3) I'm not sure that charging with 220v is more efficient, but my impression is that you'll never put a good charge on the battery with a 120v outlet and less than 4 hours.
assume an electrically perfect charging setup (I'd normally assume 80% efficiency to be safe)
120v * 15A (standard outlet) = 1.8kw/hr
220v * 30A (standard dryer outlet, they come in 50A versions also) = 6.6kW/hr

Its a 16kwHr battery in a Volt (according to wikipedia...sorry) - so if you drain it - you are looking at half of a day to recharge at 120v....only a few hours if you have a dryer plug in your garage. the end of the world ? no, but if you are running errands all day and cant plug it in, you'll be using more fuel

- 35mpg sound about right - its a 1.4L 4cyl - The Fiat 500 has a 1.4l pushing a ligher/smaller car and gets in the low 40's EPA-style.

Your cost per mile makes sense, but batteries are still a variable. I'm sure the email painted them to be the end of the world at 5yrs/7yrs/10yrs whatever sounded good to the email writer, but I have not heard of anyone with a 2001 Honda Insight having a disabled car becuase their battery died too far. Hybrid cars are set up pretty well for this becuase as the battery gets old, it just loses capacity, and the engine runs more. This uses a bit more fuel but most users wont notice because their car as a 1.0L or 1.4L engine in it anyway. Good design on the manuf's part - us dumb people that just look at the display (and even then only when we have to) wont know the difference.

You can call it economical- I'd expect it to be so, but for so many reasons already beaten on this board, there is no real comparison between a W123 and a new Chevrolet sedan (crash-tests, airbags, rear-wheel drive, yours is not stock as it sits, NVH, where will each car be in 25 years, emissions, lease vs. buy....)

$32K will get you a very nice car these days and is more than 85% of my friends can afford to spend. $32k is not much of a stretch for an STI and $32kilodollars will get you any TDI you want with plenty of change for fuel/mods.

Good for Chevy for going there, we arent ready for battery-only EV's and might not ever be.

-John

__________________
2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)