Got my green stickers, baby! It was getting a bit dicey there…. I got a Volt now instead of later is because those California HOV stickers were running low for qualified plug-in hybrids and extended range electrics. Back in January there were over 7,000 of the available 40,000 stickers left, and by the end of last week that number dwindled down to under 4,000 remaining. 4000 of excess mileage charge over three years, instead of taking on the Volt for a mere six cents per mile more. Eventually the planets aligned. On Wednesday of last week I logged into my checking account like so many countless weeknights prior, and there it was - a tiny icon that was a scanned image of an eight dollar check payable to the DMV. You did NOT buy another car, did you? I was relieved. Because I did nothing of the sort, this time.
She’s a bit sensitive about my craigslist buying binges, and is probably harboring a fear that my obsession has moved back to cars. Surprised and delighted about the DMV mail, I snatched the envelope from her hand and ripped it open. Look, I got my stickers,” I clearly explained, waving the shiny green holographic treasures just inches from her face. Since then, I’ve been commuting with the Volt exclusively to get a jump on minimizing excess miles on the Focus Electric lease. I’m guessing that the depletion of the green sticker supply will slow momentarily because as reported by Inside EVs, the DMV has suspended the program that allows dealers to obtain those stickers prior to sale. This is good news for those dealers that don’t pre-order the stickers as well as for consumers that shop around for the best deal. Even better news is that there’s a bill to increase the number of green stickers that can be issued, exact quantity is apparently yet to be determined. With any luck, it will be enough to cover introductions of the rumored Focus Energi and imminent next-generation Volt. Because after one solid week of driving my Volt, I’ve realized that it has a few shortcomings that keeps me from wanting to keep it longer than its lease term. More on that later.
After all, for the end buyer, what you want is to charge your car, regardless of whoever does it, right? Well, not in New Jersey. So, no deal there, which left me no solution but to ask my temporary host to do an overnight charge at home, at 110 Volts. One thing that struck me on the first full day in the US, was that everything was super-sized regarding Europe. Now I understand why the Leaf is classified as “Compact Car” in the land of Uncle Sam. Or maybe I’m just being mean, if you always run in ECO mode, never use Air Conditioner and drive like a nun, maybe, just maybe, you can reach the announced 250 kms range. And what about EV’s? Did you saw a lot of them running around? I guess it will be up to the Tesla Pick-Up Truck to finally win the Regular Joe mindset into EV’s. Family friendly vehicle. Space is not an issue in the car, be it in the front, at the rear seat or in the trunk. It is sooo annoying and clunky, if there is one feature I would like to change for the upcoming Leaf, is that Nissan finally ended the foot brake nonsense and made a regular Parking button, like regular EV’s have. I mean, for a car designed to look the 21st Century future, the foot brake seems like a 19th Century relic! Cable storage. Sure, the trunk had no problems swallowing shopping bags, but should we use the full capacity of the trunk, we would have to remove the cable storage suitcase from the side and place it…Somewhere. This is not the ideal solution, BMW solved it in the i3 by placing it in the small front trunk. I think Nissan could have found a better place to store the cables. Maybe in the next Leaf?
The 323 V pack weighs about 701 lbs, or 21% of the vehicle’s curb weight. In the end, they worked with Panasonic on the particular cell size to fit the pack underneath the front and rear seats and middle tunnel. The VW team boasts that the final design not only reinforced the vehicle floor, but also lent the car extra heft thanks to its low center of gravity - enhancing the car’s handling. The Braunschweig battery plant - the only full battery factory in the VW Group - can crank out an e-Golf battery pack every 20 minutes. The process is highly automated, and the team is working on getting the individual time down to 15 minutes in anticipation of increased demand. The fully assembled packs go through system function tests, mechanical tests, climate tests, thermal analysis tests and a Hardware in the Loop (HIL) test before they arrive at Wolfsburg with a 90% SOC.
With every new EV release, we can’t escape the inevitable question: Is this a compliance car? We’ve come to expect the automaker’s answer to that question to go something (exactly) like this: “Absolutely not. So, while most automakers issue similar boilerplate on compliance, we eventually develop our own ideas about whether an EV is a compliance car (Ford Focus Electric) or not (BMW i3). In VW’s case, one of our PR contacts gave us the expected answer on compliance, so we’re left to wait, see and speculate. Our speculation: Volkswagen is clearly investing in electrification, but so is everyone else beholden to compliance. We’re not sure if VW is investing more than other automakers, but with its drivetrain-interchangeable MQB system, it is investing differently. VW models sold in 153 countries were diesel, so even without the concern for a transition to electricity or the question mark of fuel cells, VW already had ample reason to perfect a drivetrain-agnostic approach to its product lines.
