I just bought one of these so this is partly a post of my pride/excitement with my new car, but my reasons for getting this car are well supported by the fact it is just an exceptional deal by most any standard!
I thought I would provide a overview for anyone who might be in the market for a new used car.
1) Pricing - I found what I think is an exceptional deal. I used Chevrolet's VIN decoder to find that the MSRP was $37,570 for this 2017 Volt Premier (with almost all of the options). I paid $16,800 for it with 55,000 miles (which is on the high side for a car this old). Those are my specifics. However, you can find the more common 2017 Volt LT on Caravan or CarGurus with around 30K miles for around $17,000 as pretty typical (and what I planned to buy). By the almost total lack of availability of 2018 and 2019, I believe most of these 2017's are off-lease cars.
Why did it depreciate so much if it is a good car? Between the federal and state tax credits, these cars have been essentially discounted by ~$9500 (depends on state, but $7500 for fed). So that effectively depreciates the car by that much if you can buy a new one for almost $10k discount. I found/bought my car before the oil price war started, I don't know if it will last long enough, but it may further reduce the demand (and price) of used Volts while gas is under $2/gal!
2) Not a Prius - The Prius is a great car, but everyone assumes that the Volt is a Chevy version of a Prius (which would make me inclined to buy the Prius). However, the Volt is fundamentally different (the newer Honda Clarity is, in principal, similar to the Volt). The Volt is essentially an EV with a gas engine that can bail you out if you run out of power. In the Volt, the gas engine does not run until the batteries (which have more capacity than regular hybrids) are exhausted. The Volt has an estimated range of 53 miles before it needs gas assist! Thus, if your daily commute is 20 miles each way, you will never* burn gas. I have a friend with a little over 50k miles on his Volt and under 8k of those miles were using the gas engine (On Star provides that information).
*It actually will burn some gas periodically because GM built in a system to occasionally fire up the gas engine so that system stays in good operational condition.
You can youtube search Volt vs Prius all day and see that the Volt is generally a better car by most measures for the people interested enough to make videos comparing the cars. My GF has a Prius so I am familiar with it, The biggest advantage of the Prius is the cargo area and back seat are bigger. If you have younger kids in the back of the Volt (I'd guess under 5'-8") it is fine, but bigger people will be cramped for headroom.
3) Sporty car - I am not rich enough/willing to spend the money on a true sports car or roadster, but I do require a car that is at least a little fun to drive. The Volt does 8.2 seconds for 0-60. That is nothing to brag about, but nor is it poor; with ~300 ft-lbs of torque the acceleration off of the line is quite nice. Steering response with variable assist is well tuned and the driving experience is sophisticated and nice. The weight of the batteries low to the ground provide a very planted and secure sense when going through curves, but you cannot "throw" it into a corner the way you might a lighter car, it will plow/under-steer if you try. You have to set up a curve rather than "see what happens"!
4) Move away from global warming - I assumed it would cost me $5,000 or so to do my part, but experiencing the quality and price of this car, I don't feel I incurred a penalty
5) No range anxeity - As much as I would like a Tesla, I still have concerns about taking a cross country road trip and how the need for charging stations and wait times while charging. My understanding is Tesla has the best (well distributed) charging network, but it would still provide a major planning restriction on a trip to insure I chose a good route. Once the 53 miles of EV range runs out it works more or less like a (non plug-in) Prius - braking puts energy into the batteries which is then available for demand when accelerating. I have tried it and you cannot tell any difference in how it performs, so you could drive across country on gas without ever bothering to charge it (43 mpg for this). The range anxiety is about running out of juice with an EV which would leave you stranded - require a tow truck!
Here is a good article talking about how the Volt is a popular car among owners, but GM "screwed the pooch" with their marketing:
General Motors was never able to clear up confusion about the groundbreaking technology behind the Chevy Volt, and output of the vehicle ended in February.
www.autonews.com