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I’ve been looking to replace my 09 Prius with something a little bit newer for quite a while. I wanted something that got similar or better gas mileage and was very practical, basically just a slight upgrade to the Prius.
I didn’t honestly think I would be able to buy this particular Volt for what I wanted to spend because it was a 2013 with basically every option and just over 100k miles, and I was trying to spend under $5k so I could retail my Prius and get away with a cheap upgrade. To my surprise, I was the high bidder at $4500. I knew very little about these cars at the time, because like I said, I didn’t think I would actually buy it.
I starting obsessively researching my new purchase and found that the Volt is pretty highly regarded. I picked it up last week and so far it’s been awesome. It’s about the same size as the Prius, except it’s a four seater instead of a 5 seater due to the battery running along the “Transmission tunnel” in the back. This doesn’t really matter to me since I only have one kid, we’re pretty much always rolling with 3 people maximum. Like the Prius, it’s a hatchback with folding rear seats so it should hold a pretty decent amount of stuff when necessary.
The interior is comfy, but that might have something to do with the fact that I’m not very tall.
These cars are very sensitive to temperature in terms of available electric range. For one thing, batteries just don’t like being cold. Also, the heater and defroster use a lot of electricity, so right now in the winter time I can’t get all the way to work and back on a single charge. Even so, I’m still getting well over 100mpg combined for my ~40 mile round trip.
Once it warms up and the heater is no longer needed, I should be able to make it to work and back entirely on electricity, which will be pretty rad. I won’t bother going into driving dynamics or anything right now, because I’m gonna do a full video review on my youtube channel this weekend, but overall I’m pretty damn impressed with the car. Now I have more gas money to spend on my Miata.
