With data provided by OnStar GM has been tracking the Electric/Gasoline usage of the Chevrolet Volt car.
Right on the Chevrolet Volt site are the ever ticking numbers showing how many total the Volt vehicles have been driven, how many of those miles have been driven using the electric only (EV) and how many gallons of fuel have been saved.
After driving the Volt for a week (and yes, I still want one) these figures are hardly surprising.
The Volt appears to run on electricity about two thirds of the time.
Before you whip around and tell me that the power stations are driven by coal etc. and that the carbon footprint doesn’t really matter – consider this – about 40% of all US electricity actually comes from coal powered stations. Nuclear, natural gas and geothermal generation makes up for the majority of the rest.
This all makes for an even cleaner environment.
What does this 2/3 figure mean to real-world drivers? Well, in all the Chevrolet Volt is living up to the “miles per gallon” claims by proving that it can achieve about 98 miles to every gallon of gasoline used in the vehicle. This is electric and gasoline combined but it still makes for definitive “MPG”.
