“[A Prius would give you at least 50 mpg on regular gas.] “
So a Prius can regularly achieve $0.09 per mile, while the Volt cost $0.11 per mile on long trips and $0.025 on short trips. Clearly vehicle choice depends on your mix of driving. Although the writer is honest enough to mention the quiet, handling and solidity of the Volt — something Prius is not noted for.
“Cars like Leaf - and in part like Volt - are undermining this freedom. “
True of the Leaf, but how is it true of the Volt ? With gasoline usage immediately and seamlessly available, how has your freedom of usage been limited in any way ? By the psychological impact of knowing you could be driving at a lower cost per mile if only you could do it all electric ? The Volt is, as you said, a “universal vehicle” just as it is, while the Leaf is definitely limiting.
You say the savings “trickle in”, but actual owners are reporting a net reduction in monthly fuel costs of $100/mo. That isn’t a “trickle”. Over a ten year ownership, that is a $12K cost advantage, making the Volt cost equivalent to a $28K conventional vehicle even before other savings such as oil, filter and other engine maintenance costs. TCO is similar to a $25K conventional vehicle even without any tax credit.
A writer who was doing true “research and reporting” would mention this fact, and not slant two pages to the lack of public charging stations in an unfamiliar city after a long trip. That is unbalanced reporting, surely ? An actual owner would charge at home, not waste time looking for charging stations like a Leaf owner would be forced to do.
Psychologically, just as you surmised. Wouldn't it pain a normal person who knows the value of money that he paid $20K for an electric drive but can't use it? I can understand doing it in emergency, but doing it daily for half of your trip to work is not very appealing.
You say the savings “trickle in”, but actual owners are reporting a net reduction in monthly fuel costs of $100/mo. That isn’t a “trickle”. Over a ten year ownership, that is a $12K cost advantage, making the Volt cost equivalent to a $28K conventional vehicle even before other savings such as oil, filter and other engine maintenance costs.
Unfortunately after 10 years of use the main (traction) battery in Volt (and in any other hybrid, actually) will be dead. Prius' battery costs about $3K today, new from the factory. But Volt's battery reportedly costs about $18K. even if we imagine that the cost will drop down to $12K in ten years (something that did NOT happen with Prius' batteries) you are left with zero savings. But a gas tank in a regular car will be as good as new.
On top of that you incur the opportunity cost. The $20K that you could have invested would become $32,600 after 10 years at 5% interest. This means you not saved $12K on a Volt but lost about the same $12K.
The actual loss would be less than that because gas for your other car still needs to be bought, reducing that sum. If we say that you spend $1,200 per year on gas then after investing $20K under 5% and taking $1,200 yearly you will still have $17K left. That's the value of deferred payments. You do not want to pay for gas ten years in advance.
Also about savings on engine wear. As I understand, the gas engine in Volt runs all the time at freeway speeds if the battery charge is less than a certain amount. It also runs periodically to circulate the fuel. So it would be naive to expect no need to service its fuel and oil systems. Furthermore, it is well known that small engines wear faster.
To summarize, Volt requires $40K up front and after 10 years it needs a new battery, negating all savings on fuel. If you buy a generic car for $20K and invest the difference you will enjoy free gas (similar to Volt!) *and* end up with a tidy sum of $17K that you can use to buy your next vehicle. A Volt driver will have nothing saved.
There is yet another issue with Volt. It delivers those savings only on electric power. If you charge only once, at home, you can't drive more than 30 miles daily. This limits your savings quite a lot. As we calculated earlier, 10 cents per mile is a reasonable number to expect from a modern car (a hybrid helps but is not required.) So you can "burn" not more than $3 per day in gasoline that you don't buy; but you use about $1 to charge your car daily. So the savings end up being about $2/day, or $60/mo. I'm unsure where the figure of $100/mo comes from, but apparently you need to work hard (and drive far, and charge at work) to make it happen.
I want to stress again, I am not against EVs in principle. I am only against products that don't make sense.