With 80mph cruise speed, I averaged about 35mpg in my 2000 Toyota Corolla. If I were to buy a new Corolla, it would be less than $20,000. It's not mathematically possible to make up the difference in cost through "savings," no matter how long I were to own a Volt, given my driving needs.
Mark
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/03/blind-spot-the-twilight-of-the-volt/#more-433724
...just two months after Volt sales began trickle in, Obamas Department of Energy released a still-unrepudiated document, claiming that 505,000 Volts would be sold in the US by 2015 (including 120,000 this year). By making the Volts unrealistic sales goals the centerpiece of a plan to put a million plug-in-vehicles on the road, the Obama Administration cemented the Volts political cross-branding.
When GM continued to revise its 2012 US sales expectations to the recent (and apparently still wildly-unrealistic) 45,000 units, I asked several high-level GM executives why the DOE didnt adjust its estimates as well. But rather than definitively re-calibrate the DOEs expectations, they refused to touch the subject. The government, they implied, could believe what it wanted. Having seen its CEO removed by the President, GMs timid executive culture was resigned to the Volts politicized status, and would never make things awkward for its salesman-in-chief. And even now, with production of the Volt halted for the third time, GM continues to play into the Volts politicized narrative: does anyone think it is coincidence that The General waited until three days after the Michigan Republican primary (and a bailout-touting Obama speech) to cut Volt production for the third time?...