• Electric cars meet the real world

    Chevrolet

    Volt owner Steve Wojtanek says he's averaging 122 miles per gallon of gasoline in Boca Raton, Fla., mostly because he's driving the bulk of his miles on battery power.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    You might not think of electric cars as long-haul vehicles, but months of real-world driving reveal that they can be long-distance marathoners — under the right conditions. Chevrolet, for example, is reporting that the average Volt driver is going 1,000 miles between gasoline fill-ups. And for the most part, Nissan Leaf owners are perfectly happy to do without the gas tank altogether.

    It's been six months since we first took to the highways for our first "Electric Road Trip," which is enough time for electric-car automakers to work out the bugs in the system. Nissan came across a software glitch that could keep the battery-powered Leaf from starting, but the main issue has been availability. Only 5,300 Leafs have been sold worldwide, including about 500 in the United States. But Nissan says it will be accelerating production and taking reservations again as of May 1.

    Meanwhile, Chevrolet has sold about 1,500 Volts as of the end of March, and the company says sales will be going nationwide by the end of the year. The company has been keeping track of Volt driving patterns through its OnStar network, and the data suggest that Volt owners are getting savvier about maximizing battery use and minimizing use of the car's gasoline-powered "range extender." During March, the average mileage between fill-ups went from 800 to 1,000 miles, Chevrolet reported last week.

    Chevy pointed to two Volt owners in particular: Gary Davis of Greenville, S.C., said he went two months between gas purchases and figures his gasoline usage at 547 miles per gallon. Steve Wojtanek of Boca Raton, Fla., said that 2,225 of the 3,417 miles he recorded were driven on battery power, which works out to 122 mpg.

    Those figures don't take the electricity expense into account. The Environmental Protection Agency's rating suggests that the Volt gets the equivalent of 93 mpg on electricity alone, 37 mpg when the gasoline engine is running, and 60 mpg for combined battery-gasoline power. The Leaf gets a combined EPA rating of 99 miles per gallon equivalent.

    Your mileage may vary
    When it comes to electric cars, that age-old saying — "Your mileage may vary" — never rang truer.

    "It's almost a game to see what you can do to get the best mileage out of it," Wojtanek said of his Volt.

    Wojtanek told me he's changed his driving style to boost the Volt's efficiency. Quick starts or stops are kept to a minimum. It also helps that most of his trips are short jaunts around Boca Raton, which provides plenty of opportunities for charging up between drives. Pretty much the only time the gas engine turns on is when the 55-year-old commercial actor (and retired airline pilot) takes a trip to Fort Lauderdale or Miami. The round trip to Miami is 98 miles, and generally the gas kicks in after about 40 miles of all-electric driving. "Forty-three miles is about the best I get on the battery," he said.

    Wojtanek, who counts a Rolls-Royce and even a replica Batmobile among his past purchases, said the Volt ranks high on his list. "This is the first Chevy since I had a Corvette back in 1991. ... For my driving, this is the best," he said.

    He acknowledged that if you consider economics alone, it'll take a long time to make up the difference between a standard gasoline-powered car and the Volt, which retails for more than $40,000 before tax breaks. "The question is, how long does it take to recoup the cost?" he observed. "Every time gas prices go up, the time to recoup gets shorter."

    Getting smart about batteries
    The Nissan Leaf is cheaper ($33,000 before tax breaks), and the fact that it doesn't use a single drop of gasoline is especially appealing for electric-car purists. But gasoline-free operation also means that the Leaf has a more limited range, and some have complained that the car can quickly run out of juice and leave a driver stranded.

    "Some knowledge about lithium-ion batteries helps," Patrick Van Der Hyde, a Seattle-area Leaf owner, told me today.

    When the Leaf's battery gets near the end, it can deplete quickly, depending on the driving conditions. "All sorts of things affect range, just like all sorts of things affect gas mileage," said Van Der Hyde, who works for an electric-grid management company. "We average about 10 trips a day in the car, and most of those drives are five miles or less."

    Van Der Hyde said he can expect to get 70 miles of "straight-out freeway driving" from a full charge, or closer to 100 miles if the car is in Eco-mode and he sticks to roads where he can travel 40 to 50 mph.

    In the five months since I put the Leaf through its paces, dozens of electric-vehicle charging stations have been added to the Department of Energy's list for the Seattle area, but Van Der Hyde said the Leaf will really come into its own when fast-charging DC electric stations are installed throughout the region. That will enable the car's owners to get a full charge in a half-hour, as opposed to about seven hours for a 220-volt home charging station or 16 hours for your standard 110-volt outlet. (Right now, the Department of Energy says the closest DC fast-charger is in Portland, Ore., which is more than 170 miles from Seattle.)

    'Primary car' ... except for road trips
    Van Der Hyde said his family uses the Leaf as the "primary car in the way we think about it," and keeps a Honda Odyssey around for road trips.

    That's the same strategy followed by Jon Hoekstra, senior scientist with The Nature Conservancy, who was the Seattle area's first Leaf owner. He uses the Leaf for commuting, for the occasional trip to the airport (which has plug-in parking stalls meant for electric vehicles) and even quick jaunts out of town.

    "It does everything we need our car to do with the exception of road trips — and that's OK, because we didn't expect that," Hoekstra told me today.

    Hoekstra and his wife bought the Leaf back in December to reduce their carbon footprint, and their fuel bill as well. "It really doesn't take much juice," he said. "I think I figured it's 3 cents a mile."

    As much as possible, he tries to treat the Leaf like a regular car. "I deliberately have tried not to be a 'hypermiler,'" he said. In the first four months of driving, there's been only one time when the family felt the fear of running out of power. Hoekstra said that happened because the car wasn't fully charged up before the trip, and because nasty weather reduced driving efficiency — all contributing to a perfect storm for range anxiety.

    Fortunately, the Leaf made it back home before the electricity ran out. "Other than that one occasion, it's been great," Hoekstra siad.

    Do you have electric-vehicle experiences to share? Are you on a waiting list, or are you waiting for other EVs such as the Ford Focus Electric or the plug-in Prius to make their appearance? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

    More about electric vehicles:

    Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • After 800 miles in a Volt, it's just OK

    Jim Seida / msnbc.com

    We took the Chevy Volt to the streets of San Francisco for a final road test.

    By Jim Seida

    "It's OK."

    That's how I replied to a text from my brother-in-law, also a car enthusiast, who knew I was driving a Chevy Volt from Seattle to San Francisco.

    That's the problem with the Volt: It's just OK. And for me, just OK isn't enough for a car that costs over $40,000.

    Don't get me wrong. The Volt packs some interesting technology into its five-door hatchback frame, and it really has no direct competitors. Unlike the Toyota Prius, the Volt can be plugged in to charge the onboard batteries, then driven solely on battery power. Unlike the Nissan Leaf, the Volt has a gas-powered, onboard generator that produces electricity to power the car once the batteries are depleted.

    The ideal customer for this car is someone who commutes to work about 20 miles each way or less (which can be done on battery power alone) but wants the freedom to drive America's interstate highways, as we have over the past two days.

    The Volt has some terrific features, such as keyless entry and keyless ignition with the key fob. It's got power windows and a five-star safety rating. It's got a USB port and a 30GB hard drive for storing your music collection. It shifts effortlessly between battery and generator power. It's smooth, relatively quiet and easy to drive on the highway ... which is really the only place I've driven it. All in all, it's a competent, uneventful car that feels pretty average.

    For me, though, the strikes against it are substantial. The Volt's two rows of bucket seats accommodate only four people. The Prius, the Leaf, even the Honda Fit and Mazda 2 seat five adults. Why in the world would they make a car that seats only four? Chevy engineers say it's to accommodate the T-shaped layout of the batteries. It doesn't really matter why. It should seat five, just like almost every other car its size.

    Volt interior

    Jim Seida / msnbc.com

    There's lots of information in the Volt's two LCD displays, and lights reflect off the glossy center stack. Note the parking brake control, lower right on the center stack.

    On the center stack, the bright blue "Power" button that you press to start the car is sexy — but if the battery in your key fob dies, guess what? There's no ignition slot that accepts a key. You can unlock the doors with the key on the fob, but you can't start the car with one.

    When you do start the car, two LCD screens greet you with what looks and sounds more like a science-fiction movie trailer than a car starting. I understand that this gee-whiz might excite customers in the lot, but it gets tiring after the 15th showing.

    Speaking of the center stack, it's one of the worst features of the car. It's a mess of flush-mounted, touch-sensitive studs that are labeled with nothing more than white text on a glossy-body-colored surface. Big and shiny is not good for surfaces that are in front of the driver. Two more oddities on the center stack: The door lock/unlock feature for the whole car is on the passenger side, as is the parking brake switch. This brake switch is actually the closest control to the passenger, and it can be activated by gently pulling on it with one finger. From the passenger seat, I pulled on the switch at about 30 miles per hour. Sure enough, the parking brake engaged, and the car slowed to a stop. I'd move the button to the driver's side.

    The front cowl is so high that the tallest of drivers still can't see the front corners of the car, meaning some guesswork might be required for parking lot maneuvers.

    The low-rolling-resistance Goodyears at the corners are the main source of noise entering the cabin at highway speeds, which isn't so bad, because if it was any quieter, the sound of the generator spinning up and down, seemingly with its own agenda, might get tiresome.

    Generally speaking, the Volt is a competent car. It starts, it goes. Everyone who got behind the wheel commented on how smooth and quiet it was. There are no surprises in the turns, as the car settles into a predictable stance and body roll is not excessive. The brakes, which provide regenerative power to the batteries, are up to snuff, albeit with more nose dive than I would have predicted.

    Aside from not being able to start it with a key, the four-person capacity and the curious layout of some of the controls, this car is pretty much what you'd expect from Chevrolet.

    But for my $41,000 ... OK, $33,500 after federal tax credit ... I expect more.

    Jim Seida is senior multimedia producer at msnbc.com — and he loves to drive cars. Check out the full series of blog items, Twitter tweets, pictures and videos from this week's "Electric Road Trip."

  • Answers to electric-car questions

    Jim Seida / msnbc.com

    Msnbc.com's Alan Boyle lingers in the back seat of a Chevy Volt to finish a blog posting at San Francisco International Airport.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    We've fielded hundreds of questions and comments in the course of our "Electric Road Trip" between Seattle and San Francisco in an electric-powered Chevy Volt, but some of the most interesting questions require answers from a real expert. So during the last 150 miles of our odyssey, we fired questions at Tim Perzanowski, a senior project engineer at GM, as he took his turn behind the Volt's wheel. Here are the paraphrased questions and answers:

    Q: Why didn't they make a diesel version of the Volt? Wouldn't that be more efficient than a gasoline-fueled car?

    A: New rules on vehicle emissions would make the production of a diesel-powered Volt prohibitively expensive, but the idea of developing a diesel Volt for European markets has been under discussion. And looking ahedad, Perzanowski says a new technology called HCCI would bring diesel-like efficiency to gasoline-fueled engines.

    Q: How can an electric drive system that draws energy from a relatively small (1.4-liter) gasoline engine produce 40 mpg fuel efficiency, considering that energy would have to be lost in the conversion process? Here's the flip side of the question: What's so great about a gasoline-fueled system that produces 40 mpg fuel efficiency, considering that my Prius or diesel-powered Volkswagen gets as good or better mileage?

    A: If you're impressed by the engine's performance, it's because of a) magic, b) good engineering, or c) advanced software and electronics. If you're not impressed by 40 miles per gallon, just remember that the equivalent efficiency in battery-only mode can be 50 to 100 miles per gallon ... based on the assumption that a full charge of the battery costs $1.50, or about half the cost of a gallon of gas.

    Q: How much luggage space does the Volt have?

    A: Perzanowski says the Volt's luggage space is comparable to that of other small hatchbacks. Chevrolet says the Volt has 10.6 cubic feet of cargo space, compared with Toyota's claim of 21.4 cubic feet for the substantially larger Prius. The Volt's split back seats fold down individually to provide extra space.

    Q: I heard that the Volt is not really an all-electric car, but is just a hybrid like the Prius, which costs less. So what's the big deal?

    A: This relates to a controversy that arose over the past few days and was addressed in an earlier item, but Perzanowski said that the Volt's power system is substantially different from the Prius, and even from the after-market plug-in Priuses that are popping up nowadays. Of course Perzanowski thinks the Volt's system is much better, but that's the sort of thing you should judge for yourself. There'll always be folks who are hard-core Prius fans, or Leaf fans, or Volt fans — who will argue with each other just as Mustang and Corvette fans did a generation ago.

    Revisit the entire collection of postings from the "Electric Road Trip," or check out the short updates from @boyle on Twitter.

  • Finish line for an electric road trip

    Jim Seida / msnbc.com

    The Bay Bridge can be seen in the side view mirror as the Volt approaches San Francisco after 856 miles of driving.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    We've reached San Francisco International Airport, the end point of our two-day road trip from Seattle in a Chevy Volt electric-plus-gas vehicle. We've gone 873 miles, which is more than the direct-drive distance between the two cities just because there have been some extra drive-arounds and detours along the way. More than 95 percent of that driving was done while the gas-driven "range extender" engine was running. You could argue that this wasn't a fair test of the Volt, because we went far more than the 25 to 50 miles a day that Chevy says is the "sweet spot" for commuters.

    If you consider just the battery-powered driving we did on the first day, our mileage was a pretty darn good 80-plus miles per gallon equivalent. Technically, it was 32.9 gasoline-free miles driven with less than $1.50 worth of electricity. That's the kind of performance a commuter might expect from the Volt. If you consider the total long-haul mileage, the figure comes down to about 40 miles per gallon. Sure, other cars can do better than that, but that's not really the point.

    While we wait for our airplane to take off, we'll post a couple of summing-up items about our "Electric Road Trip."

  • How charged up can the Volt get?

    Alan Boyle / msnbc.com

    A Chevy Volt tools down Interstate 5 with Mount Shasta in the background, as seen through the windshield of another Volt.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    We're back on the road in a Chevy Volt, driving the second half of our 800-mile odyssey from Seattle to San Francisco — and that meant we were back on all-electric driving, at least for nine miles.

    Our car was fully charged during the overnight stay in Medford, Ore., and usually that would give you 25 to 50 miles of gasoline-free travel. Chevrolet figures that most people drive less than 40 miles a day most of the time, and thus the Volt could plausibly go without using a drop of gas for days on end. Some have even talked about an issue with unused gasoline sitting in the tank so long that it goes stale. Turns out that the Volt has a special mode that will turn on the gasoline engine occasionally in that scenario, just to verify that the fuel lines are fresh and clean.

    That wasn't a problem for us this morning. For one thing, the Chevy team had to upload masses of data about the car's performance so far, which drained the battery after its overnight charging. For another thing, we were heading into the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon, and that meant we had to give up some of that low-cost electric rolling to provide hill-climbing oomph.

    When the Volt goes up a steep grade, it draws electricity from the gasoline-powered generator, but even then, its performance can be a bit laggy. To increase the available power for the climb, extra juice comes from the batteries. But that means more of the battery power has to be held in reserve to start with. Normally, the Voltec drive train cuts over from batteries to gas-generated power when the battery reserve is drained to 20 percent of capacity. In mountain mode, that reserve is increased to 40 percent. But you have to hold onto that 40 percent to start with.

    "That's why you have to put it in mountain mode 20 to 30 minutes before you hit a steep grade," Chevrolet Communications' Adam Denison told us. A lot of that power comes back during downhill costs, when the regenerative braking system captures electricity for the batteries. In fact, we were able to return to normal mode and resume all-electric driving after we went over Siskiyou Summit.

    Mountain mode is the main reason why we drove for only 9.4 miles before the Volt's engine kicked in. That's got to be one of the shortest stretches of all-electric driving ever recorded with the Volt. One of the longest stretches was reported just this week, by AOL News auto writer Jeff Sabatini. He got 57 miles on the initial electric charge. But that's OK. He was probably driving on one of those sissy-boy roads in Michigan.

    Follow msnbc.com's Alan Boyle and Jim Seida as they take an 800-mile "Electric Road Trip" in a Chevy Volt ... and file their dispatches from the road. Boyle is also tweeting about the trip as @b0yle on Twitter.

  • ... But is it really an electric car?

    Jim Seida / msnbc.com

    Msnbc.com's Alan Boyle and Jim Seida are in Northern Calif.

    Chevrolet seems to be persnickety about insisting that the Volt is not a hybrid car, but an electric vehicle that just happens to generate some of that electricity with an onboard gasoline-powered engine. That's set off a months-long debate over the semantics of alternative-fuel vehicles — and in the past few days, some have even charged that General Motors has been "lying" about the car's status as a "true electric vehicle."

    The charge stems from the recent revelation that, at high speeds, the Volt's 1.4-liter internal combustion engine doesn't just generate electricity, but contributes directly to driving the wheels through a set of planetary gears. That revelation ticked off automotive writers who had been told repeatedly that the gas-powered engine was connected to the car's Voltec drive system only indirectly. The New York Times' Wheels blog referred to the "controversy" in today's posting about the Volt's coming-out party, and The Car Connection's Nelson Ireson criticized the critics as interested only in "self-serving, tabloid-worthy headlines."

    To an outsider like myself, this doesn't seem like much of a controversy to agonize over. Although I didn't realize it at the time, Volt spokesman Rob Peterson was referring to this back-and-forth last week when he told me that "in some instances, we haven't been able to go as deep as we would have liked" into the Volt's inner workings. He said some of the details about the electric-plus-gas system had to be glossed over while GM worked on the legalities of the patent process.

    That patent angle also came through in the New York Times posting, as well as in discussions we've had with GM engineers as we drove a Volt from Seattle to Medford, Ore. (Sometimes the engineer was in the back seat, and sometimes he was in the driver's seat.)

    Is it really worth hooking up the gas engine to the electric drive train? The engineers say yes. They say the arrangement produces a slight increase in efficiency, but they emphasize that it's not as if the gas engine takes over from the electric drive. The electric drive is indispensable, at high as well as low speeds, they say.

    There may be still more secrets that GM is still keeping under wraps. (For example, exactly how much does the car weigh?) The way I see it, the fact that the gas engine might make a direct rather than an indirect contribution to the Volt's power under some circumstances is no big deal. And the fact that some people might want to think of the Volt as a hybrid rather than an all-electric car is no big deal, either. Am I wrong? Please let me know through your comments below.

    Follow msnbc.com's Alan Boyle and Jim Seida as they take an 800-mile "Electric Road Trip" in a Chevy Volt ... and file their dispatches from the road.

  • What good's a Volt without an outlet?

    Jim Seida / msnbc.com

    Msnbc.com's Alan Boyle walks through the bushes outside an Oregon hotel, looking for a place to plug in the Chevy Volt.
     

    Jim Seida / msnbc.com

    Long after sunset, Alan finally plugs the Volt into an outlet. The car's batteries should be fully recharged overnight.

    If you think trying to find an outlet for your laptop at the airport is a chore, wait until you have to find an outlet for your electric car at the hotel.

    That's the quandary that faced us this evening as we rolled into Medford, Ore., our overnight stop on an 800-mile road trip in a Chevy Volt. Actually, our Volt was one of the four electric-plus-gasoline-powered cars making their way across the country as part of Chevrolet's "Volt Unplugged" tour. As the sun was about to set, we pulled into the TownePlace Suites' parking lot and headed into the hotel lobby.

    Chevrolet Communications' Adam Denison asked the clerk at the desk where we should plug in the cars — and that's when the trouble began.

    "I beg your pardon?" the clerk said. She hadn't heard anything about finding electrical outlets for four cars, and what's more, she didn't have any of our names on the registration list.

    Actually, the clerk's quizzical reaction is probably what most electric-car drivers will face when they go on the road. To look into the issue of finding hotel plug-in power, I called around to seven Medford hotels in advance of this week's trip. The reactions ranged from "I'm sure there has to be an outlet somewhere" to "call back tomorrow" to the straightforward response I got from an establishment billed as Medford's finest hotel: "We do not have plug-ins available for hybrids."

    Tonight, after working through the clerk's confusion, we found out that our reservations were actually at the TownePlace Suites' sister hotel across the parking lot, the SpringHill Suites. Both places are part of the Marriott hotel chain, one of the partners for the "Volt Unplugged" tour, so the SpringHill folks knew we were coming and had a sheet of instructions ready for us, listing the locations of electrical outlets on the building's exterior.

    Simple, right? Wrong.

    Looking for the outlets turned into a cross between an Easter egg hunt and a peeping-tom convention. We skulked around the perimeter of the hotel in the darkening twilight, walking through the bushes and under windows in search of places to plug in.

    "If we can't plug in, we can't plug in," Denison said with a shrug.

    I finally found one of the outlets near the disabled-parking places, and the other near the hotel dumpster. We decided it wouldn't be right to park our shiny new Volt in the disabled zone, so instead, the hotel let us park it right next to the front entrance. We laid out some red traffic cones, plugged in the Volt's specially designed 120-volt charging set and strapped the extension it down to the sidewalk with duct tape.

    Two more outlets were found at the TownePlace, with the help of the SpringHill Suites' instructions and the TownePlace's maintenance crew. In the process, I found out that the Volt's charging cord set works best if it's the only thing plugged into an outlet, even if it's a double-socket outlet. If you try sharing an outlet with another device in the other socket, you have to cut back on the amps for charging, or risk blowing a circuit.

    That's not all: The Chevy crew wanted the hotel to turn off the automatic sprinkler system for the night, just to make sure that an inconveniently placed cord set didn't get soaked. I just hope the expensive-looking set is still there in the morning when the 9- to 10-hour charging process is complete.

    We spent the better part of an hour making the arrangements to plug in four cars, which made me wonder how hotels will handle the plug-in issue when there are thousands of electric cars on the road. If you're visiting your Aunt Rita, she'll probably let you run an extension cord out to your car from the front porch. But if you're staying overnight at a hotel, you might have to fight your way to an outlet — or just continue to fill 'er up at the gas station down the street. And even if the hotels are accommodating now, will they be so willing to give electricity away when 40 drivers are clamoring for overnight juice?

    Am I making a mountain out of a 120-volt molehill? Or is this an electric-car complication that hasn't yet been thought completely through? Feel free to discuss this or other unintended consequences of the shift to electric vehicles in the comment section below.

    Overnight mileage update: We went 490 miles today, with a gasoline top-off in Portland. 11.8 gallons of gasoline were burned, which translates to 41.5 miles per gallon. (The 32.9 miles of all-electric driving counts as a bonus in these calculations. If you subtract out those miles, that brings the mileage rating down to 38.7 miles per gallon.) If you assume that the Volt's gas tank holds 8.5 gallons, that means the car could have gone 350 miles or so without a fill-up or recharge ... which matches the range estimate that Chevrolet came up with.

    Update for 10:25 a.m. ET Oct. 12: All the cars are charged up and ready to go for the second and final day of our road trip, less than 12 hours after they were plugged in. (Sorry, I didn't go out in the middle of the night to see exactly when they completed charging.) The hotel didn't have to turn off their sprinkler system. Instead, the Chevy team wrapped the cord set in plastic, just to make sure no moisture got into its electronic innards. I did the same thing a year ago with the extension cords for our Christmas lights. I guess great minds think alike. ...

    Follow msnbc.com's Alan Boyle and Jim Seida as they take an 800-mile "Electric Road Trip" in a Chevy Volt ... and file their dispatches from the road. Boyle is also tweeting about the trip as @b0yle on Twitter.

  • An electric car that's just 'normal'?

    It's amazing how remarkable normal can be. The most common comment folks have about the Chevy Volt is how much driving it feels like driving an ordinary automobile. Sure, there are lots of cool graphics on the dashboard screens, but the handling is remarkably ... unremarkable.

    Here's how Intel's Ed Wynne put it after he test-drove a Volt around the computer -chip company's campus in Hillsboro, Ore., as part of a stopover organized by the Oregon Electric Vehicle Association:

    "It felt like an absolutely normal car," he told me. "I don't know whether that's good or bad. I feel like it's a good thing."

    Wynne said he wasn't always certain whether the Volt's gas-powered engine was on or off. During the course of a low-speed drive, the engine tends to stop or start, based on how much load is put on the batteries. That pattern of driving cut into our gas mileage figures, with the result that our car registered an efficiency readout of 43.1 miles per gallon after 236 miles.

    That's not bad, but it's not a record-setting performance either. Once you subtract out the 32.9 miles we drove without using a bit of gas, the figure comes out to roughly 40 mpg for the gas-powered engine. (Of course, that's not the official EPA rating ... your mileage may vary.) When I observed that some msnbc.com users were unimpressed with the gasoline fuel-economy numbers, Tim Perzanowski, a senior project engineer at General Motors, said the fuel-saving challenge calls for different strategies, suited to different driving styles.

    "There's no silver bullet for our energy needs," he said. The real benefit of the Volt comes into play if you usually drive 40 miles or less in the course of a day, but take on the occasional long-distance ride ... like our two-day, 800-mile sojourn from Seattle to San Francisco, for example.

    Perzanowski also explained that it takes a few engineering tricks to make an electric-drive vehicle like the Volt "feel" like an absolutely normal car. For example, the pushback you feel when you step on the brake? That's divorced from the actual mechanics of braking the car. It's engineered into the braking system to provide feedback for drivers as they press their foot on the pedal. Some reviewers have commented that the braking on the Volt can be firmer than they expected — but I suppose you get used to it.

    Other embellishments:

    • Engineers built in a little bit of forward "creep" if you have your foot off the brake and the accelerator while the car is in gear. There's no need to do that with an electric car, but drivers who are used to conventional cars expect to have that creep.
    • As I mentioned last week, the Volt is programmed to shut down the gas engine when you come to a stop and begin moving again, in part to avoid confusing drivers who would worry about having the engine running while they're trying to stop. Even after the car switches from its all-electric, all-the-time mode, the engine will occasionally shut down, depending on how much the batteries have been charged up.
    • A little green ball spins constantly on the right side of the dashboard display, indicating how eco-friendly your driving style is. Drive too aggressively, and the ball rises toward the top. Too timidly, and the ball falls. The ball is GM's version of the vines and leaves you see sprouting (or withering) on a Ford Fusion Hybrid's dashboard.
    • The Volt has three modes of operation: normal, sport and mountain. "Sport" is for when you want more torque for a faster, more sports-car-like response. "Mountain" provides more oomph from the batteries as well as the generator when climbing a steeper grade. When you roll down the other side of the mountain pass, you can shift into low gear to increase your regenerative braking and build up the battery power.

    Chevrolet added a couple of features to address the issue that the Volt can sometimes be too quiet. There's a stuttery little horn that you can activate by pushing the lever on the left side of the steering wheel, just to let pedestrians know you're coming. And when you turn the Volt on or off, it makes a simulated power-up or power-down sound — just to give drivers the illusion that this is "an absolutely normal car."

    Follow msnbc.com's Alan Boyle and Jim Seida as they take an 800-mile "Electric Road Trip" in a Chevy Volt ... and file their dispatches from the road.

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