"fuel maintenance" timer kicks in at 6 months and burns the gas.

See - that's the worst part of the Volt that no one talks about at all. I know that there are many proud Volt owners and whatnot, citing their incredible mileage stories, but if you include this fuel maintenance part, which theoretically, you can be getting

0 Miles Per Gallon

It will definitely pull down the overall mileage, yet no one actually commute the math with it (esp for those who are on 99% electric mode and "proud of it.")

@ Schanie,

Actually, it's neither infinite miles per gallon, or few thousand miles per gallon, if gas is used to help lubricate engine parts and to prevent the engine from using stale gas.

It's still 0 mile per gallon.

One can't claim that the vehicle has X mpg when the fuel he/she uses is not based on X. That fuel can only be accounted for when it is being used, and in the case when an owner claim "I drive on electricity all the time," converted to energy to be travel for 0 mi. The correct expression in such instance will be "I've used X kWh of electricity for that distance, or some other units that relate directly to the fuel being used, i.e. electricity."

That's why EPA has decided to split the measurements. Otherwise, what you will see (famous in computer worlds) - "Computation error! Computation error!" (imagine it with those robotic voice). It is impossible to have 1 unit of gasoline measurement to product infinite energy for infinite usage.

See, Volt is a blessing and a curse. The "greener" you drive, esp when using electricity 100% of the time, the worse a Volt will be on gasoline fuel efficiency - even worse than a Hummer or Lamborghini - since the gasoline fuel is achieving 0 mpg.

Notice I said "theoretically."

What if an owner keeps his/her charge @ 100% all the time before driving off, and when maintenance mode kicks in, the vehicle has 99+% in the battery? To makes matter worse, Volt is stuck in a stop and go traffic when maintenance mode kick in?

Energy generated during that period of time won't be stored, hence 0 mpg.

Yes, I know that this is an extreme, but not impossible.

How many tons of coal? Virtually none, since Jay Leno lives in California. They get their power mostly from hydro and nukes. And even if it were 100% coal (no utility in the country is, in fact), it STILL would be cleaner than a car burning petroleum when you factor in all of the energy it takes to get the gasoline from the well to your tank.

And how much energy to get the coal and natural gas to the power plants? How much to build and run a nuclear power plant? How much energy to rebuild and repair the damage that nuclear power has done to Japan, and will inevitably do here? How much energy to manufacture the batteries for electric cars? What will it take to recycle or trash them when they fail? How much energy will it take to build millions of power stations to charge E cars?
There are far too many costs and questions to consider electric cars to be any kind of panacea.

"And how much energy to get the coal and natural gas to the power plants? ...
There are far too many costs and questions to consider electric cars to be any kind of panacea."

No one said anything about a panacea. Of course there are costs to any sort of energy. The costs you are ignoring are much more with the status quo than most will admit. Have you an idea how much we spend subsidizing oil? What does the fleet that polices the oil shipping lanes cost per day? Have you done any research on cancer clusters around refineries? Or breathing disorders in congested areas?

The health costs that are not borne by those that create them is reason enough to switch fuels.

I have stopped buying gasoline, for the most part, and fuel my car with the daily solar production of my roof array. When you figure out how to make gasoline at home that does not emit any pollution, then you'll be cooking with gas!

I call bullshit on Leno.