All the buzz about the Chevy Volt—

• North American Car of the Year!


• Green Car of the Year from the Green Car Journal!


• Car of the Year from Motor Trend and Ann Arbor's own Automobile magazine — and many others!

—has me wondering: how green is it?

To find out, I waded through lots of articles from all sorts of sources, from automotive magazines to green websites. The answer? I'm still not sure.

The car mags, of course, poked into the technicalities of this "extended range electric car," which uses only a lithium ion battery for 40 miles then switches to gas. They praised the unique mechanical architecture. The green sites focused on carbon emission rates and gas saving. After sifting through complicated and apples-to-oranges comparisons, I came up with: I don't know what.

Driving a Volt will lower carbon emissions, right? Yes, especially if you drive just 40 miles a day and don't switch to gas. But others point out that charging the battery increases emissions if that electricity is coal-generated, and 60-70 percent of energy is coal-generated in this country. Is that an offset? Or a wash?

If we used the greener solar and wind energy to generate the electricity that powers the Volt, how green is it then? What about the components of the car? The manufacturing? The 12-gallon gas tank that takes over for the next 260 miles after the battery is depleted?

The experts, if there are such things in this brave new field, have such varied opinions it's hard to figure it out. Take for instance, the first announcements about the Volt that said it would get 230 mpg. Oh, the buzz! Not so, say others. Miles per gallon isn't the right way to measure a partially electric vehicle. You have to look at kilowatts or BTUs or range.

If you look at the Volt from a monetary point of view, is it saving us? A full battery charge costs about $3. Sounds great. But it's a big investment with a $41,000 price tag. And installing the charging stations are pricey, too, at about $2,000 for a home version and $5,000 for industrial.

The government thinks it's worth it, giving buyers from $2,500 to $7,500 in tax credits — that's cash in hand, not just a deduction — and plenty more for installing charging stations.

And our city thinks it's worth the investment — to a small degree. Almost two dozen electric car chargers will be installed in the new underground parking structure, paid for with a $264,000 federal grant. About $110,000 of that will pay for solar panels to charge a couple of them, says Dave Konkle, the energy programs director at the Downtown Development Authority.

Not that there's much of a demand in Ann Arbor — yet, Konkle says, and there aren't any big plans to install them elsewhere in the city — yet.

It's all so new that the opinions, the predictions, sometimes even the facts, are in disarray.

But a few things stand out:

• If the Volt and the Nissan Leaf and their ilk become popular, it will eventually reduce our dependence on foreign oil.


• Switching to electric is headed in the right direction, meaning greener, and has us thinking, reexamining and innovating.

So the upshot is it's green-er. It's taking us toward a gas-free-er life. As with any innovation, we'll have to see. For now, maybe a Volt is AC/DC — an alternate current that's taking us in a directional current.

Linda Lombardini lives as greenly and as happily as she can. You can contact her at Linda@TrilliumRealtors.com.