Forget Your “Range Anxiety”: My Test Drive of the Electric Chevy Volt

I have dreamed of owning an electric car my entire life. In March, thanks to Hope Bertram of Windy City Social, I met the folks at General Motors at SXSW and had a chance to test drive a version of the Chevy Volt.

Today, the day after the Volt was named Motor Trend Car of the year, I was able to participate in General Motors: Unplugged Tour. I drove the car for over 4 hours from Detroit to Chicago. Watch my video on driving and recharging the electric car:

I think that Chevy has hit a home run with the car. There aren’t a lot new gadget’s inside because they wanted to focus on the getting the implementation of the electric technology right and add things later. This was absolutely the right strategy because if it does not work as an electric car, then the add on gadgets don’t matter. This is similar in your business. Be great at solving THE customers greatest need and then expand your focus from there.

Chevy also implemented the most practical version of an electric car. It can go up to 50 miles on an electric charge alone. If you need to go farther, then the small gas engine kicks in (which you don’t even know when it happens unless you are looking at the dashboard) so you can drive another 300 miles. Forget the “range anxiety” that other purely electric car owners will feel (like Nissan’s Leaf) . The Volt owner can be all electric for those days filled with short trips around town. They can also take the Volt cross country!

We made a few stops on the way to Chicago and the people we met were in awe to see an electric car. I even stopped by the Chevy Dealer in Bridgman, MI where I have my name on the list for the Volt and gave Mike his first personal test drive. We left him smiling ear to ear!

Here are some more of my photos of today’s Unplugged Tour on Facebook.

I am 50 years old and have owned many new cars. This is the first new American car I ever wanted to own!