Making The Most Of What You Have: 2009 Nissan Altima Hybrid vs 2014 Chevy Volt

Welcome back! Today we have our third pairing in our quest to find the perfect ride for a theoretical apocalypse, and today it’s all about squeezing more miles out of every precious gallon of fuel. Both of today’s cars are gasoline/electric hybrids, but they go about it in different ways.

Yesterday we were counting on sheer unwillingness of the vehicles to die to save us, with two tough-as-nails sedans. Lots of commenters made good cases for both, but in the end, the big black Panther won the day. V8 power and parts availability seemed to be the most common reasons given for choosing the Crown Vic.

I think that makes sense, but I still think I’d take the diesel Mercedes. Not only will it run on more types of fuel, but since there’s no electricity necessary to keep the engine running, you have a better chance of getting away if the bad guys whip out some sort of electromagnetic pulse weapon. Chugging away from the scene slowly is better than not being able to leave at all.

Fuel availability was on the minds of a lot of the detractors of the Crown Vic yesterday, and yeah, barring the creation of a “Gastown,” regular unleaded is going to be a little hard to come by after a while. So it would seem to make sense to find something that will go as far as possible on a tank of gas. Something, perhaps, that gets a little boost from an electric motor, or better yet, only uses gas to charge the batteries that drive an electric motor. Something like one of these two.

2009 Nissan Altima Hybrid – $3,500

Engine/drivetrain: 2.5-liter dual overhead cam inline 4 plus electric motor, CVT, FWD

Location: Seattle, WA

Odometer reading: 206,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives great

The Nissan Altima is a car with a certain reputation, through no inherent fault of its own, for aggressively bad driving. But that reputation actually speaks highly of the car itself; it takes that abuse, and just keeps going. Smashed-in panels, donut spare tires, mirrors duct-taped on, no maintenance since the Obama administration – the Altima just doesn’t give a damn. I feel like a dose of “big Altima energy” could be an advantage in the wasteland.

This is the short-lived Altima Hybrid, featuring a drivetrain licensed from Toyota, and Nissan’s own QR25DE four-cylinder. It’s a well-proven design, and provides a serious bump in efficiency over a standard four-cylinder Altima. This one has had the same owner for years, and has been very reliable for them, and they have all the maintenance records for their ownership tenure. It has a lot of miles, but it still runs and drives just fine.

The seller also added a screen to the dash with a back-up camera and Car Play and stuff, bringing it up to date technologically. The interior looks worn, from the few bad photos we get, but intact. Outside, it’s dull and faded, and almost looks like parts of it were spray-painted. Getting a jump on the post-apocalyptic look, I guess.

The trouble with the Toyota-based hybrid system is that there is no provision for electric-only operation. You always need gas. But every little gain in efficiency matters, and this car averages about 8 miles per gallon better than the standard four-cylinder, and 10-12 better than the V6. And you never know when getting an extra eight miles away is going to matter.

2014 Chevrolet Volt – $4,700

Engine/drivetrain: Electric motor plus 1.4-liter inline 4 range extender, single-speed gearbox, FWD

Location: Huntington Beach, CA

Odometer reading: 152,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives great

The thing about hybrids is, you don’t really need to use the engine to power the wheels. You can just drive the wheels with only an electric motor, and use a small gas engine to charge its battery. The advantages of this system are that you can drive on battery power alone until it runs down, at which point the engine kicks in and runs at a nice, efficient steady speed to generate more electricity. It’s a clever solution, one embraced by BMW, as well as General Motors, at least for a while.

The Chevy Volt was one of those strokes of brilliance from GM engineers that actually made it to production. It’s powered by a 149 horsepower electric motor, with a clever T-shaped battery pack that fits in the center tunnel where a driveshaft would go in a typical car, and the space under the rear seat. It also has a little 1.4 liter four-cylinder connected to a generator. With this setup, the Volt can go about 38 miles on batteries alone, and gets phenomenal gas mileage after the engine kicks in. This one has 152,000 miles on it and the seller (a dealership) says it drives great.

A high-tech chassis like this requires a high-tech interior to go with it. The Volt has power everything, keyless entry and ignition, and two screens, one for the instrument cluster and one in the center stack for the infotainment system. You need all that stuff to sell cars in normal circumstances, but I wonder if it might end up being a liability in a post-apocalyptic scenario. I know from experience how annoying it is when the battery dies in a key fob; what happens when you have to flee the zombies and can’t find a fresh CR2032 cell anywhere?

I have always liked the styling of the Volt, actually. It’s a sharp-looking car, and it’s a hatchback, which boosts the practicality by a bunch. It has a few scuffs and dings, but I’m sure in our scenario it would get more. And the HOV lane pass is a nice bonus, though I doubt the zombies would care much which lane you’re in.

Yeah, I know, there’s no real way around the gasoline problem. After a year or so, whatever is left will be stale and the cars will run like crap anyway. But for our purposes, just imagine that there is gas, but it’s expensive and hard to get – like, you have to trade an entire pallet of Cup O’Noodles for a gallon. In that case, you’d want the most bang for your buck. Which one of these is the better choice?