[BoogetyBoogety]

As a long-time owner of an original Insight, I've enjoyed enthusiasts finding and reporting sightings of our infrequently-spotted little cars over the years at Insightcentral.net. Now that we have a Volt, we thought we'd see them everywhere, but surprisingly, finding others on the road is a cause for celebration and lots of pointing and waving. We just came back from a three-day stay in eco-friendly Austin, and only saw ONE Volt during the entire time we were there (a white one parked on 6th street, Tuesday, 9pm). Inspired by IC.net, I'm starting a Volt spotters' post here: We have a unique and relatively-rare vehicle ourselves... Report when you see one!

 

[UtahK]

Saw my twin, a siren red Volt, in the Cottonwood Heights, UT Smith's grocery today.

Saw a blue one at Home Depot a few days ago.

 

[Just_Jon]

... We have a unique and relatively-rare vehicle ourselves... Report when you see one!

Please make California ineligible. Otherwise this will turn into the equivalent of "Spot a pickup in a red state" or "Spot a sheep in N.Z.".

 

[freshcut]

Not all of CA is like that. Here in the central valley we have a huge oil industry and most of the vehicles on the road are SUVs and trucks. There are a handful of Volts, but far more Prii than anything when it comes to alternative cars.

 

[hellsop]

Milwaukee's not exactly a big city but I still manage to see other Volts a dozen times a month. More than Teslas, tbh.

 

[JRRF]

Lots of Tesla's here, but not many Volts.

In socal, it's ridiculous. We saw over 30 in a week. In MD I've seen two in the wild in 3 months of looking.

 

[wizard_of-ahs]

Our town is about 50000 populace and there are only 2 other Volts that I've ever seen............and all 3 of us are in the same neighborhood

 

[longflare]

Seen 6 in Melbourne, Australia, ever, 3 were repeat sightings

 

[Reece]

There really isn't much of a comparison in numbers. The GEN1 insight was only produced between 2000-2006 and less cars were sold than a single year of volts. So sighting's will not be nearly as rare. I drive a insight nearly 700miles a week and often go six months between sightings. Have fun, RIck

 

[BoogetyBoogety]

There really isn't much of a comparison in numbers. The GEN1 insight was only produced between 2000-2006 and less cars were sold than a single year of volts. So sighting's will not be nearly as rare. I drive a insight nearly 700miles a week and often go six months between sightings. Have fun, RIck

I know... Isn't that wild? So far, I've seen more Insights than Volts in the Metroplex, yet other parts of the country are overrun with 'em. I thought Austin would be lousy with Volts, and in three days we only saw the one (Teslas aplenty, though). We do love our epic, monthly road trips when we're in the states, we'll keep an eye out for Volts wherever we go...

 

[freshcut]

I can see that with the Tesla in Austin. Being when I lived there in 2000 it was very much a tech base for the midwest. Round Rock in particular. I would imagine it to be similar to Silicon Valley in the bay area. The first gen Insight definitely didn't sell many, but weren't they just a 2 seat car? Certainly doesn't make them very family friendly.

 

[indyflick]

Please make California ineligible. Otherwise this will turn into the equivalent of "Spot a pickup in a red state" or "Spot a sheep in N.Z.".

LoL, okay I'll give you one from the other day. Coming home from work, I'm in the North 15 HOV lanes. I'm driving my silver 2014 volt, there was a grey gen 1 on my right, a blue gen 2 in front of him, and another silver gen 1 in front of me. It looked like a Volt parade!

There's an office building near us that has 10 EVSEs for their employees and during the day they are nearly all being used. I've seen five Volts charging at once there. But it's also interesting to see the variety of other plug-ins. There are a lot of LEAFs, but I saw an e-Golf, a Ford C-Max Energi, a BMW i3, and a Sonata plug-in there last week.

 

[bjrosen]

I've seen one or two other Volts in town and one Tesla. As you get closer to Boston there are a fair number of Tesla's but no Volts. I've never seen a Leaf in MA, I've seen one E-Golf that parks in the Christian Science Center garage that's across the street from Symphony hall. I attribute the dearth of EVs to the climate, battery range suffers terribly in the cold, the Volt doesn't have the range problem but it also doesn't have all wheel drive, I decided to live with the lack of all wheel drive when I bought the Volt because I was so impressed with electric drive but I never would have considered and ICE car without it.

The Tesla's relative popularity I attribute to the fact that it's a Veblen good for people who ordinarily hesitate to buy a Veblen good. Flaunting your wealth has always been considered tasteless in New England, for example the mansions in Newport were all built by New Yorkers, I don't think a single one was built by a Bostonian. As a result you never ever see a Bentley or a Ferrari here. But the Tesla is special, it's a > $100K car but it's also a symbol of environmentalism so if you drive one you are telling the world that you are very green and by the way, wink wink, nudge nudge, I can afford a $100K car. The Volt is a Chevy which is the antithesis of a Veblan good, Chevys are everyman cars, so buying a Volt can convey the message that you or green, or in my case that you love tech, but it doesn't say anything about your wealth.

 

[SteveSeattle]

I will only post once on this thread.

In Seattle Volts are very common. I am almost guaranteed to see one every trip I make. I saw at least 5 yesterday and an ELR (now that's one that is much harder to spot). I still get a moment of excitement when I do see one, but it is short lived. Until 2 years ago they were a rare sight, but all of a sudden Gen 1s were appearing everywhere. My theory is that a lot of off lease Volts get shipped to Seattle area as the used market here is strong. I am glad you are enjoying yours. I still love driving mine.

Steve
2014 Volt

 

[rmay635703]

Milwaukee's not exactly a big city but I still manage to see other Volts a dozen times a month. More than Teslas, tbh.

Per The last DMV report there are only about a hundred of the beasts registered to Wisconsinites
So sort of a lottery roll.

So hellsop, looking forward to your registration doubling?

I tried to do my best to contact legislators and write public pieces on the matter,

Ah well

 

[bjrosen]

Just got back from the supermarket. There were only two other Chevy's in the parking lot, an old Malibu and an SUV. The vast majority of cars were Japanese, the only American car that had an appreciable presence were Jeeps. Subaru's alone outnumbered the American cars. The unpopularity of GM cars goes a long way towards explaining why there are so few other Volts.

 

[bjrosen]

EV stats in MA

My personal observations don't match the stats on the MOR-EV website. GM is slightly ahead of Tesla in EV sales in MA,

GM 1510
Tesla 1324
Ford 656
Nissan 532
Toyota 405
BMW 346

If you break it down by categories it's
BEV 2793
PHEV+ 1250 (+ is a PHEV with a >10KW battery so this is the just Volts)
PHEV 1313
ZEM 15 (This is an electric motorcycle)

If I look in my town alone,
2016
BEV 8
PHEV+ 6
PHEV 4

2017
BEV 13
PHEV+ 4
PHEV 8

So from those numbers there must be 10 Gen2 Volts in town, and if I look at 2014 and 2015 there should be 2 Gen1 Volts. So where are they?

 

[canehdian]

See them all the time around here, but was not expecting to see one at the top of the Canadian rockies with me at the same time this summer.
Well, not a huge surprise with the number of them in Vancouver and the mountains being within a day's drive from there. The surprise was it was all the way from Quebec (an extra 6+ hours of driving than me!)

 

[hellsop]

So hellsop, looking forward to your registration doubling?

I backed the county wheel tax increase as "necessary and reasonable" so I've got little room to complain.

I still think it's hilarious that Wisconsin got to vote on "should the road fund be constitutionally protected from predation by the general fund" and instead we've got the road fund flattened by decade-long highway projects and the Governor talking about borrowing a half a billion dollars in order to NOT raise gas taxes.

 

[Mr.Woolery]

Southern California here (LA, Orange county). I see so many Volts on a daily basis here that I don't bother to note them anymore. I must see at least a dozen a day.