FOX NEWS HOST Eric Bolling test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors. For four days in a row, [he found] the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.

Bolling calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery, so the range including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles. That equates to a gasoline efficiency of 27.2 mpg and an electric efficiency of 1.56 m/kwh.

At my home, gasoline is $3.60/gallon and electricity is $0.114/kwh, so a 'full tank' would cost $34.22 or 12.7 cents/mile driven. Using electricity only (limiting the Volt to 25 miles/day or less than 9,000 miles/year) the cost per mile drops to a low of 7.3 cents/mile.

For a 500-mile road trip (about 10 hours with stops for gas) my Honda Pilot will get an average of 22 mpg at a cost of roughly 16 cents/mile. Taking the same trip (10 hours, one gasoline-only fill up) in a Volt will cost roughly 13 cents/mile (475 miles at 27.2 mpg plus $1.82 for electricity). For a 500-mile road trip in full-economy mode (electricity only), plan on taking roughly 8 days (210 hours) at a cost of $1.67 per mile (including food and hotel costs, since it takes 10 hours to recharge the Volt’s battery every 25 miles or so). Average speed … a bit less than 3 mph.

My Honda cost about $26,000; the Volt is a $250,000 car that sells for $35,000 after Obama’s $10,000 rebate.

So Obama wants me to pay 35% more for a car that costs about 10 times as much to drive cross-country and takes about 17 times as long to get there?

Really?

[Amusing Note]: $170,000 is the average income of the relatively few buyers of the $40,000 Volt to date.... Only Mercedes-Benz drivers, at an average $174,000 a year, earn more than Volt drivers. Their high income puts Volt buyers in the top 7% of households, according to census data, and slightly above the rankings held by households with BMWs, Lexuses or Cadillacs. It does not seem likely the Occupy Wall Street crowd will be lining up at their local GM dealer any time soon.