![]() Green-leaning shoppers who can live with a pure electric car's limited range may still want to consider the less expensive, all-electric Nissan Leaf, too. The latter two can't go nearly as far on electricity alone as the Volt, but they are otherwise similar in powertrain concept, not to mention more practical due to their roomier passenger and cargo compartments. The new price makes the Volt about five grand less costly than the 2014 Honda Accord Plug-In Hybrid and puts it on par with the Ford C-Max Energi and Toyota Prius Plug-In. But for 2014, that's no longer an issue, thanks to a whopping as-new $5,000 price drop. Previously, our biggest criticism of the Chevy Volt was its much higher base price compared to standard hybrids. That's pretty good, but still notably lower than the 40-50 mpg commonly achieved by most traditional hybrids. In a year of testing, our long-term Volt returned an average of 35 mpg during such operation. Owners with longer commutes - not to mention those who want to also use the Volt for road trips - will obviously exceed the car's all-electric range and will then be employing the hybrid system. ![]() If your typical driving stints are about 30-40 miles and you're able to recharge in between, you could go a very long time indeed without visiting a gas station. What this means is that the Volt is potentially better suited as a pure electric commuter car for those with shorter drives to work. By comparison, the Volt's plug-in competitors can only run about 10-20 miles before switching over to hybrid mode. Specifically, the Volt can run about 38 miles on battery power alone, after which point the 1.4-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine kicks in to generate electricity that extends the car's overall range by another 300 miles or so. ![]() And the Volt just so happens to offer considerably more electric-only range than its handful of plug-in hybrid rivals. Here's where plug-in hybrids like the 2014 Chevrolet Volt come in: Plug-ins marry the hybrid and EV concepts and allow pure electric operation for a given distance before switching over to their hybrid mode. Unfortunately, the typical electric car has a range of 70-80 miles before it runs out of juice. The former uses both gasoline and battery-sourced electric power for propulsion, while the latter doesn't use gas at all. By now, many people know the difference between a hybrid vehicle and a pure electric vehicle.
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