#135 Jackson:
I’m certainly not trying to pooh-pooh accelerated testing. I’m just trying to point out that the results of the accelerated tests can’t be directly converted into real-world numbers. There’s some missing “factor” that lets you interpolate between real world tests and accelerated tests. That missing information is the rate at which the extra “stress” causes the battery to degrade.

Since we have none of that information, the accelerated test data has little to no meaning (to us) outside of the “normal” ranges.

To exaggerate to make the point, it’s like saying it fails after 1 cycle at 150C. There is no way to interpolate that to what it does at 25C without a lot of additional information.
That information is missing, here.

“Are the engines that different or are computers making the difference.”

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Jeff,

Any engine that can run both ethanol (E85) and gasoline is a compromise, usually in favor of gasoline. This is because if the engine were designed primarily for E85 it would have higher compression and more power, but would pre-detonate when using gasoline and the PCM or computer would have to retard the timing to the point where efficiency is lost.

I don’t think we’ve yet seen the best of flex fuel engines, and I believe that further development could yield much better mileage with E85 w/o compromising gasoline performance.

Does GM want to be the cornerstone for the next 100 years? Most likely, I would further conjecture.

Can they do it? We will have to see.