Okay, things have gotten really strange. I’ve been pondering what to do about the 2016 Volt not being available in Texas (and 38 other states as well). Do we go ahead and get a 2015 at a great discount to get the federal income tax incentive for this year? One of our two Volts (my original blue 2012) has already been returned, at the end of the lease. Bonnie’s white 2012 goes back to the leasing company on December 28th. At that point, the only Volt we’ll have left is my daughter Zoe’s black 2014. She hasn’t gotten her driver’s license yet, so we’ve been getting by on these two Volts.
That can’t continue. We have to get a new vehicle before December 28th!
I’ve gone over the list of Volt competitor’s plug-in vehicles. Other than a brief fling with the idea of leasing a demo Tesla Model S, nothing out there (in my price range) fits our needs as well as the Volt, and of course, my General Motors dealership employee discount just adds to the Volt’s advantages. There are so many incentives on the remaining 2014 & 2015 Volts, that we have pretty much resigned ourselves to getting a 2015. Hey, it’s the best Volt I’ve ever driven. I don’t have to have the “latest and greatest…” Ouch.
Then this happened:
The salesperson, whose desk is adjacent to mine at the dealership, is a friend of mine named Marshall (that’s him, below).
He was selling a new Corvette Stingray to a customer who had the yellow Pontiac Solstice GXP to trade in. It had incredibly low miles and appeared to be in perfect condition. Unfortunately, our trade offer was less than what the seller wanted.
A little history: I
owned a roadster (a 1974 Triumph TR-6), back in the mid-1980’s. It’s the only car, in which I’ve been whistled at by a woman. My daughter Jess, shown in the photo above, still remembers that car! Although it was a major pain in the butt at times, I loved my TR-6. In fact, in my very first blog post, I was looking for a convertible, when I ended up getting my first Volt. I’m also a bright colors kind of guy, so this Solstice stopped me dead in my tracks. I whipped out my trusty iPhone and began shooting a few pics. The customer, sitting at Marshall’s desk, noticed me doing this and asked Marshall to give me his contact information, if I was interested in the Solstice.
Here was an opportunity to have a roadster again, albeit one that runs on gasoline. It would cost less than a third the price of a new Volt. Hmmmm.
Then the weirdness hit.
I actually thought, “What would all my EV friends and blog subscribers think?”
Wha????????
Yes, I actually thought the world would notice that I had a gas-powered car again. With a head this big, I’d need a convertible!
But still, the thought was there and it persisted. I felt like I was betraying “the cause.” It was actually agonizing. I’ve blogged before about how the Volts have changed us here, here and here. This was real proof as to the magnitude of the change. I wanted a roadster. I had wanted one for years. What to do?
Electrify!
Yes, I decided that this car could be one of two things: 1) a bridge to the availability of the 2017 Volt or 2017 Bolt or, 2) a project car I could electrify. Early in my Volt ownership, I had attended a couple meetings of the North Texas Electric Automobile Association. The club consisted of hobbyists that had converted (or were in the process of converting) gasoline cars into EVs. I knew there were local resources there I could turn to for advice.
I called the owner of the Solstice and told him I was interested in his GXP and that I’d like to test drive it.
On my day off, he met me and my youngest daughter Zoe, at the dealership. Zoe & I took the GXP for a spin. Marshall had told me this was the “hottest” Solstice ever made and that I’d love the turbo performance. I took the GXP on my usual test drive route and decided to see what kind of performance this car had. I punched the accelerator and was astonished by the hesitation of the gasoline engine and the turbo lag. It had been so long since I’d regularly driven a gasoline-powered vehicle that I was really surprised. That took a lot of the shine off the purchase. If I got this car, I would HAVE to convert it to electricity.
The next day, I started Googling conversion shops and was glad to find several, but they were all getting out of the business. The cost of conversion caused demand for their services to be too weak. The ones that were still doing one-off projects quoted prices that, coupled with the purchase price of the GXP, became unaffordable. Add to this that any conversion would not be a complete, finished system like a Volt or Tesla, and I was starting to lean away from purchasing the GXP.
Oh well. It was a nice dream.
