My Chevy Volt at 1 Year

Tomorrow (July 15) is the anniversary of my purchase/delivery of the Chevy Volt.  Here is the data from the first year:

Usage – I turned out to be a very average driver this past year, putting 12,248 miles on the Volt in the first year.  Of those miles, 8,346 were driven on battery power and the other 3,902 were driven when using the gas generator to provide electric power.  Overall usage, then, was 68% electric.

Fuel Consumption – I used a total of $232.85 worth of electricity to charge the car for the entire year.  Altogether, I burned 119 gallons of gas for the 3,902 miles I drove under gas power, or about 32.79 mpg for gas-powered miles.  At 32.79 mpg, the electric miles would have burned another 255 gallons of gas.

Savings – If I had purchased the additional 255 gallons of gas at the average price over the past year of $2.70 (yes, I keep track), that would have been an additional cost of $688.50.  Subtracting the electric cost of $232.85 from that, I saved $455.65 in fuel costs.  In terms of gas alone, the vehicle has averaged 103 mpg for its lifetime.

This is a fun car to own and drive.  Currrently, I’ve used 1.4 gallons of gas since the last time I filled up and have driven over 600 miles on that 1.4 gallons.  If I filled up today and used a gallon and a half, my mileage for this tank would be over 428 mpg!