(car engine revving) (indistinct chatter) - [Linus] What are our expectations? When we defy them? Are we breaking the mold? What if they expected me to do that? Who are they? Why aren't they pointing a camera at me? And why did it take me two
years to make this video? Maybe none of that matters. Maybe what really matters
is the here and the now, and the who, like who is my sponsor? (bright music) (upbeat music) When I bought my Chevy Volt, Modell 3s weren't shipping yet. And Modell Ss, even secondhand ones were going for as much as
100, 000 Canadian Rubles. That's more than every other vehicle I've owned in my life put together. So the hunt began for some other option. Any other option for someone
who loves technology, as much as he hates paying for gas, but who doesn't need
ludicrous speed or whatever. I mean, at the end of the
day, how much fun can it be? It's still gonna have four wheels, isn't? (motorcycle engine roaring) Sort of, Tesla strongly
disagrees with that sentiment. And they're actually working
on providing a review unit of the Model 3 for me to
check out as we speak. But before we make that video, I owe you guys finally an explanation for why I made the choice I did. Why did Linus Tech Tips Sebastian, settle for a Chevrolet Volt? Performance on the track wasn't the first consideration for me. And it isn't for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean
that the Volt is a slouch because in here we've got not one, not two but three engines. The 1.5 liter gas engine
right here on the left, it'll output some measly 101 horsepower. The fun part. That's the dual electric motors doing exactly what electric
motors are famous for, torque. Out of standstill, we've got access to nearly
300 foot pounds of this stuff. So how does that feel you might ask? Off the line, It's surprisingly exhilarating doing zero to 50 in just 2.6 seconds. Then at about 70 clicks, it peters out finishing
the zero to 100 in 8.4, which coincidentally is identical
to my old 2003 Honda Civic just without the extra fun
of a manual transmission. The advantage compared
to my Civic however, is that I'm doing all of that without using any gas whatsoever and compared to other plugin hybrids, it's a lot happier. I get anywhere from 60 to
a 100 kilometers of range, depending on the weather. That's enough for me to do
well over 80% of my driving on battery, meaning that the average tank of gas lasts me a month or two, or even more sometimes. As an added bonus, we installed EV chargers at the office. And currently there's a taxation loophole that allows me to refuel using those, without counting it as a taxable benefit, reducing my total cost of ownership. We already have a Honda Odyssey for family road trips and
hauling soccer things. So anything bigger than
a Sedan or a Hatchback would have only served
to take up extra space in our cramped two car suburban garage. And a lot of the benefits of an EV like being able to use
the HOV lane by myself, less frequent servicing and okay, yeah, being quicker
off the line but a late change were very appealing to me with the Volt sharing all of them. Even more appealing, look at all that space. Chevy went with the design
that's become quite popular, probably so that they
can sell the same body, both to Sedan lovers here in North America and to hatchback
enthusiasts across the pond. I've actually really
missed my wife's VW Rabbit. Ever since we got rid of it. And if I traded in my Volt, I would definitely miss it too. It is shocking how much stuff
you can fit in this thing, when you've got the seats folded down. Like check this out. I had all that tack loaded in it, to give away at my house last Halloween. Flipping crazy, right? By the way, don't show
up at my house this year. I'm not doing that again. As a taller user, it might
not be as comfortable, but for me, the front seat
design is basically perfect. And the only change that I would make to the instrument console is to add a clock option right in front of the driver. There is one built into
the center display, but the problem is that
when I'm an Android Auto, some apps don't have a clock overlay, so I'm left without one altogether, which is a minor inconvenience, kind of like the rear seats. Now shockingly, I can get all
three of my kids back there, even with car seats, but I would recommend spending
some time on the websites that specialize in car seat compatibility to find a configuration that's
likely to actually work. And I would also recommend not trying to put three adults back there. The two outside seats are pretty comfy, as long as the occupant is under six feet, but the middle seat is
basically a non-seat. Media controls are all
handled with buttons on the optional leather
wrapped steering wheel, Which okay, that might not
seem like a huge deal to you, But coming from my old car, that was an absolute game changer. And regenerative braking is
handled in one of three ways. When you're on battery, you
can either drive around in low and as soon as you take your
foot off the accelerator, you'll get a mild regenerative effect or you can press this paddle to the left of the steering wheel and you'll get a much stronger effect. Finally, if you don't like the on and off controls of the paddle, you can simply press
the brake pedal lightly and it will start with region, then if you exceed the threshold, it will apply more conventional brakes. And this easy access to region breaking has already been saving
me money in little ways, like less wear on my brake pads, just like a full EV or at least for now. A big potential downside of this plugin hybrid
approach is reliability. Two complimentary drivetrains does introduce the potential
for more costly repairs, but, knock on wood. So far I've done really well. Now one of my personal preferences when it comes to cars is to give myself a better chance when it comes to recalls and lemons, by avoiding all the new model
years whenever possible. Letting someone else
find the overlooked flaws in a brand new platform or design. I'm still dealing with the
worst of both worlds though. Ice engines tend to be more
prone to breaking down than EVs and electric has its own
ticking time bomb too, the batteries. Now given that a phone that used to last a whole day when new might barely get you through
lunch two years later, I understand people's
concerns about the longevity of battery packs in cars. But fortunately Chevy thought of this. From the factory, Chevy intentionally doesn't expose the whole
battery to the user, which reduces unnecessary
wear on the batteries from overcharging and also adds a battery
buffer, so to speak. So over time, they slowly give you this buffer back to make sure that the range of the Volt is as good on your five as it
was the day you left the lot. I mean of course the buffer
will eventually run out, but if nothing else, this approach forces the consumer to care for their battery properly. And it's an approach that I really like. We saw what the race for
more talk time did to phones. And it would be a shame to see EV makers fall into that same trap of eliminating this buffer for the sake of advertising
bigger and bigger ranges at the cost of their batteries ending up in landfills sooner. So I guess that's
another win for the Volt. When it does become junk, at least a lot less
battery is getting tossed compared to a full EV like a Tesla. So if I love this thing
and I think it's great, why do you not see them all over the road? Well, one big reason is the price. Brand new these things ran
about 35,000 US dollars. And frankly, I wouldn't have paid
that much for one either. But second hand, now we're talking. I ended up paying just
about 23,000 US dollars for a one-year-old lease return with 29,000 kilometers on it. One of the biggest letdowns though, and something that I'm expecting to be very enticing about
the Tesla, is the technology. I mean, you can roll down
the windows on a hot day with the fob. The backup camera is
way better than my van and honestly, all that I could ever need. The Bose sound system is
pretty good. You know, I'm glad the previous owner selected it and having Android Auto
and CarPlay is well, Hey, it's a lot better than not having them. But other than that, unless you consider traction
control and power windows to be tech features, there
ain't a whole lot going on here. Even the basic driving
assist that the car does have are implemented in ways
that just aren't that great cruise control without
the adaptive component is just not as useful to me and one of the areas I really
like using cruise control, in school and playground zones I can't. Not allowing cruise control at speeds under 40 kilometers an hour is just asinine to me
because if I could use it, then I could be covering
my brake rather than my gas or excuse me, accelerator. And I can be watching
the road for children rather than watching my speedometer to make sure that I'm
not gonna get a ticket in these high risk areas. And there are handful of other
sucky slash weird things. The AC particularly in
eco-mode is super weak. It makes me irrationally angry. Like I shouldn't even mention it, but it drives me nuts that you can press the windows to go all the way down, but then everyone but
in the driver's seat, you have to hold it to bring
it all the way back up. And whenever I throw my
backpack in the passenger seat, the car is like yelling at me to have my passenger
put their seatbelt on, even though my bag only
weighs like 10 pounds. But with all that said, I got an absolute ton of car for my money. And in spite of my recent
Jaguar, I pace test drive. I just haven't been
tempted to upgrade for now. So that's it. That's why I bought a Chevy Volt. Tesla, now it's time to change my mind. Thanks again to DJI for
sponsoring this video. All the sexy in air drone footage was shot by our very own Colin Worobetz on the Mavic Air 2 drone, and we had a ton of fun doing it. It's got a 10 kilometer
transmission range, up to 34 minutes of flight time. Like what? You can capture up to 4K 60 FPS or 1080 at up to 240 FPS. It's got a pass 3.0 obstacle avoidance. You can edit the videos afterward easily with their DJI Fly App on your smartphone. And it's got tons of other great features. It's just a lot of drone for the price. So check it out today at the
link in the video description. If you guys enjoyed this video, you might enjoy our
other videos about cars, which I don't think we
really have any yet, but make sure you're subscribed 'cause we're hoping that this
is just the first of many. - [Alex] I did the Carbon Rivera - Oh, that's true actually, Alex did a video on the Carbon Rivera.
I love my ‘13 Volt Premium. Bought it with 11k miles on it for $16.9k USD. It’s been a workhorse for road trips, hauling household stuffs across town and generally being super low cost for me to operate. Plan to keep it another couple of years until finally going full EV sometime in 2022.
My 2017 was $32,000 after incentives a model 3 would have been around $60,000. No thanks
I'm in the same boat as Linus, (except I only paid 15K USD). I don't need a Tesla to stroke my ego, but even after buying the Volt, I have an EV itch that hasn't quite been scratched despite 95% EV 15K Miles a year. I don't need a Tesla, hell I'd be worse off even if a had a Bolt, but I am still planning on buying an Ultium platform vehicle by 2022.
If he wanted Active Cruise Control, why didn’t he just find one that had it?
He had (has?) a gen1. Posted a video about it a few years ago.
Edit: The best volt commercial ever.... and the car is discontinued. 😡