cts | Volt a Day | Worst Case November 23, 2010

That’s as bad as it gets. That’s a day where I started thinking I would be doing one sort of driving, ended doing another and the Volt was flexible enough for both.

I started Saturday morning with a drop off at the school (field trip). Then, since I had the house to myself for a bit I ran a few errands that had piled up, My feeling is that if you are going to have to make the run to GoodWill you should get to stomp on the go-pedal a bunch. It’s boring driving around suburbia unless you make more fun with some turns where you check the friction coefficient of the wheels on the tarmac.

Pretty good in the Volt, by the way. Really sticky. I have yet to lose the back end.

Collected the boys from their field trip (it rained on them) and brought them home. I thought I was about done for the day. I ran Rudy down to a sleepover and it was only when I got back that I realized Dexter had rsvp’ed to a party that was starting in twenty minutes.

I used Google Maps and eNav to send the address to the Volt. I realized that the Virtual Advisor tries to read the name, so I put in “Pooooodle Noooodle Head” to amuse Dexter. It worked. (The next morning I put in “I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that,” which amused my wife.)

As we rolled toward Century City I had ten miles of range for a twelve mile journey. Sure enough, about two miles out, the ICE kicked on. I pointed out the change in the display to Dexter. He was impressed. I dropped him at the party and drove home with the ICE humming a lot of the way. It’s very interesting that even when the battery says “0 miles” for range the ICE still stops running when you are sitting at a light or even rolling at low speeds.

I can live with occasionally burning half a gallon of gas on days that I don’t plan well enough. Something over 90mpg seems like decent mileage.