A colleague of mine bought 2x 2018 Chevy Volts recently - after all rebates came out to $18000 cash each for a brand new Volt.

Thats a no brainer to me - at 2000$ gas / year - the car pays for itself in 10 years.

Unfortunately for most people out there the economics does not work the same way - they cant get to this pricing. But if they could USA would have a much larger share of electric cars.

I'm curious, how do you get a $33k MSRP Volt down to $18k? Was it second hand? (if it was then you don't get any federal/state credits, those are claimed by the original owner)

yes brand new cars - combination of federal and state rebates on electric cars. if this was available to everyone - we'd have a much larger share of electric cars in USA TODAY. pretty much buy one get one free in this case - two great electric cars for the price of one. INSANE.

Unfortunately GM has decided to discontinue the Volt. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chevy-volt-discontinued-chevrol...

It's not sold in Europe. You can buy Prius plugin hybrid, new Corolla hybrid, BMW 330e etc.

It was, as the Opel Ampera. You can find them used.

Opel Ampera.

It's not sold any more since PSA bought them.

It's perfectly ok to buy a second hand vehicle.

Absolutely, but the raport was about new cars. In this cause I'd be cautious. The access to spare parts could be limited in the future.