Great article and thanks for
Great article and thanks for doing your homework. As a Volt owner for over 7 months now the one nitpick I would have is that you state that the gas engine "never" sends power to the wheels and this isn't actually true. The first Volt owners received a gift along with their Volt and it was a book on the history of the Volt and a Volt flip camera. In the book they state that there are approximately 7 instances where it is actually more efficient for some of the power from the gas engine to be applied to the wheels. They don't list all 7 instances in the book but the most common one is when you are in Charge Sustaining (CS) mode and you are going over 70 mph.
Funny enough this was not received very favorably by some EV purists but I personally want the Volt to be as efficient as possible and if that means, on rare occasions, for the gas engine to power the wheels, I'm good with that.
Anyway, over 9,000 miles now at nearly 300 mpg and just loving the Volt. And yes, it is a compact car. I have two kids under 5 and so it's not much of an issue for me but at 6 ft I don't think I would want to sit back there too much.