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For Wade - So...you must be the other black Chevy Volt zipping around Maple Grove. (My wife and I also live in Maple Grove and drive a black Chevy Volt). ;-) As a Volt owner, I fully concur with all of responses you made regarding the Volt. We've got over 12,000 miles on it and really enjoy driving the car, all of the technical features and creature comforts. We're still getting well over 100 mpg combined. With the coming of warmer weather, we look to be back into the 130-150 mpg range. FYI - my trade in for this car was an Audi TT :-)

I think I saw you on Hemlock a few weeks back! Do you think we can get the online article updated so it is 3000 RPM and pound-feet when talking about torque? I saw that and went...oooo...that isn't right.

funkymonkeym, have you been on any long trips, say 300 miles or so yet? If so, any issues, specifically recharging?

@marsbonfire - Yes, we have family in South Dakota, so we've taken the long four-hour trip a few times in our Volt. No issues with the long drives. After using up the 40-50 "electric miles", the car automatically flips over to gas for the rest of the drive. We got about 45mpg overall on these roadtrips. Once at our destination, we plug in our 110volt charger into a wall socket at the in-laws' home and get charged up to 40-50 electric miles for the return trip. There really is no "recharging" along the way, since things like super-charging stations aren't available yet within the Midwest (at least not that I'm aware of). However, I feel it's still an economical car even after the gas engine is engaged over the longer drive.

The Volt costs over $100,000 a piece to manufacter. Do you find it easy to get past the feelings of guilt at having the taxpayers pick up the balance of the tab for your ride?

@danneskjold1. Interesting question to which I'll attempt a response. In a nutshell, "No", I feel exactly zero "guilt" for what you imply. First off, your number is likely inflated without basis, but I'll go with the assumption that manufacturing the Volt is subsidized by gov't funding based on EV innovation. The first guilt-free reason is this: I have paid in almost $1M in federal taxes (in today's dollars) since the late 80's. I will likely pay in over $13M in federal taxes in my lifetime (assuming 3.2% inflation rate until, say, age 80). I haven't collected any "special" gov't subsidies or credits in my lifetime, so I don't suspect that I've gotten much of that $1M back (at least I haven't gotten back more federal benefits than the typical citizen, that is). So, if you want, consider part of my $1M paid in as going directly to the production of at least my Chevy Volt. The second guilt-free reason is this: Not many people I know feel guilty for using the Internet on a "federally tax-free" basis. After all, the Internet, as we know it today, was developed and incubated by a federally-funded (i.e., tax-payer funded) program, ARPANET. Without that initial federal funding, we can't assume the internet as we know it today would have fueled as much innovation and economic stimulation. I'm sure tax-payers in the 1960's had similar thoughts that you have in terms of "the gov't is using my tax money on something that only a few use and understand; they should feel guilty". In this case, the users were DoD and some universities (not all tax-payers). Similar to this example, the federal gov't "paid" for the initial technology used within that computer, TV, phone, and other electronic device that you're using. Back in the 1950's the federal gov't was the only backer of those newly-invented transistors and integrated circuits that folks like Fairchild Technologies and Texas Instruments were creating for whiz-bang electronics that went into space equipment (and later into Intel chips that spurred the modern computerized device). Do you find it easy to get past the feelings of guilt at having taxpayers picked up the tab for your use of this incubation technology? If so, please forward a check to a 1960's tax payer sitting nearest to you. There are countless examples where technological incubations have lead to much greater advances where tax-payers had to "foot" some of the bill (e.g., Interstate highways, rolling out the cure for polio, etc).