SIBLING RIVALRY
BROTHERS PIT EXTENDED RANGE EV AGAINST PURE ELECTRIC
Reformed horsepower junkie pits his extended-range Volt EV against the pure electric Bolt
It’s easy to forget how big this car is, even over these narrow roads, until we come face to face with the occasional logging truck and have to squeeze by.
— LESLEY WIMBUSH
After some 40 years of driving various forms of American muscle — a Chevrolet Camaro, a spate of Ford Mustangs ( including a supercharged 1989 GT) and, lastly, a Cadillac CTS-V — my brother found religion. No, it wasn’t the spiritual kind, but a total reversal in attitude: a replacement of his need for speed with a need for fuel efficiency. In November 2015, Rick, a retired elementary school music teacher, traded his 556- horsepower, supercharged 6.2 litre- powered Caddy for … a 2016 Chevrolet Volt.
“I was getting old enough to know that to get the kind of performance I wanted was going to cost bigger bucks than I wanted to spend. So I traded horsepower for fuel economy.”
In retrospect, the move — at least to me — was not surprising. Even tearing around town in his red Mustang, Rick kept tabs on the car’s fuel economy. There would be a pad and pen in the centre console where he would do the conversion and scribble down the Mustang’s miles per gallon ( he prefers Imperial to metric). He carried this practice over to the CTS-V.
“I never got higher than 26.5 miles per gallon ( 10.6 L/ 100 km). And during winter driving it was getting down to 12 to 13 mpg ( 23.5 to 21.7 L/ 100 km). I tried to drive ( in such a way as) to get 20 mpg (14.1 L/100 km).”
Rick’s Volt is a base model with optional leather seats and listed for about $42,000 before taxes and the usual money grabs. Courtesy of Ontario’s generous tax rebate on electric vehicles, he received a cheque for about $ 11,500 from the province. With the Caddy to trade, his new purchase essentially cost him nothing. He now has about 22,000 km on the Chevy.
Needless to say, Rick was more than a little intrigued when I told him I was testing the new Bolt. Unlike the Volt, which runs on an electric power pack and also generates energy through a gaspowered “generator ”( namel ya 1.5- L engine) when the batteries run low, the Bolt is a pure plug- in EV, the driving force a 60- kWh lithiumion battery pack.
He wanted to see what the similarities were between his car and “mine” as well as the differences. Naturally, I obliged.
The topline Bolt Premier ( there’s also the base LT) meandered the back streets to my brother’s house like a Ninja assassin, literally silent in its operation. For those not used to an electric vehicle, its peppiness is quite surprising; the electric drive’s motor puts out 200 hp and 266 pound- feet of torque. Chevrolet claims the 1,625- kilogram car will accelerate to 100 km/h in seven seconds. It’s also more than capable of sustaining highway speeds.
On my way home from picking up the orange- hued runabout, I was quite content to follow a delivery truck while I was checking over the various cabin details and revelling in the lack of noise. Then I glanced at the speedometer and realized the delivery truck’s driver was in a hurry and that I was doing well above the speed limit.
Jumping into the driver’s seat, Rick drove the Bolt to a nearby subdivision as he gained a feel for the car, commenting all the while. The first thing he noticed about the electric vehicle was its aggressive regenerative braking.
The Bolt offers what GM calls “customizable one-pedal driving.” This combines the highest available level of regenerative braking, which captures otherwise lost energy from deceleration and sends it back to the battery pack for the greatest total vehicle range. Along with additional software controls, re- gen braking allows the car to be stopped without using the brake pedal in certain driving conditions.
Like the Bolt, Rick’s Volt also has a “re- gen on demand” paddle on the back of the steering wheel. Holding it acts like reefing on the emergency brake handle in a regular car.
“I like this,” my brother said of the Bolt. “It’s much more aggressive. It feels like it’s recouping more energy. The Volt is less aggressive. You have to allow more distance for the car to come to a stop. And to come to a complete stop you have to touch the brakes or ( the car) will continue to creep.”
Putting the Bolt’s shifter in Low and taking your foot off the gas pedal results in similar stopping power to using the paddle.
The one feature of the Bolt he didn’t care for was the car’s automatic transmission shifter. Unlike the Volt, which has a traditional PRNDL, the Bolt’s shifter has a separate button on the knob for Park.
And the shifter has to be pushed forward and to the left to engage Reverse. Also, while going from Drive to Low requires a straight downward pull, going from Low to Drive requires a shift into Neutral and then back into Drive.
While we both got the hang of it fairly quickly, we agreed it’ s unnecessarily complicated.
Rick praised the subcompact-size Bolt for its interior roominess and front- seat comfort. We’re both about 6-foot-2 and found there was plenty of legroom and headroom in both the front and back of the car.
Cargo room is also better in the Bolt than the Volt, at 478 L versus 301. Conversely, he was less than enthused about the Bolt’s instrument panel, finding it too clutt ered with i nformation, though he admits that it’s probably because he’s used the Volt’s.
Despite having to take the Volt back to the dealership twice for issues requiring some computer component to be reflashed, my brother says he would buy another EV, “but it would have to have range-extender capability. I like the idea that if I run out of battery, I can put gas in the car and keep going.”
On that note, in the 20 months he has owned the Volt, he says he has only filled up the car’s 30- L tank seven or eight times. However, Rick was impressed with the Bolt’s 383-km range capability.
The biggest detriment to the Bolt, he says ( and I agree), is its price. The Premier l i sts at $ 47,795, and the tester came with a Driver Confidence II Package ($ 575, for l ow- speed forward automatic braking, lane- keep assist, lanedeparture warning, and more) and the Infotainment Package ($ 565) and Orange Burst metallic paint ($ 495), that boosted the car’s cost to $ 49,530 ( before taxes and delivery charges). If it weren’t for government incentives in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia, EV sales in this country would be even more meagre than they are. As it is, the Volt outsells the Bolt by more than two to one ( 1,998 vs. 866 to the end of June).
Still, the Bolt proved surprisingly enjoyable, even to a pair of ardent gearheads. Maybe the future of performance won’t be so bleak after all, just different — and quieter.