Hmm - let's check the math - EPA electric range for Prius - 11 Volt 35 - so less than a third and not " about half"

Numbers I've seen were 10 and 15 for the Prius and 25-35 for the Volt...so yes, "About half". Which is why I gave you the EPA numbers - same tests for the vehicles under the same condtions - no claimed ranges/range under ideal conditions etc. If you go to the long term road test for a Volt on Edmunds you will see it regularly exceeds 35 miles - but not the point. So no - well less than half.

Base Price Prius - 32K Volt 39K - that would be 7K difference - not ~16K

My bad. Last I looked base price on the Volt was 48K, they must have dropped it since release. Quick google is still showing base price of 41K. I came up with the 16K from the 48 to 32K price difference. Just go to the Chevy site - 39K - it was never 48K - basically what they are selling in 2012 at 42K is the same as 2011 - the did some decontenting to get a vehicle under 40K

The tax credit is based on battery size - base of 2500$ for 5 kwh battery - then 417$ for each kwh over 5 - up to a maximum of 7500$. Prius uses a 4.4 kwh battery (guess they benefited from some sloppy rounding) - Volt 16 kwh. Toyota specifically made the design choice for a small battery pack with a vastly limited EV range for cost reasons. smaller battery, less tax credit. Given this was written up in 2009, it is not like Toyota didn't know what the tax credit situation would be.

I guess one could make the argument that the tax break was specifically meant to support "Larger batteries", which makes no sense when the real goal should be to support "Better efficiency" where depending on usage these cars are about the same. In fact I believe the Prius is better in "Hybrid mode", they are about the same in electric mode so the only area that the Volt is "More efficient" would be when the Prius is non electric and the Volt is still 100% electric. From the numbers above that could be anywhere from 24miles to as little as 10. - The fallacy in that argument is in real world usage. You would be correct if you ran the car for - oh say a hundred miles. However most people will do a round trip commute of more than 11 and less than 35 - so the Volt will spend far more time at its maximum efficiency than the Prius. If you were to charge it every night, you would never even use the gas. (And yes, there is data to back up that most people are using the car this way - vastly more mileage in EV mode than in Gas). With only 11 mile EV, the Prius will be in ICE/hybrid mode much more frequently. I think you argument better supports why pure EVs like the Leaf, i-mev or Focus get the same rebate as the Volt, when they have no ICE.

So for the gain made in the Volt, little I would argue, the government will give you 5K. Obviously we disagree that there is little gain - the problem with a mixed mode vehicle is we really don't have a good measure of overall efficiency. EV-EV - OK - conventional hybrid to conventional hybrid - OK. But plug in - plug-in - not so much. Volt would be better for my wife whose crosstown commute is 20 miles round trip. Prius would be better for my friend who commutes to Richmond - 103 miles round trip. All comes down to usage and not a defined quantifiable measure. We actually had a similar issue back in the early days of rebates for conventional hybrids. The best they could come up with was a relative increase in mpg against a comparable standard ICE model. So the Civic, which was (is) a mild hybrid, never got the same rebate as the Prius. Probably not totally fair since you could compare it to a regular civic, but really didn’t have much to compare the Prius to. So now the tables are turned a bit in the Prius/Volt case. But remember, the government is giving the same amount to all the full EVs - so Leaf, Mitsubishi, and Ford are also being favoured in the same way. When folks make the argument that the government is picking the Volt as a winner, that is a bit of a misdirection. The government is picking EV as the winner, which puts other contenders out of the mix - hydrogen,, algal biodiesel etc).



~Matt

Why are they still advertising them if they stopped production:http://youtu.be/avLKiWi71cE[/quote[/url]]

They were advertising the hell out them the week after this was announced. I was watching a station out of either Toledo or Cincy and the poor local dealer must have had a contract to promote the Volt because he was out there talking them up big time. I imagine the commercial was made before the announcement.

I had watched this commercial a few weeks ago and found it very informative. Thank you for posting.

~
“The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations.