Why My 2014 Chevy Volt Uses Less Gas Than My All-Electric Car Did

I recently leased a 2014 Chevy Volt to replace my Mitsubishi i-MiEV, and I expect that it will free me even more from using gasoline than the i-MiEV--which was a battery electric car that used no gas at all.

At first glance, this would seem counter-intuitive.

The Volt has a range-extending gasoline engine to charge the battery after the first 40 or so miles of all-electric driving, while the Mitsubishi i-MiEV is always powered by a battery pack recharged with grid electricity.

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However, I like to take road trips once or twice each month. When I had the i-MiEV, I had to rent a gasoline-powered car for any journey of more than the minicar's range of 62 miles.

With the Volt, though, I can take my electric vehicle with me, charge up at my destination, and have a useful electric car with me wherever I go.

I will soon embark on a journey from NYC to New Hampshire for some good old-fashioned camping and hiking in the mountains.

To illustrate the point, here's a comparison of road trips when I had an electric car compared to those in the Volt, with its range extender.

Planning i-MiEV road trips

When I had the i-MiEV, I would look up whether cars were available at the rental-car location near me. I can walk there, so it's handy…in theory. But on popular weekends, they would often be entirely booked--and this happens frequently, not just on holiday weekends.

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Then I'd need to make more complex plans to pick up a rental car elsewhere. I always looked for the highest-mileage car, and rented that one.

But wait...once you get to the rental location, that car isn't always available. So they would "upgrade" me to an SUV.

From my perspective, that's a downgrade, since using less gasoline is my goal.

This happened a couple of times and it was frustrating, to say the least (although it did once let me drive 300-plus-horsepower Ford Mustang, which was pretty fun).

Also, rental-car locations are rarely open on Sundays, when I return from my weekend trips, so I had to figure out how to return the car before getting to work on Monday. Except my workday begins within minutes of the time the rental sites open, so that was always tricky…and it cost more for the extra day, too.

The bottom line is that renting a car cost money, took time to plan, and took precious time to execute--when all I wanted to do was take a road trip and have some fun.

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Worse, usually my rental vehicle got around 22 mpg--and it certainly never got up to 30 mpg.

Volt planning now

Now that I have a Volt, my planning involves finding the best hiking trail and deciding which gorgeous lake to swim in.

Instead of doing one marathon drive from New Jersey through the legendary awful traffic on I-95, my plan is to drive to central Massachusetts, stay overnight, then finish driving in the morning.

That means about 80 miles of my 321-mile journey will be all-electric. In addition, the Volt is rated at 37 mpg combined, so the miles I cover will use much less gasoline than that 22-mpg rental car.

But the electric miles in which I use no gasoline at all will boost my blended gas mileage to less than half of what it would be if I drove an all-electric car around town, but had to rent a conventional gas-powered car for road trips.

Comparison

Assuming 100 miles of driving after reaching the destination (the trip totals 742 miles), here are some numbers. There will be at least four charging opportunities for the Volt during the trip as it's planned now.

• Estimated round-trip total gas needed for rental car: 33.7 gallons

• Estimated round-trip total gas needed for Volt: 15.7 gallons

So on this trip, I will use less than half of the gasoline in a Volt than I would have needed to use a rental car--even if all my local miles were driven in the gas-free i-MiEV.

The other important factor to use minimal gas in a Volt is that my daily driving needs must fall within the 38-mile rated range of the battery--and they do.

The furthest I drive in a normal day is 37.4 miles to get into NYC, then back home to New Jersey. So my daily driving will be battery-powered, regardless of vehicle.

Other thoughts

Even with the Volt in range-extending mode running on the gasoline engine, it would only use 20.0 gallons of gas on my trip--a significant savings over the rental car.

If you want to drive electric but don't have the luxury of having a second car the Volt is an excellent transition car from gas to electric.

BUYER'S GUIDE: Mitsubishi i-MiEV Electric Car: Ultimate Guide, What You Need To Know

The Volt, the 2014 BMW i3 REx (range-extended model), and the Cadillac ELR luxury coupe are the only cars that let you drive using entirely on electric power until the battery is depleted. Only then will the gas engine turn on.

The Volt and i-MiEV aren't really comparable cars, except both will get you from point A to point B. The i-MiEV is a very minimal vehicle, and I suspect only people who don't enjoy or appreciate cars will want to drive one.

The Volt is a really nice car, and the acceleration is impressive--making it far more enjoyable to drive than my little Mitsubishi.

Finally, for those of you about to comment that this trip would be possible entirely on electric power in a Tesla Model S: Yes, that is true. We know that. And when the Tesla Model 3 comes out (in 2018 or thereabouts), I hope its effective price compares to that of the Volt.

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