Chevy Volt Now

"The EPA has now preliminarily agreed to a method for testing the Chevy Volt that would lead to at least a 100 mpg estimate." And according to some, the Volt should get a rating of 120 to 200 mpg.

What would that mean to our gas consumption over the course of a year? I don't know. But what if we assume that every new vehicle sold in the United States is a Chevy Volt? How much gas and money would we save? And how much gas and money would we save if we make the same assumption but replace the Chevy Volt with a Toyota Prius?

The first table shows gas consumption and cost in 2007. Assuming each vehicle travels 11,000 miles per year, I used the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard for cars to predict the total gallons of gas used per year. Then, assuming that gas costs $3/gallon, I came up with the total money spent per year on gasoline based on the 16.1 million cars sold in the U.S. last year. In other words, if every car sold last year got 27.5 mpg, traveled 11,000 miles, and gas cost $3/gallon, we would have used 6.4 billion gallons of gas and spent $19.3 billion.

U.S. Vehicle Sales	16,100,000
Average Miles driven/year	11,000
CAFE Standard	27.5
Gallons/Year/Vehicle	400
Total Gallons/Year	6,440,000,000
Cost/Year ($3/gallon)	$19,320,000,000

Now, rather than using the CAFE standards of 2007 let's use the conservative estimate of 100mpg rating of the Chevy Volt and the Toyota Prius rating of 46mpg to determine total gas consumption and cost if all of the vehicles sold last year were Volts or Priuses. Using the same assumptions (11,000 miles driven per year, $3/gallon of gas, 16.1 million vehicles sold), the U.S. would consume 1.8 billion gallons and spend $5.3 billion if all vehicles sold were Volts or $3.4 billion gallons and spend $11.5 billion if all vehicles sold were Priuses.

	Chevy Volt	Toyota Prius
U.S. Vehicle Sales	16,100,000	16,100,000
Average Miles driven/year	11,000	11,000
Estimated MPG	100	46
Gallons/Year/Vehicle	110	239
Total Gallons/Year	1,771,000,000	3,850,000,000
Cost/Year ($3/gallon)	$5,313,000,000	$11,550,000,000

With the Volt technology, the U.S. would save 4.7 billion gallons of gas and $14 billion per year. The Prius would save us only 2.6 billion gallons of gas and $7.8 billion per year. The cautious comments of Toyota's national manager of vehicle technology, Bill Reinert, suggest that Toyota is commited to the Prius and skeptical of the Volt technology and market. GM, on the other hand, is fully vested in the Volt and the technology needed to reach its goal of releasing the car in November 2010.

It's clear that this car could drastically change the automobile, blowing away even the most fuel efficient car on the road today and saving us lots of money and gas. So rather than wasting more time talking about the GM of the 20th century, let's start talking about the GM of the 21st century and what we need to do to invest in the most innovative project currently happening in the auto industry. Let's put the Volt on the road today.