Please let me know what do you think about it?

GM finally gets into the Electric Hybrid/Fuel Cell market, and they build a $50K roadster. I have to drive 50 miles a day in the worst traffic in the Southeast US, much of it at 20 miles/hr. One of the Top 10 Fastest growing counties according to the U.S. Census, but Project Driveway won’t even consider me.

I can buy a brand new Ford Escape Hybrid for half as much as the Volt, save $50 a week in gas, have room for my family, groceries and other stuff. Another blunder by GM Marketing. Too little, too late.

This is not my Father’s GM.

Ford (36 mpg SUV)and Honda (Civic, 51 mpg) Hello.

Your math is pretty much right, it’s just your use of those numbers that is wrong. Unlike what those generators have to cope with, the Volt engine will be running at a constant RPM and a constant load. Those generators run at a constant RPM and variable load. Having to be able to adapt to variable loads (or variable RPM) lowers the efficiency of engines.

GM planned for 50mpg, lets look at the efficiency of this. 8kwh=40miles, then they play on getting 10kwh/gallon. 1 gallon of gas is about 36.4kwh. So we’re looking at 27.5% efficiency. This is not that hard to do. The main ‘problem’ (if you will) is getting the 5miles/kwh. Not the 10kwh/gallon.

I believe 196 Reims was talking tongue in cheek, in any case lets try to stick to topic.

Any thoughts on how we will recharge all those electric cars?

This kind of continuing diatribe is utterly useless. Don’t waste your key strokes. We are either part of the problem, or part of the solution. The choice is always ours to make.

Cordially, Tom

If the electric car (any brand) gets about 5 mi / kwh, and I drive about 90 miles roundtrip on a work day, that means I use 18kwh. (I know my commute is a bit more than most – My total annual mileage is about 25K miles.)

Now assuming a perfect world, we would all be driving electric cars. Assuming 100 million cars on the road (does anyone know how many cars typically operate in the U.S. on any given day?) we would need 1,800 Gigawatts hrs to power all those cars. We’re going to need some substantial infrastucture in power generation for that to happen.

Living in California, I’m already used to rolling blackouts because we haven’t built any new power plants. Even McCain’s proposal to build a miniscule number of nuclear plants won’t get us there, and I don’t hold out much hope for wind and solar plants.

Its not that we’re addicted to oil, it just happens to be a very compact and portable energy source.

I hope someone figures out how to make this electric car thing work including the infrastructure.

I see a trend. . . in his writing now.

Perhaps the author conveniently forgot that we have an OIL CRISIS and that the Volt will reduce oil usage per mile more than any other production car on the road.

Also, he doesn’t bother to take into consideration the desirability that will accrue when the next gas shortage hits and people are lined up at gas stations.

I only pray that GM survives long enough to launch this — otherwise from which foreign country will emerge the buyer of the Volt technology?