Chevy Volt Made Us a Big Deal

My sister Christina called. "Is Matt driving a Volt around?" The answer was yes. Apparently, she and her husband, Tristan, were driving down the street when Tristan saw the Volt coming. He got excited, then realized it was his brother-in-law behind the wheel.

"Do you want to come over and look at it?" I asked. Suddenly all the head turning from the drive to my friend's shower earlier that day made sense. I thought it was because I was running an hour late and probably looked frantic, but it was the awesome car I was driving. Having this car made me a BIG DEAL... Too bad it was only on loan.

I'm not a "car person," so knew nothing about the Volt when I won a week-long test drive at a TheChicagoMoms.com event. I just thought it would be nice to have another car on hand, especially a new car. If you're like me and don't know about the Volt, let me fill you in: According to Chevy, the Volt is "a full performance, electric vehicle with extended range." It's the first vehicle of its kind. It's a pretty big deal.

It's not often that you have the opportunity to drive a new car and very few people will ever have the opportunity to drive a car that is truly NEW: New on the market, new technology, NEW, NEW, NEW! But we did.

The friendly gentlemen who brought it to my house explained that I had about 35 miles of straight battery before it would start to use the fuel back up. It was like he was speaking a foreign language, so my first thought was "I'm nine months pregnant, is this safe? Should I have a car that can only get me 35 miles?" OK, I'm a huge idiot. The car could have continued 375 miles (the gas engine works with the extended range battery mode). The 35 miles were what I could count on to be TOTALLY GAS AND TAILPIPE EMISSIONS FREE. Nothing. The car was quiet, so quiet I had to keep double checking that it was actually running.

I plugged it into the garage every time I came home, more for the excitement of actually being able to plug a car in (seriously, it's that cool). I quickly learned exactly which fuse the garage is on when I started the dishwasher and promptly blew it. The cord wasn't long enough to move it to another outlet, so we just had to be aware of what was being used when the car was charging.

All in all, I loved driving the Volt, but didn't get to drive it a ton. I couldn't bring myself to put the car seat in the back. The thought of damaging it was beyond scary, so I used it only when I could run somewhere without the kiddo. I wish I could have gotten more use out of it, not only because of how efficient and fun it was to drive, but because turning heads is always pretty awesome.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary loan of the Chevy Volt with no other compensation. The opinions in this post are my own.