Great Little Volt

Iv’e been hearing about electric cars since I was a kid (I’m almost 60) and it’s always been the realm of science fiction.

That’s why I couldn’t help but break into a huge grin while recently driving the Volt on the 401 to my Whitby home. No … I’ll never walk on the moon (like many people will some day) and I’ll never experience a flying car (that will never happen, anyway) but at least I’ve been able to see and touch a
prediction that has been bandied about for a long time.

Yes … I know we’ve had various forms of electric cars for a long time. But finally we have a product that is viable. The technology is there … but is the will?

WILL the cost of hydro go up as the wonderful vehicles start proliferating our neighbourhoods and the power companies see profits rising. making them expensive to run?

WILL the cost of gas drop — tempting us to hold on to our old technology — as the oil industry sees profits sinking.

Only time will tell.

But right now it’s reassuring to knowing that science and engineering have the capability to produce an alternative form of transportation to the internal combustion engine. And don’t think communities aren’t taking note.

Every night I've had the car in my driveway, I've been approached by men and women walking their dogs or strolling (while I do my best at gardening), wanting to know what the car is all about. I answer as many questions as I can, but I’m no expert.

But everyone says the time is nigh that we quit fouling our air with carbon deposits and relinquish our dependency on oil rich countries — including our own.

Many of my neighbours are in their 30s and 40s and are very, very ecologically attuned. Recycling is treated like a Holy Day with curbs filled with material that will be reused. One close neighbour knocked on my door one night asking for a ride in the vehicle — he was so interested — but it wasn’t
available. I gave him a rain check.

My only complaint about the Volt was the fact I found too many rear blind spots. I always feel a bit uncomfortable when changing lanes, thinking perhaps I had missed something approaching.

But other than that, it’s a great car.

PAUL IRISH, Toronto Star Reporter
 
 

 

Chevy Volt has mostly good points, some bad

I drove to Orillia and back at the weekend in the Chevrolet Volt. It was a trip down Memory Lane.

I started in the newspaper business 50 years ago this summer (yes, that’s correct: fifty) at the Orillia Packet & Times. I was a reporter and photographer and I did everything, from writing about traffic
accidents to reporting on hockey and baseball.

I particularly liked being sent out to do “Man on the Street” interviews, in which I would ask pretty girls the questions and then convince them to give me their phone numbers.

I had a great time in that town.

I loved the Volt. I particularly liked the get-up-and-go. You hit the throttle and it feels like there’s a 12-cylinder engine under the hood. So the power is terrific.

Now, I’m tall and it’s not easy for me to get into cars that are low to the ground like the Volt (which is why I’ve always favoured vans or SUVs for my personal vehicles — you climb up into them, rather than down). But once you’re into the Volt’s cockpit, it’s cozy. The steering wheel and the seat can both be adjusted for maximum comfort and the controls are functional and within easy reach.  

My wife and my youngest son are both tall – Duncan is more than six feet and still growing – yet found the back seats to have plenty of room, which can be a real plus. They particularly liked the “bucket”
seats in the back, which gave them a sense of security as well as comfort.

The reason they were in the back was because my Aunt Jean was beside me in the front seat. Aunt Jean – Jean Snell, retired secretary to the principal at the long-gone Duke of York Public School in downtown Toronto – was born in 1917 and has known about cars her entire life. In fact, she’s owned four of her own (and drove them herself until three years ago, when she decided to pack in that part of her life). She was very impressed with the electric Volt but wasn’t sure if she would buy one.

I drove the Volt around Toronto all day Saturday and plugged it into my 110-volt garage outlet when I got home to Mississauga around 7 on Saturday evening. When I went out Saturday morning at 9:30, it was fully charged.

However, and here come the negatives, the full charge was only good for 69 kilometres. Orillia is a lot farther away than 69 kilometres – 140 kms, to be precise. Yes, I had a tank of gas and I know that an onboard gas generator produces electricity to keep the car going. But the point – for me, anyway – of driving an electric car is to not use any gasoline, period.

So my full charge of 69 kilometres was only good to get me about halfway up Highway 400 to Barrie
before I was out of juice and had to go on the gas. Now, the transition is seamless and that’s good but
when I got to Orillia I couldn’t find a charging station, so after I walked around for four or five hours I drove all the way back to Mississauga on gasoline. I wasn’t really saving any fossil fuels, or so I felt.

In an event, I plugged in the Volt at 7 p.m. when I got home and when I went out the next morning at 6:30 a.m. to take the car into Toronto for work, it only had 62 kilometres of power stored. So a 110-volt current isn’t enough to fully charge a Volt battery in under 12 hours and I wonder about that.

I know EV batteries are works in progress but somebody’s going to have to pick up the pace if these things are ever going to become popular.

I wasn’t crazy about the jumble of information presented on the dashboard; in fact, I found it distracting. And the centre console needs a redesign because I kept hitting my coffee cup with my elbow (I’m not making that up; the beverage holders are so far back you’d think they were really there for the back-seat passengers).

But at the end of the day, I was impressed with the Volt. I was pre-disposed to not like it, but the positives outweighed the negatives for me.

I’m still not sold on an EV as my primary vehicle – my round-trip commute from home to the Toronto Star is 70 kilometres, so I couldn’t do the trip in the Volt on electricity alone – but for two-car families in which the second is primarily used to take the kids to ballet or the family to the mall or grocery shopping, I don’t think you could beat an electric car.

At the end of the day, that’s maybe how they’ll be marketed:

“Chevrolet Volt EV – the perfect second car.”

NORRIS McDONALD, Wheels Editor

I couldn't tell if the car was on or off

As one of two Toronto Star employees assigned to take the Project Green electric cars to the Green Living Show last weekend, I drove the Nissan Leaf.

As I had never driven an electric car before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Right off, it felt a bit strange because it was so quiet. It was hard to tell if it was on or off.

I’m used to driving my own cars when they are very low on fuel and so I know what to expect and how far I can drive, even with the gas light on. But I was a bit unsure with the Leaf, as the videographers had been driving it around for much of the day last Friday. I didn’t know how far I would be able to go with the battery partially drained, even though the car was telling me that I would be fine.

When I arrived at the Green Living Show, in the Direct Energy Centre building at the CNE, we had to jockey the cars in and around the Star booth in order to fit them in. So I had to get in and out of the car to make sure it was positioned correctly and I was able to do all that with ease.

After I left the Direct Energy Centre, I got thinking about the car and the fact that I didn’t have to use the key to start it; I just had to push a button and it turned on. I also thought again about how quiet the car was and that it was hard to tell if the car was on or off.

Suddenly I thought: did I turn the car off? What would happen if I didn’t? Would the battery run out? If I walked away from the car with the key fob in my pocket, would it just turn off automatically? I didn’t know.

So I went back – and guess what? The car was off.

– Brian Cordingley

Electric cars lookin' good at Green Living Show

Both cars are at the Green Living Show this weekend and are decked out in Project Green wraps and are lookin' swell, if I say so myself.

The Green Living Show finishes up late Sunday afternoon (it's at the Direct Energy Centre over at the CNE) and if you haven't checked it out I urge you to do so. I was over on Friday morning for the show's opening, and there are all sorts of interesting displays and presentations to take in.

Our two electric cars - a blue Nissan Leaf and a red Chevrolet Volt - are wrapped in white "skins" with green streaking and the words StarProjectGreen written on them. The Toronto Star logo as well as the Wheels and wheels.ca logos are also prominent.

They'll be returned to the Star Sunday night and plugged in, to be ready for editors and reporters to officially start the tests this coming week.

- Norris McDonald