Video: Chevy Volt reaches over 3,000mpg

July 27, 2011 By Mike Dunn

Chevy Volt engineer and driver Andy Oury was able to reach 3000mpg by driving in electric mode for months.

How is it possible for a hybrid car to travel 1,554.1 miles on just half a gallon of gas? Leave it to Chevy battery systems engineer Andy Oury to find out. The Chevy employee, who leases a Volt, shared a video showing off his badge of honor. By driving in electric-only mode for several months, Oury’s Volt displayed a maintenance warning informing Oury that the engine has not been run in quite some time. In order to keep the engine lubricated, the Volt will run for a short time, and go then back to sleep. If a Volt owner does not use an entire tank of gas after a year the Volt’s engine will run until the gas tank is empty in order to make sure that the gas in the tank does not get stale.

If you read our post covering everything you need to know about the Chevy Volt, then you know that the Volt is a different kind of hybrid vehicle then we are used to seeing. It’s an electric car with an engine to extend range, not a gasoline car with electric motors to improve efficiency like the Toyota Prius. Since the Volt uses electricity first, and then relies on gas to recharge the batteries it is possible to drive short distances without ever having to use gas. The range for electric-only driving is only 40 miles, which means Oury is lucky enough to have traveled 1,554.1 miles 40 miles at a time. Electric cars like the Nissan Leaf, and the Tesla roadster do not have a gas generator, but have a longer electric range. Both the Leaf and Roadster are able to travel around 100 miles before requiring a recharge.

The average driver will not be able to replicate Oury’s results, but it is still exciting to see people push the limits of the Volt.

Showing 10 comments

PeepingTom at 2:17pm 27th July 2011 Gee, Nissan Leaf must get millions of miles per gallon. Or not. 100% electric.
1. Rusty Shackleford at 3:56pm 27th July 2011 Yea, the MPG thing is kinda silly. TECHNICALLY he did pull off 1,500 miles on half a gallon of gas, but when you throw all the charging in that number becomes kind of meaningless. As soon as you plug a car into the wall the MPG rating system goes out the window, in terms of relevance.
Cassie Reeder at 6:10pm 27th July 2011 Impressive, but electricity still has to come from somewhere... Be it natural gas, coal, nuclear or (rarely) Hydro or wind farm. Sure, it cuts down on oil, but you still have to pay your electric bill.... and many electricity sources are NOT environmentally friendly
Carlo Brizio at 5:42pm 27th July 2011 igual uno de gasolina hay que cargarlo de gasolina arriba los automoviles electricos!!!!!!!!!
Sean Michael Parmenter at 5:07pm 27th July 2011 if more people provided charging stations, it would not matter how many times you charge it...however, once charges become the higher demand, how much will "charging" cost? and who would we blame then for the "Electricity Rate Hikes"?
Kurt Marquart at 5:06pm 27th July 2011 No room for "Yeah, buts" in development of cleaner technology. You can keep you gas-guzzler, and continue making oil companies (and the Middle East) rich on 150 year old technology.
Nancy Bradford at 4:58pm 27th July 2011 yeah, but how many times did they have to stop to charge it?
Ian Bell at 9:49am 27th July 2011 Very cool. Can't wait to see what the modding community can really push the Volt to do. There are Prius owners out there pushing their cars to the limit too.
1. Mike Dunn at 11:41am 27th July 2011 Yeah, I've heard about Prius owners turning off their cars and coasting behind big rigs, but that just sounds completely unsafe. It would be neat to see Chevy make a purely electric version of the Volt, and increase it's range without the added weight/space taken up by a gas engine.
  1. Ian Bell at 1:01pm 27th July 2011 Well, if it isn't a gas engine, it will be more batteries that replace that weight!