I can add my experience, I
I can add my experience, I have had my volt for one and a half month and I cant praise it enough. I would say it more of a mid-size car than a compact. But not really a full sedan. But works fine for my family of 4 and a dog.
My two daughter ride in the back in car seats, I can also have the dog a large Golden Retriver in the back. The utility of this car is great and love how it drives. I am biased towards german cars like Audi and BMW and my volt is right up there with those cars when it comes to having fun while driving.
A great side effect we had was that it has replaced or passat station wagons as the pirmary faimliy vehicle which was not the intention. But it has saved us even more money the first month. We drove it about 1500 miles on 10 gallons of gas. With the mpg on my old car it reduced our gas consumtion with an amazing 50 Gallons the first month, way more than I expected. So in dollars it saved us $155 dollars. Thats $185 (Gas at 3.70) - $30 for electricity. This is with having fun driving, even a lot of floring it at red lights. No other car can even get close.
As a european I never thought I would give this much praise to an american and a chevy, but boy was I wrong.