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I have seen them close up and personal but not driven or ridden in one. They are practically silent! And sharp! W00T!
I envy your friend! I am going to get a Volt but not for a couple//few years. Got about a year to go paying off my current car and will go at least a year without car payments. I'm hoping things will have developed a bit more by then and they'll be a bit less expensive~as things always do.
I am very happy for and envious of your friend though! Enjoy your drive! 
Julie--coveting from faraway Traverse City
I will agree that there are some similarities but The Volt is much nicer inside and has higher performance than The Cruze. The Cruze goes from 0 to 60 in 9.6 seconds while the Volt does it in 8.53.
The Volt also has more luxury options than the Cruze and is simply nicer inside. It just isn't as nice a car (not that it isn't nice).
Cruze
Volt
Saying that they are the same car simply isn't right. The Volt is much nicer.
Next your math is way way off. If you had checked Wiki they would have told you this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevy_volt
^snip^
According to Edmunds.com, the price premium paid for the Volt, after discounting the US$7,500 U.S. federal tax credit, takes a long time for consumers to recover in fuel savings, often longer than the normal ownership time period. Edmunds compared the Volt (priced at US$31,712) with the same-size gasoline-powered Chevrolet Cruze (priced at US$19,656) and found that the payback period for the plug-in hybrid is 15 years for gasoline prices at US$3 per gallon, 12 years at US$4 per gallon, and drops to 9 years with gasoline prices at US$5 per gallon. At February 2012 prices, the break even period is 14 years. These estimates assume an average of 15,000 miles (24,000 km) annual driving and vehicle prices correspond to Edmunds.com's true market value estimates.[78]
So you can see that your estimate of 28 years is more than double what other estimates would be.
Yes the Volt costs more than a Cruze but it really is a much nicer car. It isn't fair to compare them (even though we just did).
I'll never forget my first run in with a moving Prius. I was walking through a large hospital parking lot on a very hot and still summer day. I was the only one around. Someone in a Prius was backing out of their parking spot and I ended up within six inches of the car because it was completely silent. No sound at all in electric mode. I jumped back like I saw a ghost! Very unexpected and creepy.
I think they added some sort of "noise" where now you hear the car moving, as a safety measure. I seem to remember there being a controversy over the silence, shortly after they came out. If I lived in the city where kids play among the parked cars lining the streets, I would have been terrified of having kids around that quiet a car. Of course, I've been close to many Priuses but they don't seem quite as silent as they once were. (Or, maybe I was distracted that day?)
At any rate, it does take some getting used to, and makes you realize that you use your sense of hearing for more than you realize in daily life.
Enjoy your test drive! And please let us know your first impressions. 
It depends on how warm it is what milage you get out of the battery. When it's cold, we get around 30 to a charge; when it's warm, we get closer to 40. It's a very nice car that has given us zero trouble. And, as another poster said, it's a marvel of modern engineering. Nice sound system, too.
the sound system was probably $8k alone (2k for each letter on the name plate).
and they probably have it wired with MONSTER Cable...
I'm kidding of course.
Does Tesla include a Bang & Olufsen system? 
Here in CO it's something absurd like $10K off the sticker price when you include the rebates.
That interesting on the Malibu range, I haven't had a car that would go that far on a tank in years. And it was a diesel. 
One of the cars we really liked (a Ford Flex) just did not work out for us financially. It would have been a great vehicle for us, but the dealership was just not willing to give a fair deal. $500 a month for a car that would have cost more to fuel *and* insure than our previous vehicle (a Ford Taurus wagon) was just not feasible for our budget.
I looked at the Toyota Prius v and a few other hybrid vehicles, but nothing looked like it would fit our disabled child, his wheelchair, and my physical well-being better than the Ford Flex or the Mazda5. There are pretty much NO fuel efficient vehicles that accommodate disabled persons and/or their equipment. We have some family friends who use a Saturn Ion (with the "suicide doors" to accommodate the wife's disabilities and her wheelchair, and that's small and relatively fuel efficient. But, my child requires a positioning chair and it won't fold well into a sedan.
So, our choice was to purchase a Mazda5, which has been great! It actually has better gas milage (thus far, 22/28) than the older Taurus wagon and is so terribly fun to drive! It drives and handles like my old 1992 Ford Escort GT that I had in college. It's fantastic, and it's a mini-van!
I need a new vehicle that could accommodate both a folded wheelchair and an electric scooter. Plus at least three passengers.
We've made due with a Toyota Camry that has trunk space to store the scooter but with including the wheelchair (taking the fourth seat) really squashes the third passenger.
I'm figuring some type of Crossover would fit my needs but haven't really gone about eyeing them up in person. Have you seen anything that could accommodate both a scooter which would take the rear space but also allow some way of standing up a folded wheelchair, all behind the seats?
I think a Honda CRV would be too small.
Maybe a Mazda 7 or 9 could do it. Nissan Murano or maybe the Ford Edge or a Chevrolet model might be big enough.
I don't want to go full SUV if I can avoid it.
I'm trying to figure out if you saw something that would take a wheel chair (folded) that could fit in the rear space standing upright so as to not compromise the space needed for the scooter. A vehicle that would take a folded wheel chair in the rear space and still leave enough room for a scooter which would take up most of the available space. Just by eyeing them up in parking lots, I haven't narrowed down the possibilities. I'm curious if you have nay advice about what might be too small.
Thanks!
