The Volt?
Really.
All that engineering, all those on board computers, all the added expense...and what do you get?
The equivalent of one gallon of gas.
And lets talk about its gas engine. The car has ‘mountain mode’. What is mountain mode? Essentially it allows you to delay the use of the battery, if you anticipate hitting hilly terrain...say 45 miles into the trip.
Why does it have mountain mode? Its gas engine has TERRIBLE power to weight ratio. You see, all that engineering and batteries and space age technology to get that one gallon of gas extra range - its heavy...3,800 lb heavy. And that gas engine - its small....84 hp.
So you power to weight ratio is 1 hp per 45 lb....comparable to the Trabant, the famous soviet/East German piece of trash that was abandoned en masse when the Berlin wall fell.
To put that into perspective, just think of the most craptastically underpowered car you can imagine. How about a Chevy Geo Metro. These 3 cylinder wonders had 49 hp and 1620 lbs, for a ratio of l ho per 33 lbs...or 26% better than the Volt.
What does this mean? If your Volt is out of battery juice, and you hit the hills, you will not be able to keep up with the normal flow of traffic. Instead you will be in the right lane, possibly even in the emergency lane, puttering up the hill.
The electric motor is 149 hp, and the gas engine (which experiences additional losses since it is a generator) is 84 hp. It doesn’t really have a gas mode - it has a limp home mode.
Well that is some nice wild speculation you have there, truly befitting of an internet post. How about real-world evidence, shall we?
First of all, GM did a lot of testing on Pike's Peak before releasing the Volt. But forget what GM says, what actual owners have experienced is nothing like what you describe. You see, when the Volt is normally “out-of-juice” and switches to gasoline mode, it actually has a large buffer of charge that is unused. If you forgot to use Mountain Mode and end up having to go up a mountain in theses situations, it uses some of that buffer to maintain normal speeds. (All Mountain Mode does is increase the size of that buffer.)
One owner posted an extensive report of his testing of this feature and found that he was unable to deplete this buffer in his 6 mile test up a 5% grade at 65 mph. Another owner on a much longer test was able to deplete the buffer. At that point his Volt gave him a “Propulsion Power is Reduced” warning and his speed was reduced to 57 mph until he cleared the hill.
“It doesn’t really have a gas mode - it has a limp home mode.”
I think 57 mph is more than adequate for steep inclines. I don't think anyone would honestly call it a “limp home mode.”