AND 
Forget Price and Electric Range, the Volt is the Tip of the Arrow
An uncharacteristic opinion piece was written by Mark Phelan of the Detroit Free Press.
It is called the Chevy Volt’s value is as dawn of a era.
The author noted that the Volts two main criticisms are that it is too expensive and that its range is too short.
He says neither contention is correct and rather that the Volt should not be judged on its limitations, but on its merits. It should be considered “the 1984 Apple Macintosh on wheels, smashing an old paradigm and setting America free.”
For after all no matter what price it sells for he says, “the first year’s production will sell out the weekend the Volt goes on sale.”
He predicts that prices will come down quickly as lithium ion batteries go into mass production, and that if successful, E-Flex is likely to become the powertrain for many vehicle to come.
I couldn’t agree more.
The Chevy Volt isn’t really about being a car, but as I wrote on January 12th, 2007, its about the beginning of a revolution.
Source (Detroit Free Press)
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:06 am
FIRST!
This is the beginning of a revolution. The other car companies are starting to follow suit…
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:13 am
Finally a journalist who gets it.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:43 am
“the 1984 Apple Macintosh on wheels, smashing an old paradigm and setting America free.”
Right on. GM has said it’s like the ipod of cars. An intelligent, energy efficient car. So disappointing they will sell out on the first weekend they’re released if the author is correct.
“And it may be the only game in town if you want the latest and greatest technology on wheels, a vehicle that says you’re smart, involved and want to thumb your noise at Big Oil and the despotic countries that produce it.”
Oh, I like the idea of thumbing my nose at Big Oil, despotic countries and removing the need for our troops to die or suffer injuries for life to maintain free flows of oil.
“It’s not a car for everyone, but it’s the first step toward a new kind of car for everyone.”
Likely a true statement for those that think the cars appearance (how shallow) is the most important characteristic about this car.
Hope they make it. Hope they sell it. Hope I can afford it. Hope one is available for purchase.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:45 am
From the article:
“The author noted that the Volts two main criticisms are that it is too expensive and that its range is too short.”
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The Volt’s price is a very real issue, but who is saying the range is too short?
40 miles of all-electric range is perfect for up to 78% of the population – classic 80/20 marketing. If battery technology gets cheaper, smaller, and lighter, then just use that to bring down the price and weight the Volt and leave it at 40 miles AER.
With the Volt covering around 80% of the market perfectly, it makes more sense to concentrate on winning that segment first. They can go after the other 20% once they have the 80%. Again, classic 80/20 marketing.
Besides, it’s not like 40 miles of all-electric range won’t benefit the other 20%.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:46 am
An excellent brief article! Phelan puts the Volt in perspective in a clear, concise way —by comparing it to two other well-engineered, highly regarded cars of about the same size and in about the same price range……
“It will also be a compact car likely to cost around $42,000 when it goes on sale, a premium small car with unique style and performance, like the $46,000 BMW 135i or $44,000 Audi A3.”
I even agree with his guess that the Volt will cost around $42,000. Although he doesn’t explain how he arrived at that price, I think its based on a fundamental principle of marketing —”always price to the market”. With the technical “iridescence” and novelty of an iPhone plus the class of a BMW 135i, the Volt will easily command over $40,000!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 am
Speaking of the 1980’s , I took a 72 mile all electric ride yesterday in our 1980 Bradley GT II Electric test car. Where would we be now if that technology had been pursued for the last 28 years ?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 am
The sad thing is if they had only gone with this idea back in the 90’s when they were even ahead of the Japanese on the electric vehicle. That’s all water under the bridge now and I am glad they are once again in the forefront.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 am
Absolutley, the Volt is the way to break our dependence solely on oil for transportation.
It is a way to usher in change.
I’ll be driving on E85 and electric when I get one.
Hopefully I can grab one by 2012 at least.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:52 am
It’s incredible how shortsighted people are that complain about the Volt’s price. GM could sell all 10000 of the first production run even if the price were $100,000. Can you imagine owning the first production car of the new era of automotive transportation? It would be like owning the first production run of the first gasoline powered cars, a collector’s dream.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:57 am
I Agree, I Agree, I Agree, I Agree !
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:59 am
This is getting more exciting each day. I just signed up for a GM credit card to start building up a rebate, hopefully the volt will qualify. I guess that would have been a good question to ask. Combine the $7,000 rebate Obama has proposed and hopefully the price will be more reasonable. This is the time to get on the band wagon to let that arrow fly. I just hope they don’t start having crazy adds like that first Macintosh commercial from the Super Bowl.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:08 am
As I’ve said before, its great for the people who can afford to pay that much – sure. Very easy for people that can afford a $50,000 car it to say how great it is and how great it will be to thumb your nose at big oil. And lets face it, a $40-42,000 car after options and taxes/fees and the inevitable dealer markup for an in-demand car becomes $50,000 VERY easily. But until it falls into a price range that 95% of the country can afford it might as well be a Tesla. If someone that cant afford it wants to thumb their nose at big oil they can buy a Corolla for less than half the price.
I do agree with the tone of the article however. I cant wait to start reading all about other manufacturers electric options and what range they’ll get and what they’ll cost. Before too long we will actually have multiple options in the electric market. And THAT is a very good thing.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:09 am
I agree wholeheartedly that YES the Volt is the opening shot at fossil fuel cars in the 21ST Century, however as I have said before GM could have done a better job with its appearance and functionality. The flying car will never be seen in this century unless the inhabitants of this small piece of space dust don’t learn to live together and start working for the good of all. GM is a global company and should draw from all its resources to solve its problems of money, finances and production. The Volt is needed worldwide not just in this county. The world is a total community and we as Americans need to start looking at it this way.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:17 am
I repeated many times on this site that Volt is not alone…
GM is already developing other cars like it. They want to have full advantage for the widest variety of customer… I won’t be surprides seeing Crossovers, SUV, Trucks and maybe even Aveo sized cars with Volt’s E-Flex systems as early as 2012… May be seeing them before on the roads. Volt is just the tip of the arrow as Lyle puts it and be sure there will be plenty of “pluggable” cars around by then. GM is actually forcing the market to that direction. It’s their long term bailout and they know it. Of course the Volt itself will be surpassed quickly but it will remain the turning point for the car industry.
NPNS! or (no Plug No Sale Period) NPNSP
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:19 am
AMEN !
The E-Flex drivetrain will impact the Automotive World in the same way Transistors / Integrated Circuits changed consumer electronics.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:25 am
“The other reason not to fret about the initial price is that it will fall, and it will fall fast. The industrial model and product cycle that apply to the Volt are closer to the fast-paced development of mobile phones and laptop computers than the six-year cycle of most cars.”
Hmmm…the refference should be to the battery pack,,,not the entire vehicle. Toyota has been using 4-6 year cycle on the Prius Why?
Because losing 30-50% of value overnight on a $40K product is much different than a $400 product. Will the banks offer the same loans on the Volt? If this is true, renting the battery pack may be a better option. Assuming a better, cheaper battery pack will produced for the first model years….if not, waiting a few years is a better idea.
Or take the risk that the first model years are collector items. GM needs to protect the lifetime value of ALL their vehicles…will they ever learn? However, progress should be made on the battery cost; so just install the E-REV in another model at a lower price with less luxury features.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:25 am
O.K. all you naysayers get your wallets out, the BIG BAD OIL MAN wants a 2 billion dollar payment for todays shipment of 500 million gals. to run our cars that 1st 40 miles !!!! And another 2 billion dollar payment tomorrow & the next day & the next & the next……..
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:30 am
Envision it this way…
We spend about $100 a week on gasoline. What if you walked into your local Vons food store and placed 25 plastic gallon bottles of gasoline on the check out belt. The checker would scan the bottles
..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep
..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..
beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep..beep.
“Do you have a Von’s discount card sir? OK, that will be $100 please. Would you like help out to your truck with that”
no plug = no sale
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:32 am
It will also be a compact car likely to cost around $42,000 when it goes on sale, a premium small car with unique style and performance, like the $46,000 BMW 135i or $44,000 Audi A3.
I wonder where he came up with $42,000. Is it just a guess? Does not sound like it, but there is no source given. He is in Detroit, so he knows a lot of people at GM. He has talked to them lately. More than a guess?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:36 am
For after all no matter what price it sells for he says, “the first year’s production will sell out the weekend the Volt goes on sale.”
Yes, and all in CA, DC, and Beijing.
The Volt is a local-market rather than national car, at least in the first year.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:41 am
The post a while back talked about being able to run 15,000 miles for only $180 or so with the Volt at peak charging rates.
Well, with gas at $3.80 and assuming 30mpg (average vehicle efficiency?) that same 15,000 miles would cost $1,900
The cool part is that if a person uses the maximum Volt range every day of the year, that would equate to 14,600 miles AER annually.
In closing, despite a possibly expensive price, some people have the ability to save over $1,600 a year in operating costs by owning the Volt… or over $8,000 savings in only 5 years.
Not too shabby IMHO!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:45 am
IMO, this will be the most important vehicle produced since the Model T.
Unfortunately, $20k in battery costs isn’t going to hack it. It will be years before the battery pack becomes affordable for the masses. How’s about a couple of ultra caps instead ?
Are you willing to pay $45k off the lot for the Volt ?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:45 am
Oh yeah!
Let’s show OPEC and the world what America really is.
People, let’s start the revolution.
Buy this car and smile proudly while you drive near a gas station.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:49 am
RB @ 20,
I don’t know how you can call the Volt a regional car. I’m in Dayton, Ohio and I have plenty of family members that can and will buy the Volt. Regional? Our goal of ridding ourselves of oil dependency is not a regional problem–it is national. California may be the first to get the Volt, but they will sure sell like hot cakes here. We just hit $4 gas again.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:49 am
Dick G. -
I won’t be able to afford the first Volts, but I do have a Bradley GTII in the garage. What batteries did you use to get 72 miles range? Which conversion kit did you use? If you would send details or a link to a web site with details to lreinhartATcfl.rr.com. Thanks!
GO VOLT!!!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:49 am
The Volt will never win in a strictly financial argument. Who cares if you can save $8,000 over 5 years if you are spending $25,000 more for this car than you would for say a Corolla?
This should never become an issue of how great the Volt is financially because financials is not where the Volt is going to win any arguments – unless you are one of the lucky ones that can plug in at home and plug in at work and never takes a road trip over 40 miles.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:53 am
The other reason not to fret about the initial price is that it will fall, and it will fall fast. The industrial model and product cycle that apply to the Volt are closer to the fast-paced development of mobile phones and laptop computers than the six-year cycle of most cars.
The little boy or girl inside each of us wishes for this statement to be true.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:00 am
#24 Daved B — on family members in Dayton to buy the car
They may wish to buy it or have the funds to buy it. However, all GM statements to date have said that initially the car will be sold in only a few dealerships in CA and DC. Beijing is the home of the largest future market. Possibly there will be a few in FL and NY.
It is sensible, as 10,000 cars is 100 cars for 100 dealers. Also, as GM has noted, it allows maintenance issues (and there will be a lot of them) to be handled with ongoing training and information flow to a relatively small number of people.
There will not be any Volts in Ohio in the first year unless someone who works for GM is driving a company-owned Volt. Similarly, there will not be any in NC, where I live, or most of the rest of the country. GM has given no basis for expecting a rapidly increasing geographical distribution, noting that the car will be sold to high-income populations on the coasts.
It is not that I wish for these statements to be so. I am simply saying back what they have told us. That is, there are not going to be Volts in Dayton for some years, according to the best current information.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:02 am
The only way to remove the Volt’s price out of the financial equation, is to badge it as a Caddy…
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:18 am
Beginning of a revolution???
Are you serious?
Why is everyone forgetting about the EV-1 = that, IMHO, was the beginning.
GM just dropped the ball on that one.
Imagine, if you would, if GM stayed on target and continued with the tech?
I would rather say the “Volt” is just another step in the right direction…
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:19 am
#24 Dave B says ” Our goal of ridding ourselves of oil dependency is not a regional problem–it is national. “
Agreed, and I hope the Volt proves to be the tip of the air for achieving that goal. Regional or national, the Volt’s introduction will be a huge and exciting step forward.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:20 am
I am going to buy one but if the price is more than a house payment that pretty much squeezes out a vast majority of the very people GM needs to buy its cars!
I am hopeful that GM takes the high ground and prices it a bit lower to grab that market, just like Henry Ford did with the Model T. It was the most successful automobile in history and it would be nice to see GM do that with the Volt.
Either way GM, I want one and I’m 800 on the list…..if honored, I’ll be in to make my deposit when asked.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:25 am
@Bob #30
Exactly. Where were all the johnny-come-latelys and their “I dont care what it cost I will buy it because big, bad oil companies are ruining our lives” attitude 10 years ago? Oh right, because gas was so cheap no one gave a hoot about an electric car. But all of a sudden NOW people seem to care that we are running out of oil and NOW is the time. NOW? The EV-1 was still around not even FIVE YEARS AGO. Wow, what a freaking revelation you must have had
Sorry, I know that sounds cynical.
Imagine if GM had continued development of this technology for the last 10 years? We would really be talking about them running away with things. Instead, there area half dozen car companies developing their own technologies to say nothing of the smaller companies.
Anyone that thinks GM “owns” the electric game or is going to be so far out in front of the pack needs to do some more reading.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 am
#14 Lunoir Says: “I won’t be surprised seeing Crossovers, SUV, Trucks and maybe even Aveo sized cars with Volt’s E-Flex systems as early as 2012…”
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GM engineers have said E-Flex won’t work for larger cars, SUVs, and trucks until battery technology improves dramatically. This was even in one one of Lyle’s interviews here a while back.
In other words, it would take something like EEStor ultra-capacitors, or some other completely new technology to make an E-Flex SUV or truck viable. Also, even if the battery technology were available soon, it would require a special 220 volt outlet to charge overnight, so this would definitely limit where you could charge.
I think the days of using SUVs and pickup trucks for commuting and shopping are rapidly coming to an end. SUVs will continue to be used for off-road driving. Pickup trucks will continue to be used for landscapers and construction workers. But using these huge vehicles as some sort of statement about who you are, that will die down soon. Fashion is fickle.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 am
If they want to make it a caddy all they have to do is paint it black and change the faux grill.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:34 am
Ah “The Revolution” This article from the WJS got me started on this site.
Jan 7,2007 “Gentlemen Start Your Plug-in” by James Woolsey ( Former CIA director member of a non-partisan site “Set America Free)
Finally we are here with the current thread” Woolsey’s article was it for me.
Google that quote above!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:35 am
RB (#19):
I get the impression that the $42,000 estimate is just an extrapolation of the trend we’ve already seen during a year on this site: The longer we watch, the more expensive it gets.
I’m looking forward to the first long-time commenter on this site to actually get a Volt and report firsthand information; but that’s looking like a long wait. I myself may have to wait until car after next, the way things are going.
Now, I just look forward to actual Volt sightings …
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:42 am
Dave G (#34):
I found myself wondering about that myself as I drove in (anybody else imagine themselves driving an EREV on their way to work?).
Suppose you have a vehicle with a truly awesome electric range; but the largest outlet you can get in your house (most likely) is 220V. For argument’s sake, let’s say that it would take a full 24 hours to completely refill your awesome battery, but you want to use the car every day, and take advantage of off peak rates.
If your battery can absorb the equivalent of 80 miles in 8 hours, and your daily commute is less than that, you will still have juice left from the previous night’s charge when you get home, to add to. The next night, you have what was left the previous night, plus the juice that was left that night. Throw in a weekend charge here and there, and you might end up better than you think; and be able to take a much longer electric-only trip a couple times a week.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:43 am
RB 27:
Too right. The problem with Battery tech is not simply one of programming. Add to that, many advances in recent battery tech are tied up in patents held by oil companies. People have been working hard on battery tech for years for a whole host of applications and it simply isn’t moving at anything like the speed of personal computers in the ‘70-’80’s.
Frankly, I still don’t get where a generater that will burn gas or a gas/E85 mix is so breathtaking, let alone a game changer. Wasn’t it supposed to take biodiesel at one stage?
As for price not mattering, well to take the analogy further, it sure as hell mattered to Apple. Apple was a computer backwater selling to niche markets for 20 of the last 25 years despite having a superior product. They almost went bankrupt. Can a multinational wait that long? Maybe we will see. The lesson is that when there is competition (and even the most fevered Volt fanatic has to realize there is competition), price drives the market not the other way around. Capitalism.
As to mileage, I will take the 80/20 40 mile range data at face value as I have not read anything that challenges it. The problem is that the 40 mile range is right on the limit, and is a city-only number. many, many people spend at least a portion of their time on the freeway during their commute so this number may well be the biggest red herring of the lot!
Unlike ICEs electric motors, especially AC motors as in the Volt, are much more efficient in city driving than on the freeway. So if you drive on the freeway during your commute, your range is not going to be anything like 40 miles. GM needs to clean this misconception up because if people are led to believe they can make their 40 mile commute on electricity only and many of them only get 20 before the ICE kicks in, there will be a class action suit.
Finally, we don’t even know what the Volt is yet. It keeps morphing, and so far not in a positive way (whether you like the Volt as it is described today is not the point. The specs have been downgraded). Clearly the “production model” is still a research experiment. Until we have some firm numbers (maybe by spring?) we are left comparing what may be a GM wish and a prayer to vehicles already on the road.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:43 am
Re: #36 It is supposed to be WSJ Wall Street Journal.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:48 am
@ Jerry #39
Can you explain the 40 mile range is “city only” better? I admit in all the reading I’ve done and daily reading of this site thats the first I’ve heard of it. My current commute is 36 miles each way at mostly highway speeds (55mph +).
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:50 am
Just as a follow up to my comment on other car companies – Tesla is currently planning a $60,000 sedan that gets a full 250 miles to a charge. Now, for those of you with a midsize commute that can afford a $45,000+ Volt – how much more expensive is it (and I’m being figurative here I dont need a numbers breakdown) to get a car that will *really* power your commute?
And stay tuned for Chrysler’s rumored unveiling of its plug-in electric tomorrow. I think the next 6-8 months are going to be REALLY exciting and I agree with the article – the Volt is just he beginning.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:55 am
re:42
I raised the same question before: What if you have to drive 251 miles?
Are you going to push your car home? I guess for longer trip you can rent a ICE vehiicle after you spend your $60000.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:57 am
#30 Bob Says: “Beginning of a revolution??? Are you serious? Why is everyone forgetting about the EV-1 = that, IMHO, was the beginning.”
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I disagree. GM built less than 1000 EV1s over 3 years. With gas under $1/gallon and terrorism a vague threat, most people didn’t care about electric cars. So GM never any intention of going mass production with the EV1.
By contrast, GM is gearing up to sell over 100,000 Volts by the second or third model year, and perhaps over 1 million E-Flex cars by 2015. And as we’ve seen, other car makers are starting to follow suit.
So the Volt is the first electric vehicle intended for mass production. That’s revolutionary.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:57 am
Happy to see another convert. I also noted a couple more articles in the news using extended-range and range-extended as part of our current lexicon, so the concept is gradually sinking in.
The Volt’s 16 kWhr battery pack is a nice gradual way to ramp up production while still eliminating 80% of the typical driver’s consumption of petroleum. Why shoehorn in 4X that amount of batteries to create a pure EV just to eliminate that remaining 20%? This distributes the existing battery capacity for the greatest benefit. Better to have 4 people reducing consumption by 80% than have 1 person reducing their consumption by 100%.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:00 am
Uh … Mac went on to be a distant second. I would be much happier if the Volt turns out to be IBM PC. Now THAT was a huge hit. THAT set up free. More small companies were sucessful in the 90’s because of the PC and lead to more change than the MAC could ever dream of.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:04 am
No – the big two complaints are not price and range. They are Price and production volume.
And does this author know what is the largest selling consumer electronic prodtc of today is ? It is called the cell phone. And what type of battery does it use ? Lithium Ion. So why does he think, Li batteries are not mass produced now ?
We all know Volt is not the revolutionary car – we don’t even know whether it will be the next iPod, the next iPod killer (remember Prius killer !) or the next Segway.
Volt is a stop gap – on the way to a fully electric car with over 200 Mile range that will come by 2015.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:05 am
@43 LazP
Take your other car? I just dont see the Volt being a primary car option for families or anyone with kids or needing any sort of large (or even mid) capacity car. IMO its a secondary/niche car at this point/size.
@47 nataraj
“We all know Volt is not the revolutionary car – we don’t even know whether it will be the next iPod, the next iPod killer (remember Prius killer !) or the next Segway.
Volt is a stop gap – on the way to a fully electric car with over 200 Mile range that will come in 5 years.”
Agreed 100%. Although personally I think that 5 years will look more like 3 years or less.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:08 am
So, the author is a Mac-head. Let’s try to forgive him anyway.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:10 am
DC #39:
As you probably know, the EPA gives cars both highway and city mpg numbers. GM is currently fighting with the EPA as to how these numbers are to be calculated, so the Volt currently does not have EPA mpg estimates or ranges.
What we do have is a GM estimate as to how far the Volt will travel on an electric charge before the ICE kicks in. That number is 40 miles. Frankly, I have not seen any report indicating how this number is arrived at. It has been assumed by most that this is a city driving number. Some (Volt proponents) have argued that a highway value is not available because the body styling would effect it and the production body style was only recently decided (I don’t agree with this). Others note that when only one range number is released it is the optimized range.
Frankly, we can’t be sure GM even has a car that can travel at highway speeds. The video of the moving production model shows a car going 5-10 mph seemingly downhill. Not exactly awe-inspiring. Maybe the Volt will go 40 miles at 5 mph? Don’t know. This is one of the problems with the Volt as it exists.
So the short answer is we don’t know, but if you sincerely believe that 40 miles is the lower limit of the range, even in mixed driving, we need to get together. I would love to make a bet with you.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 am
@50 Jerry
The video’s you see now of the Volt show the car without the new eflex system.
It’s just a glorified golf cart now
So don’t take that as a problem!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:24 am
DC:
Sorry, to complete the discussion, the importance of the 40 mile range is that studies apparently show 80% of Americans commute 40 miles to work.
Sorry. tend to use shorthand and make all sorts of assumptions when blogging.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:26 am
Make a RWD Volt coupe roadster & coupe
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:27 am
Jerry, no worries, thanks for the response.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:28 am
Bob 51:
It is a problem, because using your analogy the entire propulsion system and drivetrain is just a glorified golf cart. All the eflex does is charge the batteries.
If the car can’t go more than 5mph without the eflex (even without the weight of the eflex). Then there is no way in hell it gets you 40 miles on electricity in regular driving.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:30 am
The electric range of the Volt is plenty ar enough to accomplsih virtually everything that a battery-only electric car with a range of 100 miles can. Actually, it’s quite possible that the Volt can do beter. We know (although apparently the EPA doesn’t) that a car like the Volt can achieve an average of around 275 MPG while commuting and a less certain mileage while non-commuting. A battery-only electric with 100 mile range is limited to trips within probably a 40 to 45 mile radius of home (without recharge) and that those owners would certainly use a gas powered car for other trips. We further know that that gas powered vehicle won’t achieve the mileage that a Volt type of car could on such trips. Only rather simpleminded folk think that a 40 mile ranged Volt can’t eliminate over 93% of out gas demand, and much more when recharges at the workplace are
available for a small minority. These people simply don’t understand the math. It’s really quite simple. Are you listening EPA? Use your own commuting trip statistics and learn a thing or two.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:37 am
@55 Jerry
Erm – Jerry – I am not suggesting that the E-Flex/Drivetrain will be a golf cart.
The Volt you see in the video is not using the real drive train or system. It’s just some batteries and a small electric motor to make it go “voom”
I was pointing out that you think it is using the E-Flex in the Volt video’s you are seeing, it is not.
The real E-Flex and drivetrain is still in testing, and GM says it will give better performance. (It’s on a mule right now – Lyle has an article on the driver of that)
I wouldn’t think the system they have in it now will give you the same performance, do you?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 am
#5 nasaman said:
…I even agree with his guess that the Volt will cost around $42,000. Although he doesn’t explain how he arrived at that price, I think its based on a fundamental principle of marketing —”always price to the market”. With the technical “iridescence” and novelty of an iPhone plus the class of a BMW 135i, the Volt will easily command over $40,000!
_____
You may be right. If so, one can only wonder why GM is marketing the Volt under the Chevrolet brand, which is traditionally viewed as being for the masses. The only exceptions to that general statement are the Corvette and a few specialty vehicles that come and go from time to time.
I really hope the Volt is priced and marketed to the common folk and it does not get the public image of being a specialty car or only for the wealthy. A price in the mid-30’s and decreasing over time with volume production will suit me just fine. Pricing the Volt in the 40’s seems to send the wrong message.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 am
Thought of an interesting problem… If I get the opportunity to test drive the Volt (unlikely for 2-3 years), I’m going to want to verify that it does get 40 miles electric. So that means a 30+ mile test drive. After that it’s going to need a recharge (x number of hours…). That means that the dealer that actually has one of these on his lot will either have to ask me to trust him on the range or set up appointments for every test drive. Not a huge deal, just a twist in the way the car will be marketed……
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:46 am
@56 kent
“Only rather simpleminded folk think that a 40 mile ranged Volt can’t eliminate over 93% of out gas demand, and much more when recharges at the workplace are available for a small minority. These people simply don’t understand the math. It’s really quite simple.”
===================================
Well then call me simple minded. Explain to me how a car the size/capacity of the Volt that will only go <20 miles from home all-electric is going to eliminate 93% of our gas demand?
This car will still be a niche car and is the beginning of the beginning. For those of you that commute 5 miles to work, have no more than 2 kids or no other need for storage capacity this car will be great for you.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
kent beuchert 56:
I agree with you that the EPA should let up. GM has a point and the Volt, as should all hybrids, have their mpg measured based on exhaustion of the vehicles fuel sources. GM also needs to come clean and call the Volt a hybrid.
As to the rest of your post, do you know what the 40 mile range really is? Conditions? How do you know this isn’t another fictitious value like EPA mpg estimates have been until recently?
To say a vehicle has a 40 mile range is meaningless unless we know what the conditions were in reaching that value. I haven’t even seen an article indicating whether the 40 mile range is one way or round trip. How on earth can you so confidently throw out hard numbers when there are so many unknown variables? If you can fill in the gaps, please do.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:48 am
#58 Estero asks “You may be right. If so, one can only wonder why GM is marketing the Volt under the Chevrolet brand, which is traditionally viewed as being for the masses. The only exceptions are the Corvette and a few specialty vehicles that come and go from time to time. I really hope the Volt does not get the public image of being for the wealthy.”
It is a puzzling question. Maybe a simple answer is best. The made the car a Chevy before they knew the costs, and by the time they had a handle on the costs it was too late to change the brand from Chevy to Buick or Cadillac. That guess would be consistent with the early Lutz statements of “well under $30K.”
A more optimistic possibility is that the price really will decline rapidly into the Chevy range, for Volt gen 2 or Volt gen 3.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:58 am
Bob #57:
Sorry, I took your previous post at face value.
Looking at the article, your point is noted. The video really wasn’t the Volt at all. It was the Volt body placed on a golf cart.
Bob, doesn’t this get to the heart of it? All of these people are quoting hard numbers for a production car that doesn’t exist. It is a glorified lab rat.
Half the people on this site are talking what could well be, at least in part, fiction, and the other half are shooting at ghosts.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:59 am
Nice to observe that the production Volt sort of grows on folks, they realize it is not only beautiful to look at, but elegant in its design, disconnecting us to foreign energy and connecting us to domestic energy. Talk about a bridge to the future, just climb in and it takes you there. Go Volt
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:09 am
30 Bob: Beginning of a revolution??? Are you serious? Why is everyone forgetting about the EV-1 = that, IMHO, was the beginning. GM just dropped the ball on that one.
Get over it. The EV-1 sucked. Limited range, and it looked even worse than the Prius. Not to mention that gas was cheap and nobody cared about saving gas back then. Stop watching your Who Killed the Electric Car reruns, ad nauseum.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:14 am
From the article:
“That’s one reason the Volt’s introductory price is immaterial. If the car keeps the promises GM has made — 40 miles on battery power alone, and the ability to drive unlimited distances by using its onboard generator — the first year’s production will sell out the weekend the Volt goes on sale.”
————–
No. The price is immaterial and it’s first year’s production will sell out the weekend the Volt goes on sale because they aren’t making any.
Even today, with the market crashing in, gas up around $4, and the auto industry imploding, GM can still sell 30,000 Corvettes at 50-75K (not including the 2,000 ZR1s they are planning out at around 100K).
Right now the Volt program is ‘fail proof,’ there is no criteria by which it can be judged a failure, short of Volt’s catching on fire and killing their owners in their driveway. It doesn’t have to make money, it doesn’t have to sell in any volume and it’s mere existence is held up as success.
Once GM produces and sells 250,000+ a year…then we’ll talk about GM smashing a ‘old paradigm.’
Right GM should just be credited for repeating the Mac’s watershed moment of event marketing on it’s super bowl ad…which is no small feat.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:18 am
It’s sad that it takes someone from DETROIT to get it. It’s like the rest of the media has such a hard time admitting the American autos have done anything right. “Oh no, this wont work at all! No one is going to tune in to hear about how great things are in America! Nooooooo!”
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:19 am
jerry said in small part:
“So the short answer is we don’t know, but if you sincerely believe that 40 miles is the lower limit of the range, even in mixed driving, we need to get together. I would love to make a bet with you.”
We’d have to keep the bet more symbol than substance, simply because I’m an old retired fart on a limited fixed income, but I’d definitely take the bet. For starters, to 40 AER is intended to be EOL (end of life – read 10 years and 150K miles later). Second, commuting may have LONGER range if it’s stop and go traffic. Most importantly, all we’ve got to “cling to” is 2+ years of speculation, but it’s going to happen.
So whatya wanna bet? How about a year’s supply of Volt calendars?
We could meet to settle up at Voltnation III.
Be well,
Tag
LJGTVWOTR!! NPNSP
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
Well it’s about damn time someone was really objective about the whole thing. My respect for journalists has just risen from none to 30% SOC
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 am
Someone was saying this should compare to IPhone and Laptops…
Especially if the car is only available in a very few locations, I’ll be looking on E-bay to actually see who wants to make good money with this car… If there is only 10000 and 50000 are waiting for it… Market price will go up and those lucky enough to live in the “right place” to pay the “GM price” will really be tempted to sell it off for twice what they paid for… You’d be surprised the number of people willing to give extra to be the first around… And for some $40k is equivalent to my $400 spent on IPhone.
NPNS! Volt is only the mother of all that will come after…
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:34 am
Hey Tag:
Isn’t battery life at EOL supposed to be 75-80% of new? Yeah, right. It is not like they are supposed to fail.
You are right about stop and go traffic. I’ll bet the 40 mile limit is what you might get driving ideally in stop and go traffic. My point was that most people have a commute that is at least partly freeway driving. I don’t think you get 40 miles on the freeway from the Volt.
If the claim is a 40 mile freeway driving range, it is at best a guesstimate subject to the usual downgrading as the lab rat matures.
The Volt will probably happen. Whether it is a bang or a dud is yet to be seen. Statik makes a good point in his post.
I would love to meet you. I am sure it would be an enjoyable experience.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:35 am
Side note, nothing good or bad really, just interesting to those of you involved directly with GM or hold positions in it.
———-
Short-sale ban list expanded to include GE, GM
“Being that we had no easy and quick way to determine if a company met the [SEC's] criteria, we sent a blast email to all of our members asking them to self-certify if they met the criteria,” Peterson said.
“…the list of banned short-sale stocks has been expanded to include the likes of General Electric Co., General Motors Corp. and American Express Co.”
Late last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered a ban on short selling in shares of 799 U.S. financial institutions until Oct. 2. Short sales — in which investors take a position in a stock in the belief that the stock’s price will go down — will continue to be prohibited in listings covered by the SEC’s prior order.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/short-sale-ban-list-expanded-include/story.aspx?guid=%7BEED2326E%2D9A2E%2D4729%2D86B6%2DE4EFEDBCDE07%7D&siteid=yhoof
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:38 am
@ Lunoir # 70
Exactly my point about the “$40,000ish” price tag. I live right smack in the middle of Northern Virginia. Wealthiest county in America surrounded by 4 of the other Top 10 wealthiest counties. I imagine the dealer markups in this area will be in the $5-6,000 range if not more. I’ve seen it before for low-supply cars but this could be even worse.
*If* the release price is $40,000 I wil be *VERY* surprised to see an actual, final, out-the-door sticker price under $50,000.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:43 am
#58 Estero
If the price is expected to decline rapidly (read after the rebates are exhausted) then the Volt should be a Chevy.
The Chevy badge may also just reflect the fact that GM misjudged the cost. They said initially they thought $30K, which with price drops would be say $25K. Those price points suggested a Chevy not a Caddy. It turned out they missed the pricing boat, and at some point it may simply have been too late to change badges. That really would have wound all kinds of people up, including Chris Paine who doubtless would think it was yet some other ploy to destroy the electric car.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:43 am
As much as I agree with the assessment of the Volt from this article, I do not appreciate a journalist giving an opinion of what he thinks the Volt will sell for. I’ve seen the price escalate just on what someone’s opinion might be. We must realize this does effect the price. We still have to wait two or more years before we know, let’s not raise the price on speculation and over exuberance. At 30-35k it makes financial sense.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
Price for the first 10,000 is almost irrelevent – as they will be purchased ASAP – I would and am lucky enough to be able to – although I will not get the opportunity being in Seattle
The Price for the next 100,000 and 250,000 therafter is very relevent for most cannot afford above $25,000 for this car to make sense.
I hope GM can get the numbers to work – both for range of battery and cost of production
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:45 am
@73 DC,
>> I imagine the dealer markups in this area will be in the $5-6,000 range
>> if not more.
In my humble and frequently angry opinion… Any government rebate/subsidy/whatever should be reduced by whatever amount dealers jack the price above MSRP. It would be criminal to pay out taxpayer-funded incentives whenever it is obvious that none is needed!
@79, DC (yep, I am forward-quoting! had enough edit time left)…
I could go for the no-incentive approach as well. But I have a feeling it’s a political non-starter. Somebody’s gonna wanna make hay off of this, of course.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:47 am
We have recently learned that the Volt will ‘know’ (via GPS) when it is close to home, to not start it’s range – extender right before it will be recharged.
It should be simple enough to expand upon this so that the Volt always knows when it’s approaching a limited-access freeway or toll road where speeds will be high, to start it’s range extender (and save the battery power for where it would be most efficient) — you know, if that would help your individual driving pattern. If you drive more than 40 miles a day anyway, with say a third of it on the highway, this might be better than going to work and out to lunch electric, and then use gas all the way home.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:48 am
@77 Mike
Personally I dont think any taxpayer funded incentives or rebates should be provided for these cars – at all. You should not need to use my tax money to “talk” someone into buying this car. If they need that incentive to buy than its either priced too high or they cant afford it – or both.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:51 am
jerry,
God willing, I’ll be at any and every VoltNation that’s held, so I too hope we get to meet.
Re your post @ 71,
Every single statement you make has the same qualifiers we all need to use. We don’t KNOW much of anything about the final Virgin (SIC) of the Volt and it’s capabilities. As the resident Paulianna, I sincerely believe that the Volt will perform as well or better than projected. Obviously, you fall farther toward Statik’s side of the scale, so I guess I’ll just have to put on a few pounds to offset the additional weight (g). I may be a single voice, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m wrong.
Be well,
Tag
LJGTVWOTR!! NPNSP
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:51 am
#68 Tagamet -”For starters, to 40 AER is intended to be EOL (end of life – read 10 years and 150K miles later). Second, commuting may have LONGER range if it’s stop and go traffic.”
I’m not sure you want to take the bet. You are right that the 40 mile EV range is EOL, but the 40 mile range is for city. If you take mixed the range should drop to 38. For highway it will be more like 28. There are some very nice simulations that have been run in then engineering forum. This is I think an early one (it may not have the 38 mile range mixed use simulation):
http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=581
BTW I’m looking for the video where Lutz said the transitions were rough. I know I’ve seen it. I’ve found the video where he talked about not going 40 miles — that was after his test drive when he’s wearing the red golf shirt — but he didn’t mention any rough transitions in that interview.
Also in looking at some older videos you can see why people are confused. He spent a lot of time talking about how the gen-set would charge the batteries (not drive the car). I always wondered where I had gotten that idea from. LOL
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:55 am
Jerry,
“So the short answer is we don’t know, but if you sincerely believe that 40 miles is the lower limit of the range, even in mixed driving, we need to get together. I would love to make a bet with you.”
Didn’t bob Lutz did say the 40 miles all aer would be end of life expectancy. Can you explain the difference in electrical draw between city & highway driving. Is it due to the less regen braking, I’m far from a engineer so go easy on me.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:57 am
#80 Tag
As the resident Paulianna, I sincerely believe that the Volt will perform as well or better than projected. Obviously, you fall farther toward Statik’s side of the scale, so I guess I’ll just have to put on a few pounds to offset the additional weight (g).
———–
Actually Tag, I have alot of optimism on the actual drving specs. I think it will perform at the very least to bare minimums announced, but more than likely significantly above them.
I am a big believer that past performance is a good indicator of future expectations…and when it comes power and performance of its vehicles, the ‘General’ rarely underdelivers.
/put down that Hero sandwich, you don’t need anymore weight
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:58 am
#75 Frank D says “As much as I agree with the assessment of the Volt from this article, I do not appreciate a journalist giving an opinion of what he thinks the Volt will sell for.”
He may be reporting a number from someone at GM but not be in a position to name the source. He is after all close enough to talk to people individually and privately (”just happened to see him at Starbucks”). At least, that is my guess about his guess
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:02 am
Regarding the EPA. I am certain they will change the MPG definition for battery related cars.
The EPA will simply adopt the concept described in the article I referred to in
my #36 post. Instead of MPG Woolsey suggest MPGG (miles per gallon of gasoline or other petroleum extenders.) electrical charge getting a free ride from the EPA. In another word the modified mileage is defined by the amount of gasoline (or equivalents) used per total miles driven. In this definition if you drive less then the battery capacity per day (recharging do not count) your mileage is infinite, i.e your not using gasoline ICE extenders. I am certain that the EPA will switch to this or similar concepts to define an E-REV.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:07 am
This is the beginning of the demise of oil, and a return to the old way of living for those who profit from oil.
http://www.oiljihad.org
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:07 am
Tag – Here’s a graph of what I’m talking about. This graph presents the data from the GM study which AFAIK forms the sole basis for GM’s claim about the 80% of commuters going less than 40 miles. What you’re looking for are all those commuters who use kW at a rate between Highway and US06. Those folk will not get the 40 mile EV range, and the ones close to or above US06 will get substantially less.
http://www.greenfuelsforecast.com/ArticleDetails.php?articleID=457
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:08 am
#62 RB
#74 DonC
You’re probably right. Thanks for the input!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:09 am
Irregardless, even if the first wave of Volts is unattainable for the common man, this is the only real future for the automobile. With oil being so easily manipulated as a stock market tool, and no longer associated with demand, and not forgetting that the supply is dwindling away. Cars, as well as automakers either need to use a viable alternative or either go bankrupt.
It isn’t just for simple sales numbers anymore, it is for the viability of the companies period. Sadly many of us will probably not be able to afford a 1st, or even 2nd gen Volt. But for what it will do to the automotive landscape will benefit us all more than we car fathom today.
The wave of EREVs and full EVs we will have available in the next 5 years will be amazing.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:11 am
I strongly suggest many of the readers of this blog sit down and watch a movie called “Who Killed the Electric Car”. This is a major motion picture released in 2006 by a very large Japanese corporation that tells the TRUE story of the EV-1. If you like murder mystery conspiracy type movies you will love this one. You will find out why GM is such a truly evil corporation and you should also realize that many of the people responsible for the destruction of the EV-1 are still in power at GM, very scary indeed.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:16 am
DonC@81
See Staik’s post @83. I’ve read it six times, checked my meds, and read it another six times, and it still reads the same (lol). Leave it to Statik to keep me off balance.
Re the Lutz quote about rough transitions, it MAY have been a written quote as opposed to him saying it in a video. Hmmm, it may have also been in the post where he and the engineers are standing around the car (or the one where h is seen alone and makes a comment about the “displays“, gesturing with both hands.. I really need to get out more…
Be well,
Tag
LJGTVWOTR!! NPNSP
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:16 am
#83 Statik – ” am a big believer that past performance is a good indicator of future expectations…and when it comes power and performance of its vehicles, the ‘General’ rarely underdelivers.”
I think performance will be very good. Quite different from the hybrids where you really have to have a light foot. (OK for me BTW). I thought Lutz was going to let the cat out of the bag on the Colbert Show when he was going on about those driving an electric car should not want to go fast. Lutz has this approach of saying something like this only when he follows it up with a punch line of “but it you wanted to, you could do X.” Colbert broke in so we never heard the punch line if indeed there was one coming.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:16 am
The article said
He says neither contention is correct and rather that the Volt should not be judged on its limitations, but on its merits. It should be considered “the 1984 Apple Macintosh on wheels, smashing an old paradigm and setting America free.
_____
I agee totally, I also agree with Lyle’s 2007 statement “it is about the beginning of a revolution”.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:18 am
Palin + McCain + Volt = HUGE REBATE
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 am
Sony@90 said:
“I strongly suggest many of the readers of this blog sit down and watch a movie called “Who Killed the Electric Car”. This is a major motion picture released in 2006 by a very large Japanese corporation that tells the TRUE story of the EV-1. If you like murder mystery conspiracy type movies you will love this one. You will find out why GM is such a truly evil corporation and you should also realize that many of the people responsible for the destruction of the EV-1 are still in power at GM, very scary indeed.”
I’m just guessing, but you’re new here, aren’t you. Welcome!
Be well,
Tag
LJGTVWOTR!!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:20 am
#63 jerry
“All of these people are quoting hard numbers for a production car that doesn’t exist. It is a glorified lab rat.
Half the people on this site are talking what could well be, at least in part, fiction, and the other half are shooting at ghosts.”
The design specifications are hard numbers. GM wants 40-mile AER. What that means, in detail, I don’t know. GM must know. They are arguing with EPA about the details. As the project takes shape, the details will emerge – one or two steps at a time. Some degree of skepticism is healthy. What degree? I don’t know.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:20 am
I remember a couple of months back when about 80+% of the first Volts will be sold over seas (correct me with the exact number…I don’t mind
) That is a damn shame! The first year release should all be sold in America for Americans if speculation of supply & demand is a sell out in the first weekend, first month or even a waiting list like there is for the Prius now.
After we consume so many that there are some actually on car lots waiting to be sold, then and only then should we market overseas.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:23 am
#94 Veep Says: “Palin + McCain + Volt = HUGE REBATE”
————————————————————————————–
McCain is offering a $5K Volt rebate. Obama is offering a $7K Volt rebate.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
It’s great to start seeing mainstream editorials about the EV cars. It just keeps building the groundswell…
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
ThombDbhomb #96: “The design specifications are hard numbers.”
Really? Then why have they already been modified by GM from the originals?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
To buttress the point of the article which started this thread, this article explains just how revolutionary the Volt is and why it’s more of an improvement over the hybrids like the Prius than the Prius is over straight ICE cars.
http://www.greenfuelsforecast.com/ArticleDetails.php?articleID=457
I just cited this for Tag on the issue of range, which is the first graph, but if you look at the second and third graphs what you’ll see is that while the hybrids give a 20% benefit, E-FLEX gives a 80% benefit. The basic point here being that E-FLEX makes a huge difference in consumption, more than you’d think by just doing “mpg” comparisons.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:34 am
#100 Jerry – “Then why have they already been modified by GM from the originals?”
While design changes can happen anytime, as you get closer to production changes become less frequent. I’m sure you understand this from personal experience. Remember the last big home project you started? LOL
Seriously, you can’t really expect the same number of changes between now and production that we’ve seen between concept and production unveiling.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:34 am
Sony #90: I saw it. It made a believer out of me (in electric cars). But at the end of the day I’m still on board with the Volt. If I can buy it, rather than lease it, I will. And with all due respect, “the GM is evil so I can’t buy an electric car from them” line is too melodramatic. I mean really, when you can link every major German manufacturer to the Third Reich, do we really want to refer to GM as “evil?” Let’s save the word “evil” for things where it really belongs.
#94: Dave G at #98 stole my thunder, so I’ll just say this: Let’s all leave the blantant political campaigning outside the blog. I’m more political than most here. And there are times when the discussion cannot avoid things with political implications. But there is never a time when we cannot avoid an obvious campaign pitch.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:39 am
VIVA LA REVELUCION!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
#101 DonC – VERY interesting article. Thanks. That does more to convince me of the value of EREV and the Volt than all the calculations posted here so far.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
#46 and #49: You mock the reference to the groundbreaking Mac vs. the now dominant PC, but you miss the point. The very fact that you are using a mouse with a graphical interface (and not typing in green or orange letters after a C:\ prompt) means that Mac won the technology war, even if they didn’t win the market share war. A similar comment can be made of GM. Even if the Volt and other GM cars do not come to dominate the market, this unique approach to automtotive design just might win the day. Let’s all hope so, because a 48 mpg Prius quite frankly isn’t good enough.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:48 am
#85 LazP Says: “Regarding the EPA. I am certain they will change the MPG definition for battery related cars.”
————————————————————————————–
I certainly hope so.
I recently did a spreadsheet MPG estimate based on a typical driving pattern over a year, and used this to calculate the average MPG of the 4 plug-ins available in 2010. The results were dramatic:
Saturn Vue plug-in
• Average combined mileage (MPG): 50
• Electric Range (miles city/hwy): 17/14
• Mileage During Electric Range (MPG city/hwy): 148/132
• Mileage After Electric Range (MPG city/hwy): 34/32
• Electric Energy Use (KWH/100miles city/hwy): 25/30
Toyota Prius plug-in
• Average combined mileage (MPG): 70
• Electric Range (miles city/hwy): 17/15
• Mileage During Electric Range (MPG city/hwy): 154/138
• Mileage After Electric Range (MPG city/hwy): 48/45
• Electric Energy Use (KWH/100miles city/hwy): 17/19
Chevy Volt
• Average combined mileage (MPG): 314
• Electric Range (miles city/hwy): 42/38
• Mileage During Electric Range (MPG city/hwy): ∞/∞ (All Electric)
• Mileage After Electric Range (MPG city/hwy): 52/48
• Electric Energy Use (KWH/100miles city/hwy): 18/22
Fiskar Karma
• Average combined mileage (MPG): 340
• Electric Range (miles city/hwy): 52/48
• Mileage During Electric Range (MPG city/hwy): ∞/∞ (All Electric)
• Mileage After Electric Range (MPG city/hwy): 46/43
• Electric Energy Use (KWH/100miles city/hwy): 18/22
The Average combined mileage was calculated using the following yearly driving pattern, and assumes one charge per day (at night):
• 30 days at 8 miles per day
• 50 days at 16 miles per day
• 240 days at 30 miles per day
• 30 days at 60 miles per day
• 3 days at 450 miles per day
I believe Average combined MPG rating system described above gives a good estimate of how much gas a typical driver will use with each car above, and it will work equally well for future plug-in vehicles as well. Obviously, the detailed city/hwy numbers (as shown in the examples above) also need to be provided to calculate costs based on other driving patterns, but the Average combined MPG rating will be the starting point. I believe the EPA should adopt this method.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
“It will also be a compact car likely to cost around $42,000 when it goes on sale, a premium small car with unique style and performance, like the $46,000 BMW 135i or $44,000 Audi A3.”
Is this really going to be a compact car? It doesn’t look like one in the pictures and I hadn’t heard that before. Does anyone have some preliminary specs available?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 11:58 am
#100 Jerry
“Really? Then why have they already been modified by GM from the originals?”
Because the “origional” was a concept, similarly the body design has changed to.
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#95 Tag
LMAO
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#98 Dave G.
Seriously, do people even read anymore or just look for their colored banner?
Anybody here that dosen’t know that Obama being president means a cheaper Volt for us isn’t looking into the facts, and watches to much TV
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
#91 Tag
See Staik’s post @83. I’ve read it six times, checked my meds, and read it another six times, and it still reads the same (lol). Leave it to Statik to keep me off balance.
———
It’s kind of like the forming of the ‘Mega Powers’ in the late 80s.
In case you don’t know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mega_Powers
(I call dibs on Savage)
—————————————
Getting back to the thread itself, I’d like to note that the original Mac was never commercially viable and only when the ‘Mac Plus’ came out were actual inroads to profitabilty made.
Ironically, the issue with the Mac was ‘the range,’ as it only had 128kb, and when coupled with the demand of the OS, it made it virtually unusable…the ‘Mac Plus’ rectified this situation with 8 times the RAM (1MB…expandable to 4MB).
So if we are drawing parallels to the Volt meant to be cast in a good light, thats is a really bad one…but not unnecessarily false.
The premise that the Volt will become MUCH cheaper (and therefore more commercially successfull) as the technology and production of Lithium batteries grows is essentially flawed. Making that assumption, one has to assume it will concurrently grow as obsolete as it is cheap.
As the technology advances and the cost is decreases, you can pack more and more power into a car for less and less money. As the range increases, less and less want/need the gas component. As soon as a 60 kW (250 mile) pack is in a car…the Volt, as we know it, is done.
The future is all EV, if you don’t think so, you are likely as short sighted as those who don’t believe in anything other than gas propulsion today.
Hopefully, GM has plans for Volt 2.0 to have an ‘all EV’ option.
Side note: Anyone remember that if you went to your Mac dealer and you had a valid driver’s license you could take one home for 24 hours as a ‘test drive’ for free? I doubt we are going to see that with the Volt, hehe.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
People still want suv type vehicles. I dont mean huge ones, I mean ones that are the size of the Forrester/Rav4/Crv. I hope GM, Ford, or any other major oem will make a PHEV suv. Otherwise, I will keep my wallet shut and hold onto my 2000 Toyota Camry forever. Its really a shame that vehicles are now safer and better built now than in any other time in automotive history, but that the wasteful ice is still the only method of propulsion.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
#107 DaveG
That is some quality shit, thanks for putting that together for us!!
I was wondering do you think you could do a best/worst case scenario using the same formula just manipulating the daily commute “which i assumed makes up the base of the 240 days”
Like
Guy A drives 25 miles to work
Guy B drives 50 Miles to work
Guy C drives 100 miles to work
or something along those lines.
I’m a big believer that the people who can mostly drive under 40 miles daily this car is a no brainier financially, and as you go up from there it starts to erode the monetary incentive. I think this formula would be a great guide for people to try understand their Total Cost of Ownership.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
#100 jerry
The original spec was 40-mile AER. While there may be discussion about what that spec means, I haven’t heard that GM modified the spec. GM engineers are working dligently to meet that spec and maximize AER, which is the Volt’s main selling point. If you have a credible source for GM changing the 40-mile AER spec, please share it with us.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
In 1998, just 10 years ago, oil was $11 per barrel, $15 per barrel in inflation adjusted terms. The economies of nations dependant on oil production were not particularly healthy at that price, but they were still able to subsidize practically every aspect of their economies with their oil income. In other words, people in those nations (as well as big oil companies) were making money hand over fist at the “bargain” price of $11 per barrel. So, my concern is that if the Volt technology catches on and begins to influence the demand for oil, there is A LOT of room for oil to fall in price. How many people would buy a Volt if gas were 75 cents per gallon?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
DonC@101
Thanks for the link to the article. It’s an excellent read (especially the info on cold starts). The link from it to the actual transcript is also great. I’m wonder why we haven’t heard from john1701 lately. Hope he’s ok. Probably just tooling around in his Prius.
Wasn’t it a (gasp) govt statistic re 78% of drivers driving 40 miles a day or less?
Be well,
Tag
LJGTVWOTR!! NPNSP
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
As we go forward with the real possibility that the Volt takes shape, many economic issues will have to fall in place to really bring the Volt to market. I suggest everyone here start writing your Congress members and voice your opinion on the need to get the Volt funded if that’s what it will take to get this economy working again. The auto industry along the years of reliance on oil is one of the main factors our economy is in a shambles. If we get off oil, and the need to spend billions of dollars to manipulate foreign governments to keep it coming, that in it self is an economic game changer. The automobile is probably the most consumed product that is a daily need for most Americans and the global emerging populations. I have recently written John D. Dingell, Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. I have suggested that if a government loan is in the works to get the Volt and other game changing automobiles out, that the American people should benefit from the first one’s produced. After all it will be our tax dollars that will be needed.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
ThombDbhomb #113
Oh, I see. You didn’t mean to say that the design specifications are hard numbers, you meant to say ONE parameter of the design specifications hasn’t changed.
With all due respect, that isn’t quite the same thing.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
jerry@117 said:
“ThombDbhomb #113
Oh, I see. You didn’t mean to say that the design specifications are hard numbers, you meant to say ONE parameter of the design specifications hasn’t changed.
With all due respect, that isn’t quite the same thing.”
But with all due respect, that doesn’t make that fact false.
Be well,
Tag
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
DonC #102:
Everything you say is fine, but I was addressing ThombDbhomb’s asserion that these are hard numbers. You have just presented a rationale as to why they are not hard numbers, supporting my point.
This thing is still in research. Suggesting “design specifications” are “hard numbers” is simply folly.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
jerry:
The “having an argument” site is down the Web a ways.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
#110 Statik – “The future is all EV, if you don’t think so, you are likely as short sighted as those who don’t believe in anything other than gas propulsion today.”
Though I’m an EV advocate I don’t agree with this. To get your 250 mile range you’d need about a 90 kW pack. Presently that isn’t realistic. It’s going to take at least four or five years to double the energy density to get a 32 kW pack with 26 kW of effective power in a commercial application like a car.
Doubling it again and again is going to have to wait for a while. Plus you’ll need fast charging stations and batteries that will take fast charging. Again we may get there but you’re talking 15 or 20 years out, and technology changes so rapidly it’s hard to have any visibility for those time horizons.
Plus gasoline is not going away. For some transportation — like long haul trucks — EVs are just not well suited fo but gas ICE’s are. My guess is that biomass will make great strides and that the open question is whether E-FLEX moves more to electrification, to bio-mass engines, or to a combination of the two. (For example if solar based hydrogen electrical stations become commercially viable then maybe electric wins out, if not then biomass may do better. It’s hard to predict at this point).
In the meantime the Volt is a very cool combination.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I do hope they are correct and the price drops rapidly, but I am still floored by those who are so negative. They seem to think that we should wait till all the technology is perfect before we build anything. By that logic, trans-oceanic shipping should have waited till we could build super-barges, spaceflight should wait till we can travel outside the solar system, and flight was a waste will airplanes. You have to start somewhere. Right now, super-caps are a myth, every company that claims to have one won’t let anyone see it work. So are water-engines and such. No one wants to deal with the laws of thermodynamics and wants to sit, pout, and do nothing when they oppose their pipe dreams. But what DOES work is a serial hybrid that mixes flex-fuel, a battery, and maybe supplemental solar. That will work, has for years in prototypes, and this will be the first ever mass-release. I’m glad it’s happening, and I hope my next car benefits from it.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:43 pm
#118 Jerry
If you can follow your own discussion with various people on this post, it seems clear we are talking about e-flex AER. So, yes, I am talking about one spec. The 40-mile AER E-REV spec seems like a pretty important spec. You seem to lump it in with other specs. What other specs are as as important?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Statik,
(whispers) DonC used the H-word…
Tag
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Hydrogen? What’s up with that?
Ba-dump-bump.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
#110 Static and #121 DonC
Static I agree with you if you are talking about the “Far Future” the ultimate future is :”all electric” but not now. The next twenty years will be transition to that future with Volt oriented dual technology to match or approach current ICE capacity and Volt is the perfect approach for this. Advancement in battery technology will drive this. Some hope that the trajectory of battery technology will follow electronic technology (Moor’s Law). I do not believe that’s possible. Certainly not in the short term.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
#115 Tagamet – “Wasn’t it a (gasp) govt statistic re 78% of drivers driving 40 miles a day or less?”
That’s a good question. You may be right but the methodologies are very different. I think the government agencies that are focused on energy consumption collect data on miles driven per year. To get an average per day you’d divide by the number of days in a year. This of course has the “head in freezer feet in oven” problem (on average the temperature is great) or the “Warren Buffet walks into a bar” problem (suddenly everyone is on average a millionaire) where the average doesn’t give you much information about the individual situation. IOW I’m not sure the federal data is finely grained enough to give a lot of information about driving habits. (If you drive 150 miles a week do you drive 30 miles a day or 75 miles on two days).
There is a lot of very good census data about commuting distances and times but I’d think it would be hard to extrapolate those numbers to come up with firm ideas about the number of miles driven per day per vehicle since they deal AFAIK only with commuting statistics.
The GM data here, which more or less gives the same result, is so much better because it actually measures what people are doing on a daily basis AND lays out their energy usage per mile, which is a completely new and important factor. I’ve always assumed when Lutz talks about 80% of Americans not driving less than 40 miles a day he’s referencing the GM data because it’s the best.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
$83 statik says “As the resident Paulianna,…”
I thought it was Pollyanna, from the book by Porter.
In the book Pollyanna was the girl whose spirits were always upbeat, despite the gloomy events and people around her. Her name often is cited (incorrectly) in the reverse, i.e., a person always looking at the dark side.
Or maybe you are speaking of her evil cousin
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
#110 statik,
Your premise is that battery technology will evolve E-REVs into pure EVs. I disagree with this premise.
The point is that many or most people will have only one car to depend on, and they will occasionally need to drive further distances. For example, let’s say your daughter, who attends college 250 miles away, has just gone into the emergency room. The last thing you want to worry about is renting a car, besides which, the rental place is probably closed.
Until fast charging electric service stations are ubiquitous, gasoline and E85 will be the mainstay for long distance travel. And with E85, many of the arguments for pure EVs become mute. Liquid fuels have the best energy density by far. I think 40 mile AER E-REVs will be the mainstay for quite a while.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
_____________________________________________________
VOLT Revolution!
Mark Phelan’s above cited Detroit Free Press article is 100% correct. His article is the most accurate articulated perspective of the VOLT I have seen to date.
_____________________________________________________
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
#127 DonC,
Here is the government survey:
http://www.bts.gov/publications/omnistats/volume_03_issue_04/html/figure_02.html
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Public, normal-charging ‘parking meter’ style plugs aside, I don’t see “Rapid charging stations” happening in useful numbers until long after the US car fleet is at least 5% EREV / BEV (anybody want to run the numbers on that?). Remember, such a station would require a power hookup you wouldn’t believe, a power-storage capability likewise incredible (or most likely, both). No one is going to outlay that kind of capital if only one car in ten is electric, much less one in fifty
(Anyone want to guess what this kind of service would add to the cost of the electricity alone? I’m thinking it would have to seriously undercut any liquid fuel cost. That’s another way of looking at how far out we’re talking about).
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
#124 Tagamet – “(whispers) DonC used the H-word…”
I DID NOT! OK I did. But not “that” way. LOL
If you remember a while back there was a new process for getting the oxygen out of water in a very energy effective way. If they can come up with a way to do the same for the hydrogen, then it’s “possible” that electrical charging stations could use cost effective PV panels and fuel cells to produce and store electricity which could be used to charge EVs. Of course that’s very speculative and stations could just do the Project Better Place thing and resell electricity, but that isn’t any fun to think about ….
It’s equally if not more likely that bio-fuels or CNG could fuel the EV. But for me the thought of making something from sunlight, which is everywhere in absolutely huge quantities, is exciting. It’s the ultimate source.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
GM isn’t getting their point across about the E-REV concept. I’ve seen people on comment board after comment board say stuff like:
“what is the use of a car that only goes 40 miles?”
Not this board of course, but the general people out there just aren’t getting the concept through their heads that the Volt doesn’t come to a dead halt after 41 miles.
GM needs to come up with a single message that includes that gas range of the car along with the electric range — and keep repeating that message EVERY time they talk about the range. Perhaps something like this (I made up the numbers):
“Range: 400 miles before refueling or recharging is required, including 40 miles on battery-only power.”
I’m sure some marketing person can come up with better wording than this dead president can, but the key part is making sure that the gas+electric range together gets top billing whenever range is mentioned, with electric-only range being listed as a sub-set.
Sadly, we can’t just all be happy that WE know how it works. Because it will be darn near impossible for the Volt to become popular and sell in the numbers that GM needs to sell them in to make them work if the general population makes them unpopular based upon incorrect information.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
#110 Statik:
Actually, I really think the Volt isn’t the Mac at all. It’s more like the Lisa. The Lisa was everything that people think about Macs but the original ones weren’t (for the better part of the decade).
But the macs had a big advantage on price. The Lisa cost $10,000 bucks ($20k in today’s money!).
The reason? In no small part it was because that memory was expensive. The macs had 128k and the Lisas had 1MB. The Lisa functionality was superb, however. It did what no other computer could do, and companies bought them even at those prices.
I’d expect a Mac-like eflex will come shortly after the Volt with a much smaller battery pack and then it will grow bigger again over time… again, like the mac. It’s probably a really good analogy as the memory prices drove WYSIWYG computing, so will battery price drive the eflex.
Ultimately, the Lisa was not a success for Apple but the Mac was. The real difference between the programs was that the Lisa focused to get the target performance and the Mac focused to get as much performance as possible (basically by Jobs flogging Hertzfeld a lot
) for the target price. The real eflex mac is yet to appear.
And for full disclosure, I actually do own a Lisa 2/10 office system.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
RB@128 said
“$83 statik says “As the resident Paulianna,…”
I thought it was Pollyanna, from the book by Porter.
In the book Pollyanna was the girl whose spirits were always upbeat, despite the gloomy events and people around her. Her name often is cited (incorrectly) in the reverse, i.e., a person always looking at the dark side.
Or maybe you are speaking of her evil cousin
Sigh, just another failed attempt at humor on my part. I’d written Pollyanna first and then saw that it was the wrong gender, so….
DonC@133 said in part re (H)ydrogen:
I DID NOT! OK I did. But not “that” way. LOL…
Potato/po-tah-toe…lol.
Be well,
Tag
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
#112 JonP Says: (regarding post #107) “I was wondering do you think you could do a best/worst case scenario using the same formula just manipulating the daily commute which i assumed makes up the base of the 240 days”
————————————————————————————–
We know that around 80% of the U.S. population has a daily round-trip commute of 40 miles or less. For the remaining 20%, I suspect many would consider additional options, such as:
• charging at work.
• joining a car pool.
• working at home one or more days a week.
So calculating the MPG of the Volt for people with high milage commutes may not be straight forward. This is where the additional numbers would come in. These numbers allow high milage commuters to calculate their particular gas savings.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:34 pm
>>I recently did a spreadsheet MPG estimate based on a typical driving pattern over a year, and used this to calculate the average MPG of the 4 plug-ins available in 2010.
Just like EPA, it needs to include a disclaimer the estimates are based on ideal conditions.
In other words, Volt definitely will not perform the same way in Minnesota during the winter.
Also, your plug-in Prius info is based on the current generation, not the next coming in 2009 which offers improved efficiency.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:35 pm
#108 Bill “Does anyone have some preliminary specs available?”
The size specs can be found in the GM Press Release at:
http://media.gm.com/servlet/GatewayServlet?target=http://image.emerald.gm.com/gmnews/viewpressreldetail.do?domain=2&docid=48589
The dimensions are:
Wheelbase (in / mm): 105.7 / 2685
Length (in / mm): 177 / 4404
Width (in / mm): 70.8 / 1798
Height (in / mm): 56.3 / 1430
Cargo volume (cu ft / L): 10.6 / 301
=====
Performance:
Top speed (mph): 100
EV range, city (miles): 40 (based on EPA city cycle)
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:39 pm
>> Hmmm…the refference should be to the battery pack,,,not the entire vehicle. Toyota has been using 4-6 year cycle on the Prius Why?
Simple, they focused on spreading the technology instead.
So, the hybrid model of Camry got the big improvements (motor & inverter) first.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Lyle said: “The Chevy Volt isn’t really about being a car, but as I wrote on January 12th, 2007, its about the beginning of a revolution.”
Those words are as true today as when he said them. The Chevy Volt is a game changer. It will start a new auto revolution that will sweep the oil barons off their feet eventually. Oil will continue to play an important role for many years to come, but it will slowly diminish as the primary fuel for automobiles.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
#136 Tag said “Potato/po-tah-toe…lol.”
NC version: Potato/per-tay-ter …(more laughter)
Smart guys though. (Bought Merrill Lynch last week.)
There will be culture shock at ML, I imagine.
(new bosses may talk real slow, not wear shoes,…)
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
>> Can you imagine owning the first production car of the new era of automotive transportation?
What era is that? The one where the battery-pack & motor became standard components is already well underway and aftermarket plug-in upgrades are now available.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Xerox invented the mouse interface, their engineers knew the company was not going to use their work so they showed it to Jobs, the rest is history.
I expect the battery improvements will come in leaps (who knows how long between leaps) rather than the evolutionary progress of memory. With memory it was process improvements that allowed geometry shrinks. With the battery, it will be new chemistrys and nano structures. The key thing is for it to have a payback large enough to support the research. I think we are just reaching that point.
GO VOLT!!!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:48 pm
#138 john1701a Says: “Just like EPA, it needs to include a disclaimer the estimates are based on ideal conditions.
In other words, Volt definitely will not perform the same way in Minnesota during the winter.
Also, your plug-in Prius info is based on the current generation, not the next coming in 2009 which offers improved efficiency.”
————————————————————————————–
Yes. Average combined MPG estimates would need a disclaimer. As always, your mileage may vary.
My understanding is that the Volt’s ICE will only come on to warm the battery at extremely low temperatures, like 40 degrees below zero. How often does it get that cold in Minnesota? If it only happens a 5-10 times a year, then it may not affect MPG that much.
Yes, I heard that the new 1.8L Prius gas engine will have equivalent or better efficiency than their current 1.5L, but I wasn’t able to find any thing more specific, so I used 2008 Prius data. Do you know what the 2009 Prius numbers will be?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
There is a Volt advertisement on the New York Times home page! Check it out!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
#135 DaveP
OT: I’m assuming you missed my post last week concerning your problems with ScheduleE. (I did it at the end and like here it’s easy to overlook).
ScheduleE seems to allow you the option of just putting the charger used for the EV on that schedule, leaving the rest of the on the existing schedule. Is this not the case?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Tagament:
(’Paulliana’): “Sigh, just another failed attempt at humor on my part. I’d written Pollyanna first and then saw that it was the wrong gender, so….”
If it helps, I got it. Quite amusing, actually …
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:09 pm
DaveP. #135:
Taking your analogy to its conclusion:
So if the Volt is the Lisa with 1MB of memory, and the mass consumer Volt2 is a mac with 128MB in your analogy, and battery prices are analogized to memory prices as in your model
then Volt2 will have a range of 5 miles electric?
I thought the whole point of the 40 mile range was to address the commuting habits of the masses? I.E., either buy the Lisa or make severe compromises?
I don’t think that is GMs plan, at least not when this white elephant was conceived.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
To the poster that thinks E85 is the fuel of the future, do a little reading.
Even if we convert all our food crops to ethanol, it wouldn’t put a dent in gas consumption.
Judging by the way food prices shot up when Bush subsidized ethanol production, fuel prices would be the least of our worries in an E85 economy.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
#150 jerry Says: “Even if we convert all our food crops to ethanol, it wouldn’t put a dent in gas consumption.”
————————————————————————————
This assumes you’re producing ethanol from food crops, which is the worst way to do it.
Do some reading on cellulosic ethanol and bio-diesel from algae. Here’s one example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ToojK_MJd0
Bottom line: Cellulosic ethanol and bio-diesel can provide at least 1/4 of our current transportation fuel needs without any affect on food supply. Combine this with 40 miles of all-electric range, and you have a viable plan to completely replace oil.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
#151 Dave G
Do you know what the what the water consumption is like realistically? I know water is a big limiting factor for nuclear.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
A paradigm shift is right. When can I get mine and when will GM start R&D for the hoverboard seen in Back to the Future 2? Imagine a car that runs on electricity, cellulosic ethanol, and hovers! That would be a revolution my friends!
America’s infrastructure woes just got solved with the “Hover-Volt”. No need for roads, bridges, or roundabouts!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
“”"”It will also be a compact car likely to cost around $42,000 when it goes on sale, a premium small car with unique style and performance, like the $46,000 BMW 135i or $44,000 Audi A3.”"”"”
Mark Phelan
I am very pro-Volt and liked Mark’s article, but we have to be realistic about what the Volt will be. Making people think this is a luxury car will lead to disappointment.
Pricing a car at $42k does not make it a luxury car. What you have is a $14k car (Chevy Cobalt) with a $28k electric drive. The Volt will have excellent acceleration off the line because of electric drive, but other than that, it will have little in common with BMWs or Audis.
The extra cost gets you gasoline savings and energy independence, but not luxury features.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
“”"This assumes you’re producing ethanol from food crops, which is the worst way to do it.
Bottom line: Cellulosic ethanol and bio-diesel can provide at least 1/4 of our current transportation fuel needs without any affect on food supply. Combine this with 40 miles of all-electric range, and you have a viable plan to completely replace oil.”"”
You are the one making the assumption. You are assuming cellulosic ethanol can be produced for under $10 per gallon. There is research in progress, but an efficient process may or may not be possible, within the laws of physics and chemistry.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Roads where were going we don’t need roads!
Sorry i couldn’t resist.
LOL
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
#154 Tom harwick
“The extra cost gets you gasoline savings and energy independence, but not luxury features.”
I have to disagree, the builtin bluetooth, nav,gps, and hard disk seems like high technology. I mean was i wrong or did i see a record button located near the audio controls. Not to mention everything else the dual 7 inch touch lcd monitors will do.
What describes luxury anyway?’
I’m sure there will be a option for leather?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
#154 Tom,
side note:
gasoline savings and energy independence, plus a litlle American pride is primarily why i’m buying this car anyway.
EDIT: Plus the enviroment, i got kids i owe it to.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I saw a post way up the thread from somebody who wants us all to watch “Who Killed…” and thinks this is all just an evil plot by GM.
Can’t find the post but I wanted to say something to everybody who still doesn’t believe the Volt will be produced.
GM just used the Volt as the poster-child for their next hundred years in automaking. They have spend huge amounts in its development. It now exists and is already being copied by other car makers racing to catch up.
GM is way beyond a point of no return. They must introduce the car now or…., well lets just say the Volt is coming to a dealer near you. In less than 2 years.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
“”"If you remember a while back there was a new process for getting the oxygen out of water in a very energy effective way. If they can come up with a way to do the same for the hydrogen, then it’s “possible” that electrical charging stations could use cost effective PV panels and fuel cells to produce and store electricity which could be used to charge EVs.”"”
This appears above as a quote of a quote, so I am not sure who originally wrote it. But the chemistry is a bit garbled. If there really were a revolutionary way to get oxygen from water, you would also get hydrogen. That’s why they call it H2O.
There is a real world process to do this, the process is called electrolysis and was discovered in the early 1800s.
But except in the dream world of the run your car on water scam sites, it takes more energy to extract hydrogen from water than you get by burning the hydrogen.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
GM is a big player doing the right thing with the Volt. It’s truly electrifying the auto industry and holding the (market) door open to more and larger capacity batteries.
Some revisionist history for Mac fans. Mac just cheaped up the Exxon Star system, albeit with their own machine and software. Xerox did all the original work. If I recall more or less correctly, a single Star workstation at the gov’t expo was quoted to me at about $10K. Macs came out a few years later at $2.5k. Business would not buy them because Apple was not a “name” company. IBM joined the PC fray with a plain vanilla machine and hired Microsoft to do the operating system. Business jumped on the PC and the gui interface only came out years later when MS slickered IBM by publishing Windows when the were supposed to be doing IBMs OS2.
So the analogies don’t hold well. The IBM pc with MS software killed all the competing systems and innovation in the pc industry except for struggling Apple and 3rd party software.
That’s not gonna happen in the car world. There’s just gonna be the quick and the dead. Nobody owns this market.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
You can extract hydrogen from water with solar cells overdriving anodes. It’s not real efficient but it does “store” solar energy, which is one of solar’s major problems. And this is why the new LI-ion batteries have so much promise in other applications.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
#139 Michael:
“Wheelbase (in / mm): 105.7 / 2685
Length (in / mm): 177 / 4404
Width (in / mm): 70.8 / 1798
Height (in / mm): 56.3 / 1430″
That’s encouraging! I’m a small car fan and these numbers are similar in width and almost 4 inches shorter than an ‘08 BMW 3-series. I won’t hold my breath that GM will make it handle like one…
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Who was asking about cellulosic ethanol? This process uses the stuff that would go into a landfill. They are ramping up to see if the process holds up to large scale, but it’s very promising – and GM has a stake in it.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/environment/2008-01-13-gm-ethanol-coskata_N.htm
Jackson: I knew you had a good sense of humor (g)
Be well,
Tag
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Statik:
Did you notice that GM stock got NO bump from the Volt/Centenial celebration but that halting the short-selling DID give it a bump?
Not a good sign about their over financials. Quite frankly, I had bet that they would go up from the Volt buzz…guess I was wrong. I STILL would rather invest in American companies that actually MAKE something instead of all these paper pushing companies. Let the investment houses burn, they never made something you could touch or eat. The bailouts are criminal. We live in primitive times, make sure you can touch what you own!
But hey, smile, we’re all executives now, baby! We are now majority owners in AIG via the infinite wisedom of my government and my tax money. Perhaps I’ll take my company jet up to come see you soon, Statik!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
#152 DonC Says: “Do you know what the what the water consumption is like realistically? I know water is a big limiting factor for nuclear.”
————————————————————————————-
For bio-diesel from algae, using an open pond system, the main problem is water. But using a closed loop bio-reactor system, water is not a big problem. There’s no evaporation, and most of the water is re-used.
For cellulosic ethanol, I don’t know if water is a problem. There’s still a lot of production tuning and some research to go here.
But in either case, they need investment in order to progress to the next stage. If gas goes down to $1.87 / gallon, nobody will want $3 ethanol or bio-diesel. That’s why we need a minimum price for oil, to encourage free market investment.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
#121 DonC
Though I’m an EV advocate I don’t agree with this. To get your 250 mile range you’d need about a 90 kW pack. Presently that isn’t realistic. It’s going to take at least four or five years to double the energy density to get a 32 kW pack with 26 kW of effective power in a commercial application like a car.
—–
You are assuming the Volt’s conversion numbers here, which has to allow for hauling around/managing the gas component and GM specific performance goals…the Volt has the worse range per kW of any EV project real or imagined in a passenger car.
If you use the iMiev as a baseline, getting 100ish miles from a 16kW (I use -ish, because real world returns are coming back in the 85-89 range), the math is certainly different…you’d only need a 40kW pack.
I tried to split the difference and go with 60kW…certainly a EV geared for range could easily get 250 on 60kW if it was desired.
I do agree with taking 5 years to double capacity to 32, and maybe another 3-4 to get 60, considering the ramp up to be accelerating. 2016-2017 range. Considering the Volt will not be built in any capacity until at least 2014ish…thats not alot of time. (2011-10K, 2012, 2013 @ 60K)
You are absolutely right of course about gas not going away, especially in applications such as truck/haulers.
—————————
#124 Tag
I know, I seen the H-word…I’m hoping it goes away quietly, lol.
————————–
#128 RB
“$83 statik says “As the resident Paulianna,…”
–I was quoting Tag, I’m no ‘Paulianna’
(=
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
A bit off topic but…
Production Chevy Volt will be coming to So Cal next weekend. It will be displayed at the AltCar Expo in Santa Monica. Can’t wait to go and check out the Volt and other Electric cars in the works.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/uptospeed/2008/09/altcar-electric.html
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Just some thoughts one this topic and some of the responses:
1. GM made the Volt a Chevy as a symbolic gesture to show that this technology was going to become their mainstream drive system.
2. The only “Specs” that I ever heard was that we would get 40 miles on electric alone before a “small” gas engine kicked in as a range extender.
3. No Plug No Sale. If enough people do that, there won’t be a Volt or a GM. I bought a new Malibu a few weeks ago. My first GM car in 25 years. My dad retired from GM and I could have gotten the full employee discount but there was never a GM car I was willing to buy. Finally, that is no longer true.
4. Hopefully, the costs of batteries will plummet like everyone is predicting. I’ve never really understood why li/Ion batteries are so darn expensive. A similar size (volume and weight) NiMH battery is about 1/4 the cost.
5. I think that any government support should be contingent on there being no dealer markup. The logic being that if you are able to pay the dealer markup you don’t need any government help to buy the car.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Tagamet “Sigh, just another failed attempt at humor on my part. I’d written Pollyanna first and then saw that it was the wrong gender, so….”
Not at all a failure. It was pretty good actually.
Reading #83 (statik), I understood that Pauliana was the male variant of Pollyanna. My query related to Pollyanna was that she always saw things more positively than others Thus as regards Statik, who occasionally has been said to see things otherwise, the query, “is Pauliana” Pollyanna’s dark side cousin?
I made that error because I was reading only #83 (statik) rather than #80, the self-reference by you, the originator.
That is, the confusion arose because of the error by me in understanding who was being renamed
Now I see that deep literacy and subtle alllusion was present.. My fault.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
#135 Dave P
#110 Statik:
Actually, I really think the Volt isn’t the Mac at all. It’s more like the Lisa. The Lisa was everything that people think about Macs but the original ones weren’t (for the better part of the decade). But the macs had a big advantage on price. The Lisa cost $10,000 bucks ($20k in today’s money!).
The reason? In no small part it was because that memory was expensive. The macs had 128k and the Lisas had 1MB. The Lisa functionality was superb, however. It did what no other computer could do, and companies bought them even at those prices.
And for full disclosure, I actually do own a Lisa 2/10 office system.
————-
You know, I was going to go down the road and reference the Lisa, but I thought I’d be wasting my time. That was a great computer. Unfortunately the price was a big inhibitor on a personal level, it enjoyed some professional success.
Then in late 84 (I think ?) IBM put out its monster the AT at half the price. The start of the 286s…and a sea of clones with ‘AT’ in the title, because IBM couldn’t get it patented. Came stock with 512 RAM as I believe, expandable to 3MB. And fantastic 64 color EGA, lol.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
#165 biodieseljeep
Statik:
Did you notice that GM stock got NO bump from the Volt/Centenial celebration but that halting the short-selling DID give it a bump?
But hey, smile, we’re all executives now, baby! We are now majority owners in AIG via the infinite wisedom of my government and my tax money. Perhaps I’ll take my company jet up to come see you soon, Statik!
———————-
Well, at least you can’t short GM for a few weeks, lol. The AIG jet is probably alot safer way to travel now they have the parachutes installed.
(=
#170 RB
—
Yet another thread has meandered far far away.
I appreciate your literary insight though.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I didn’t see it on this thread (but may have been mentioned already), but Tesla is scrapping it’s Volt program. From reading the article it seems their batt technology is great for 225 miles between charges, but not the sub 40 mile charge that Chevy is looking at. So they would have needed to get new chemistry to compete. I’m assuming they also saw the volt debut and said “crap” can we do that for $40K? Better stick to what we do well. Also, they are looking for some $175 million in venture capitol to make their new factory. I never much saw the tesla REV as a contender with the volt anyway. If toyota however can deliver a gen 3 prius that can run 40 miles electric before the gasser starts up I think GM may get some competition. If GM can deliver I think they might have a good year or two on their closest competition but that’s JMHO.
http://greenlight.greentechmedia.com/2008/09/18/tesla-kills-its-gas-electric-hybrid-586/
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:14 pm
The Free Press has someone with a brain? I don’t believe it.
No one can predict the actual battery of the future, just yet. Might be some inventions on the way to change that soon.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
RB@170 Re the whole Poly/Paulie shtick Your post may well have set a new Olympic record for convolutions (lol). No mean feat given a lot of the posts here!
I’ve come to the following conclusion:
When I feel like trying to be funny, I should definitely fight the urge (lol).
Statik Re the comment on the iMev’s more efficient use of electrons:
It simply doesn’t take as much energy to power a roller skate. Seriously, aren’t you more likely to actually enjoy a Volt?
And please never forget that I’m the one that predicts a 7/4/2010 release of the Volt v1.0. But hey, what do I know, I’m just the resident Pa….Poll….er…
Be well,
Tag
LJGTVWOTR!! NPNS
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Thanks Mike #168…
I’ll be there with my son. He is age 17 and likes the black Volt.
http://santamonicacivicauditorium.org/facility/index.html?description.html
Alt-Car Expo – September 26 & 27
Friday & Saturday 10am-5pm
For Info: 310-390-2930 ext. 3
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Nice article.
Nice photo. With every new photo from a new angle I feel more positive about the styling.
As to the price, the tax credits, the dealer “markups”, et al, I think that we just have to sweat it out and see what happens if and when the Volt ever trickles down to the level of the likes of me. I’m tired of worrying about it. I’ll just do the math whan the time comes.
We paid $24K for our Impala in 1995, and were happy to do it because we thought it made a statement. I hate to think what that would be in 2008 $, but it’s probably a good way to put it in perspective
Anyway, LJGTVWOTR!! NPNS!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Nixon @ 134, yes the message is not yet clear. Too bad “wiser minds” nixed the 600 mile range (12 gallon gas tank), because that was distinctive enough to cause focus the whole package. I read it has a 8 gallon tank, but have seen no confirmation. It true, they could push the “over 400 mile range” feature.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
For those who are concerned about the price of oil and how it might affect the development and production of cars like the Volt, you have no need to worry. Oil just jumped $16.37 to over $120 a barrel today, Its biggest one-day jump in history. That erased most of the price drops over the past few months, and should remind everyone that in the long term, the cost of oil and gas will continue to increase.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Uh, I just realized something horrible. Unless I am missing something, GM has snookered us on the 40 mile AER range figure. It used to be 40mile AER based on the US06 aggressive driving cycle that we were told in previous GM quotes most closely matched typical drivers out there. This is in line with the change in the EPA MPG estimates that were changed in 2008, and resulted in large drops of most vehicle MPG estimates they could advertise the car with. NOW, GM tells us it’s 40miles AER on CITY cycle estimates. This is a BIG difference. US06 cycle estimates would be 28-30miles AER for this range now. See the link below for full details, but read this text from the GM article where their head of hybrid powertrain describes how the City cycle does NOT equal to what most drivers drive in real life. In short, the power required for the CITY cycle is HALF of what is required for the US06 cycle, and even 70% of most drivers are above the HIGHWAY cycle which is way above the CITY cycle requirement. Someone PLEASE tell me how this is not a bait and switch and that GM has not changed the definition of 40miles AER on us.
Aricle Quote from Green Fuels Forecast:
–More aggressive acceleration requires more energy and drives up the energy intensity value. Corresponding energy intensity values were computed based on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urban, highway and aggressive (US06 ) driving cycles that are used for testing vehicle emissions and fuel consumption in the United States. The data from the test subjects was plotted against the test cycles and the results clearly showed that the vast majority of drivers drive well beyond what is measured in the older EPA cycles.
The EPA urban and highway driving cycles have a standard sequence of accelerations and decelerations to various speeds along with steady state driving. The rates of acceleration on the test sequences are generally very mild, much lower than typical American driving. The data clearly shows only 15 percent of drivers running at or below energy intensity levels equivalent to the EPA city cycle with more than 70 percent exceeding the even the highway cycle. The US06 cycle is at about a 95th percentile level compared to real world drivers.
See the full article and key graph here:
http://www.greenfuelsforecast.com/ArticleDetails.php?articleID=457
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
To post number 110. Actaully I believe your wrong about the tipping point to the hybrid being obsolete. People will always want an onboard generator until fast charge batteries are energy dense, cheap, and reliable. Maybe not everyone will need it, but if people can’t fast charge their cars in a reasonable amount of time for the occasional long trip it would severely hamper it’s success. If you had a quick charge (15 minutes or less) battery that would definitely squeeze out all hybrids except maybe for commercial vehicles. Regardless of range you’ll need to be able to charge any pure EV quickly for it to be truly successful. I think with the ability to quick charge a 100 mile range would be enough to convert almost all commuter cars to EV without any serious compromise to utility.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
>> My understanding is that the Volt’s ICE will only come on to warm the battery at extremely low temperatures, like 40 degrees below zero.
The source probably meant to say “below 40″ not “40 below”. Li-Ion chemistry responds differently when it is colder than freezing (32°F). So, the fact temperatures can go weeks at a time much lower than that, changes engine behavior in Volt dramatically for us in the north.
Realistically, there will be a short engine warm-up every evening after work. After all, how long can you tolerate a car that’s been sitting in a parking lot all day before the heater pumps out some heat?
.
>> Do you know what the 2009 Prius numbers will be?
No, and the new model will be a 2010. It is expected to bump motionless-engine travel (electric-only) up to 100 km/h (62.1 MPH), so efficiency improvement won’t be coming from just the better engine.
Whatever the case, Prius & Volt enthusiasts want the same thing… lower battery cost. Unfortunately, by how much and the amount of time required are details glossed-over in the article.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Len # 25
I tried to email you but your address didn’t take….I have 16 new 6 volt US 145’s to power the motor……I think the car is one of 3 factory built by the Electric Vehicle Corporation.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
>> If toyota however can deliver a gen 3 prius that can run 40 miles electric before the gasser starts up I think GM may get some competition.
Electric-Only range is basically a red-herring for FULL hybrids (no way for direct comparison to SERIES hybrids), since the added battery capacity is used for MPG BOOST instead.
So how competition ends up emerging is a big mystery. Most likely, the sticker price will play a major role in sales… but that will be impossible to measure for Volt until supply catches up with demand. Odds are, those first few years will have lengthy back-orders like Prius… preventing any way to gauge actual market size.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
#179 Van:
yes the message is not yet clear. Too bad “wiser minds” nixed the 600 mile range (12 gallon gas tank), because that was distinctive enough to cause focus the whole package. I read it has a 8 gallon tank, but have seen no confirmation. It true, they could push the “over 400 mile range” feature.
————————————————————————————–
It may be true that the average Joe doesn’t understand that the Volt can go far more than 40 miles without stopping, but I don’t think increasing the fuel tank capacity will make a positive difference. After all, most cars on the road already have a 400+ mile range, so focusing on that would not set the Volt apart from gas-only cars. The key is to hammer home both points, so that consumers realize that they get the advantages of electric and gasoline-powered cars in one package.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 5:16 pm
______________________________________________________
What fuel to power the VOLT Revolution?
The current fuel source options to power an EV/E-REV are all derived from nuclear energy. It is just an issue of at what point along the energy transition continuum the fuel/energy is extracted. Oil (nuclear energy converted to sunlight converted to bio-mass, then aged over millions of years under pressure) can be thought of as to be at one end of the energy transition continuum and nuclear energy (the process that generates sunlight) is at the other end of the energy transition continuum. Corn ethanol is a close neighbor to oil (both are bio-fuels) except corn ethanol is closer towards the nuclear energy side of the energy transition continuum than oil is because the process to create ethanol does not require the additional transitional component of time/pressure. PV electrical energy is one step closer (than is corn ethanol) to the nuclear energy side of the energy transition continuum because PV energy does not require the bio-mass transitional component. In this sense, all fuel source options for the VOLT Revolution are derived from a common starting point: nuclear energy. It would seem to me that the further one travels along the energy transition continuum towards the energy starting point (nuclear energy), the closer one is at arriving at the most assured (secure) energy source/fuel.
I know…simple logic from an overly simple mind.
_____________________________________________________
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September 22nd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
#167 Statik -”If you use the iMiev as a baseline, getting 100ish miles from a 16kW (I use -ish, because real world returns are coming back in the 85-89 range), the math is certainly different…you’d only need a 40kW pack.”
This strikes me as being (gasp) unrealistic, which is so unlike you! Where is your skepticism when we need it? Could it be that Paullyanna Tag is rubbing off on you? LOL
While the i-Miev has that cute bubble look, I doubt it’s going to be much more aerodynamic than the Volt, assuming it’s more aerodynamic at all. So you have to double the range on the basis of frictional losses. Those small wheels don’t look like the i-Miev will have a great CoRR, and how much less can it weigh? Assuming we’d have the same CoRR, even a thousand pounds less would only cut out 35-36 Newtons, which at 40 mph (18m/sec) would use 650 watts less (over an hour less than 1kW).
The reviewer said they got less than 60 miles on a real test drive. We don’t know how much of the pack they used but my guess is something around 60% – 70%, which I think would have to be scaled back for NA driving where 12,0000 miles a year wouldn’t be unusual.
I think the Volt’s 5 mile/ kWh is a decent starting point. I’m sure it will improve but not by leaps and bounds (unless you’re willing to go with something like the Aptera). I’d think the bigger range hike will be attributable to being able to use much more of the pack as the energy density increases. The first doubling should give you 3-4 times the range. After that it will be linear.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
180 VoltZealot – “GM tells us it’s 40miles AER on CITY cycle estimates. This is a BIG difference. US06 cycle estimates would be 28-30miles AER for this range now.”
——————————————————-
Interesting…An smart electric car which must be driven with care, to get the best mileage. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
This is a chance to not only ween Americans off of oil, but to ween them off of driving like a bunch of crazy cowboys. Simple – install a loud warning tone and a force feedback shaker unit in the steering wheel, which would go off whenever the Volt was driven in an aggressive manner. The warning tone would override any radio and bluetooth sound system, and should not stop until careful driving has resumed.
The Volt should be smart enough (with Onstar assistance) to know what the speed limit is on any given road (many GPS units have this feature), and alert the driver if the Volt exceeds this limit by a given threshold. The Volt owner absolutely SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED to override or disable any of these features. Any tampering with the safety system should disable the Volt’s operating system, until reactivated by an authorized Chevrolet dealer.
The Volt is smart enough to look out for the driver’s best interests. Let’s make it happen, GM !
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September 22nd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
#188 Zen
If saving fuel when gas costs $5 a gallon doesn’t change driving habits why am I thinking that saving electricity at the equivalent of 50 cents a gallon isn’t going to do it either?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 5:35 pm
#175 Tag says “When I feel like trying to be funny, I should definitely fight the urge (lol).”
No, no, no please! The literary allusion watch has been the most interesting thing all day. Thanks!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Dave G #155: “Cellulosic ethanol and bio-diesel can provide at least 1/4 of our current transportation fuel needs without any affect on food supply. Combine this with 40 miles of all-electric range, and you have a viable plan to completely replace oil.”
Cellulosic ethanol is a better option but tell me, if it is going to replace oil, how does it address the other 75% of our needs? Increasing mpg only slows oil consumption, it doesn’t erase it. To erase it we need an alternative fuel that replaces oil. Like all electric.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
#187 DonC
While the i-Miev has that cute bubble look, I doubt it’s going to be much more aerodynamic than the Volt, assuming it’s more aerodynamic at all. So you have to double the range on the basis of frictional losses. Those small wheels don’t look like the i-Miev will have a great CoRR, and how much less can it weigh?
———–
ALOT less.
Volt – 3,520 lbs
iMiev- 2,380 lbs
Difference: 1,140
http://greentechfor.us/tag/imiev/
I have no source on the co-eff, but I believe from the original press junket it was .24…I’ll try to hunt it down.
There is some confusion on range, because original concepts/fleets had a different battery chemisty, giving it only 80 ‘max’ mile ranges (which ended up being high 60s lol). They swapped out the old packs for the new ‘production alike’ GS Yuasa packs in early 2008.
What you still see is toolbag reporters, that are too lazy to update stats, like this guy: http://ecotechdaily.com/2008/08/08/the-daily-five-friday-8-august-2008-2/ –who references this current autoblog article as its source, http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/08/07/mitsubishi-imiev-to-get-tested-in-california/ from August 2008 which clearly has the new info:
“The advanced lithium-ion battery is developed by the Mitsubishi Motors Corporation / Mitsubishi Corporation / GS Yuasa joint venture company, Lithium Energy Japan. LEJ represents the leading edge in battery technology and promises up to 100 miles*1 of zero-emissions, economical driving on a single charge when packaged in the i MiEV.”
——————
SPECS:
Maximum speed 130km/h (80 mph)
Driving range 100 miles (160km)
Number of seats 4
Weight – 1,080kg (2380 lbs)
Motor
Permanent magnet synchronous electric motor mounted in the rear
Maximum continuous power 47 kW
Torque – 180 Nm
Battery
Lithium-ion 22 large format modules
Energy capacity – 16kWh
Supplier – GS Yuasa Corporation in Japan
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
#162 Shawn Marshall Says: “You can extract hydrogen from water with solar cells overdriving anodes. It’s not real efficient but it does “store” solar energy, which is one of solar’s major problems.”
————————————————————————————-
Storing solar energy is not necessary, so it’s not a problem.
Demand for electricity is 2 times higher during daylight hours. If everyone’s home roof was crammed with solar cells, we could easily provide over 50% of our electricity from solar without any storage at all. The remaining night-time demand can be covered by:
• Wind
• Geo-thermal
• Waves
• Hydro
• Nuclear
• etc.
The point is that using solar power without any storage could eliminate our emissions for electricity, if it is complimented with other power sources at night.
The only major problem with solar is the cost of the solar panels.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I’ve seen lots of talk about the battery technology that’s going into the Volt, and that’s important and obviously where a lot of the interest lies.
But what about the rest of the powertrain? Will it be direct-drive, or will there be a transmission? What type of transmission? GM’s new six-speed, or a CVT?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
# 188, if everyone drove the speed limit what would the fast lanes be used for? Sounds pretty boring to me. Complacent drivers cause more accidents anyway because they rarely pay as much attention to the road as aggressive drivers do. Besides I like to see your face when I pass you going 85 in my vw bus … down a big hill with a nice tail wind on a straight away
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:26 pm
#166 Dave G – I don’t think cheap gas is going to be an issue for awhile. Oil jumped $25 per barrel today to end at about $130.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I hadn’t thought about the VOLT in this context until I read this post. Has anyone read the book “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell?
The VOLT will be a new case study for Mr. Gladwell.
In the ‘Tipping Point’ he outlines three rules of epidemics. They are ‘the law of the few’, ‘the stickiness factor’ and ‘the power of context’. In the ‘Law of the Few’, Mr. Gladwell outlines why the success of any Social Epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social skills. He describes these people as ‘Connectors’ – people with a special ability to bring people together; ‘Mavens’ – people who become information specialists, or people we rely on to bring us new information; and ‘Salesmen’ – those persuasive, charismatic people with powerful negotiation skills who can change public opinion one by one.
The really cool thing is that THIS SITE is ground zero of the VOLT’s Tipping Point. Lyle is our Connector and he is constantly seeking out the Mavens who have inside information on the VOLT. Each one of us blogging on this site, and all those who will be fortunate enough to take delivery of a new VOLT in year one, are the Salesmen who will bring the VOLT revolution to the streets.
Let’s face it – up until the VOLT, U.S. consumers universe of transportation choices burned petroleum (unless they choose to pedal a bike). The VOLT is a true game changer and will have long-term effects on society. Kudos to General Motors and their current leadership for having the foresight and stamina to bring this product to life.
The Tipping Point is near, and you are all a part of it. Enjoy the ride! And if you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it!!!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:30 pm
#192 Statik
Hey, my guess of 1000 pounds was pretty good, eh?
You have to take the mileage figures that come out of Japan with a huge grain of salt. They just use such different cycles to calculate mpg or range. Remember that the Prius gets almost twice the EPA estimated 46 mpg combined using the Japanese tests. I used the 60 mile range because if I remember correctly this is what the reporter who test drove the i-Miev actually got. I think this was in Japan.
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/FirstDrives/articleId=124867
My skepticism on the aerodynamics is that the Cd on a VW Beetle is around .38/.39. The round shape looks similar to me. The i-Miev may have a small frontal area which is good but it doesn’t seem stretched enough. But you know, it’s hard to guess CdA just by looking unless you’re good at it and I’m not.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
#193 Dave G
Storing solar energy is not necessary, so it’s not a problem.
Demand for electricity is 2 times higher during daylight hours. If everyone’s home roof was crammed with solar cells, we could easily provide over 50% of our electricity from solar without any storage at all. The remaining night-time demand can be covered by:
• Wind
• Geo-thermal
• Waves
• Hydro
• Nuclear
• etc.
The point is that using solar power without any storage could eliminate our emissions for electricity, if it is complimented with other power sources at night.
The only major problem with solar is the cost of the solar panels.
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Just wanted to say I’m behind you 100%. Solar is…has got to be the answer, or at least the main component in power generation for the future, coupled with wind, hydro, etc for when the sun is down. It seems like such a no brainer.
Solar is so simple, and costing is finally coming down…even forgetting about the ‘unicorn’ thin-film $1/watt technology that seems impossible to acquire. (I’m sure it will happen…but you’ll grow old waiting on it to be available to the general public).
You can get amorphous panelling now at $2.90/w, which is pretty good…and traditional panelling from about $3.40/w. The government seems to be willing to throw $7,000 at anyone who buys a electric car, can you imagine if they threw a straight dollar for dollar rebate at purchasing raw solar panels…now there is a revolution.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
#180 VoltZealot
I know aggressive driving cuts down ICE fuel economy. Are you saying that electric motors are comparably inefficient under aggressive driving?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
People still don’t get it…..
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1531
Here Chris Paine (who kill the electric car) is interviewed by Ron Reagan.
Ron Reagan completely did not get the idea of the Volt. Chris didn’t do the best job of explaining it either. Indeed Ron so badly misunderstood the concept that he effectively (accidentally) slandered the Volt.
Oh it can only do 40 miles…
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
#196 Michael
I don’t think cheap gas is going to be an issue for awhile. Oil jumped $25 per barrel today to end at about $130.
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The world is not so crazy about America just strolling up to the window and ponying out 700 billion to bailout, well…everyone (I know thats not true, but it feels like it to them anyway). I will mention that oil did settle at $120.92, up $16.37. ($25.45 was the peak–either way, a all time record).
The dollar took a MASSIVE hit (dropping over 2% against most currencies…specifically the Euro) and gold rose $44 to boot.
The problem is that the government has to borrow big time to pay for the bailouts, which of course causes…inflation, which of course devalues the dollar, which means everyone flocks to commodities.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
#191 jerry Says: “Cellulosic ethanol is a better option but tell me, if it is going to replace oil, how does it address the other 75% of our needs? Increasing mpg only slows oil consumption, it doesn’t erase it. To erase it we need an alternative fuel that replaces oil. Like all electric.”
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Using the yearly driving template from post #107, 84% of a typical Volt drivers miles will be all-electric. The remaining 16% can be easily covered by cellulosic ethanol.
17% of our oil use is for diesel. This can be covered by bio-diesel from algae. In fact, if they can get closed loop algae bio-reactors to work in the desert with little water, the sky is the limit. See here for details:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ToojK_MJd0
The point is that it will be a combination new technologies that solve our energy needs.
Everyone seems to be looking for one “silver bullet”. If a new technology comes along that doesn’t completely solve all of our energy needs, people seem to write it off. This is the wrong approach.
We need to look for a complimentary set of technologies to solve our energy needs. That is what the Volt is all about. Using a gas/E85 piston engine together with an all-electric drive train is a perfect example of combining different technologies for maximum effect.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
#201 Statik – You are correct. I read the article on oil wrong and picked up on the high for the day instead of the end of the day. I just knew that Dave G’s $1.87 per gallon wasn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future. I went out and filled up the family car just before the stations started raising their prices here. It was $3.429 first thing this morning.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:02 pm
DaveG #202
Generally, I agree with you. You make sense.
“Using a gas/E85 piston engine together with an all-electric drive train is a perfect example of combining different technologies for maximum effect.”
This isn’t new btw. Putting a generator behind an electric drive train to charge batteries for longer trips would not get you a patent, so I still question if the Volt is the revolution, or silver bullet everyone here thinks it is.
I think the problem with this approach has been cost (even before the Volt was announced).
http://www.acpropulsion.com/vehicles/gallery.htm
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:06 pm
#196 Michael Says: “I don’t think cheap gas is going to be an issue for awhile. Oil jumped $25 per barrel today to end at about $130″
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The point is that oil prices are volatile. They go up and down very quickly. So even if oil prices stay high forever, just the possibility that it could go down will prevent a lot of people from considering investments in alternative energy.
For example, if the government sets a minimum price for gas of $3/gallon, and gas never gets that low again, then the government may never collect any import taxes, but the government would eventually collect additional taxes from new businesses created by investments in new sources of energy.
In other words, even if you and I don’t think it’s probable, it’s the possibility of oil prices falling that prevents investment.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
#203 Michael
“#201 Statik – You are correct. I read the article on oil wrong and picked up on the high for the day instead of the end of the day. I just knew that Dave G’s $1.87 per gallon wasn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future. I went out and filled up the family car just before the stations started raising their prices here. It was $3.429 first thing this morning.”
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Either way, it’s not good right? Hehe.
The problem is this is day 1 of the ‘new era,’ we could be looking at it spinning out of control, new fundamentals and precidents taking control…or we could see it level off tomorrow and hold. The market is a funny thing.
I’m be in the camp of the dollar continuing to weaken (although not anything ridiculous—another 7-10% on the USD Index over the next 12-18 months), and inflation to rear its head almost immediately and to really grab hold in 2009.
I think we do have a over supply issue in oil though (especially if we are slipping into a global recession), which will probably temper the dollar’s volitility…so I figure we probably see it bouncing between $3-$4 for the near future.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
#194 ChipH Says: “But what about the rest of the powertrain? Will it be direct-drive, or will there be a transmission? What type of transmission? GM’s new six-speed, or a CVT?”
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Last summer, GM said there would be no transmission, but there might be some sort of permanent gear reduction or something.
Now within the last week or so, we’re hearing from Bob Lutz that the Volt’s transmission will be like nothing anyone has ever thought of. In addition, the Volt’s shifter display has the letters:
P R N D M
I’m still trying to figure out what the M is for. Maybe this is also part of Lutz’s surprise.
In any event, given the wide range of torque from the inductive electric motor, I think it’s a safe bet that it won’t be a 6 speed or a CVT, as this would be over-kill.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:30 pm
>> I’m still trying to figure out what the M is for.
Consider the system in Camry-Hybrid. It’s a two-speed. Rather than the electric motor attaching to a reduction-gear, there’s a planetary-gear instead. That allows for electric “down shifting”.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
RE statik #199
Can you say where you can get retail solar panels for $3.40/w please.
I am a huge solar enthusiast (I have about 13KW of PV – enough for electric, heat pumps, and Volt). But I have not seen retail panels available in quantity at $3.40 per panel (assuming large panels like 150W — 220W sizes).
Seriously please tell me, I know people that would love to buy them at that price. Typical price that I am aware of last I checked a matter of weeks ago was about $1 higher.
I suspect that $3.40 is more like the wholesale price for cells, but please show me that I’m wrong.
thanks
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:47 pm
a $25 dollar jump in one day in the price of oil. The Volt cannot come soon enough.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 7:58 pm
How many watts will it take for the Volt to toot its own horn?
I just finished speed reading the 200+ posts on this thread….holy crap!
Lots of good, bad and the ugly (whistle…whistle…whistle…..wahh…wahh…wahh) I loved that movie.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 8:01 pm
#209 Mark Bartosik
RE statik #199:Can you say where you can get retail solar panels for $3.40/w please. I am a huge solar enthusiast (I have about 13KW of PV – enough for electric, heat pumps, and Volt). But I have not seen retail panels available in quantity at $3.40 per panel (assuming large panels like 150W — 220W sizes).
Seriously please tell me, I know people that would love to buy them at that price. Typical price that I am aware of last I checked a matter of weeks ago was about $1 higher.I suspect that $3.40 is more like the wholesale price for cells, but please show me that I’m wrong.
thanks
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Hiya! Wow, 13kW is a bunch. I thought I had alot at 6kW. Just curious, what is your average daily production, sounds like you have a bunch of different brands/makes tied together…was curious about the efficiency/setup. I’m just over 25kW in Toronto.
Happy to send you some linkage. For standard panels, Sun Electronics out of Florida is the place to go. I just checked up to the minute pricing. $3.48/w.
http://sunelec.com/index.html (About halfway down the page…they import them from Germany (who are the ‘kings of solar’), and yes, they are eligible for rebate…and have about the the highest rated power specs I’ve seen. (They have a data sheet I on the sight for them).
You can get amorphous panels at just under $3.00/w. I was quoted $2.90 about 8 months ago (I was looking to do the roof of my business at the time…I think the quantity was about 10kW…I don’t know if they have price breaks at certain levels). I ended up putting that on hold as I have liquified all my assets to cash/munis because the market scares the heck out of me.
The drawback of course it that you need more room…about 250% more…a 60W panel is about 3′x3′ (I’m running 200w Sharps, a little larger than 5′x3′)
Here is the specs on it:
http://www.atensolar.com/20.html
But here is where you buy it cheap (these guys know what they are doing, I picked a installer of theirs brain when I was ‘do-it myselfing’:
http://cms.krannich-solar.com/usa/english/products/solar-panels/startpage-solar-panels.html
/hope that helps.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
RE 212 Statik:
Thanks!
Here’s a link to my install http://tinyurl.com/4h3sm7
This may make the difference in whether someone I know will be able to install or not so much appreciated. Of course it makes me feel a little sick give then price I paid, but I had mine installed 2 years ago. Here’s my setup:
I have about 9KW of Open Energy solar tiles, try counting the tiles for the exact size! I think that this is still the largest RESIDENTIAL install in the USA or Canada of these tiles. It might also still be the only install on the east of USA of these tiles so far. I had to modify the install to reach 120 mph wind rating (only need 80 mph for most of west coast).
Plus 4.8KW of 24 Kyocera KC200 panels on the back.
The Kyocera panels are almost flat on the rear roof (point a little north east, but only 7 degree pitch so essentially flat). I got 5550KWh last year out of these (i.e. STC x 1150h)
The Open Energy (www.openenergycorp.com) system faces west and on a steep pitch (about 40 degrees) so the available sun shine is about 25% or 30% less because it does not face south. I only got about STC x 900h on these.
I fitted the Open Energy tiles on a raised baton system with a ridge vent to exhaust heat. I just wish that I had fitted some PEX piping before the tiles to heat water too (and cool the tiles).
I have 3 SMA 3800 inverters.
My peak power output was about 11KW but only for minutes, must have been a cold sunny day. I can generate over 56KWh in a day, I forget the highest figure. Of course on a really dull day I might not generate 1KWh.
Currently I’m on target for 100% of energy needs (inc electric cooking and heat pumps for heat). The house is 1962 build. This year I upgraded windows to Quad glazing (www.alpeneg.com) which should get me to zero energy.
I may need to install solar thermal to save water heating power enough to power my Volt.
Statik, are you taking part in the solar tour on October 4th (www.nationalsolartour.org) ??
My email: mbartosik at ya hoo .com
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September 22nd, 2008 at 10:49 pm
#213
Oh…the racking, makes my back hurt looking at it all. I’m not so attuned to solar tiles, for pricing, efficiency, etc.. Looks to me like you are would get aroud 60w per 7 square foot at optimal south face lat -15 tilt. Pretty interesting…nothing I had ever considered, I’ll have to brush up on it.
The Kyocera is a nice panel…’easy’ setup. It’s too bad on the direction of your house, you are paying quite a premium for it. The flatness of the panels probably dings you about 20% of your maximum juice?
I’m guessing that by averaging around 3.2/day on them and losing maybe a kW on your angles…you are pretty close to my latitude-44?
I confess I have no idea what the solar tour is, heeh. Is that a US only thing? I only draw about 15-18 kW/day so I am well into the positive…only because I don’t attempt ‘heating’
Can’t wait for those ‘prime’ generating days in December, sigh. I ‘might’ average 12kW for the month.
My ’solar project’ will have to be restarted unfortunately as I am moving (I am in full capital preserbation mode in this real estate market..in Ontario we are just ‘flat’ atm, but it is getting scary).
The new place is very limited on good areas for exposure on the house itself and has about a third the area (and the wife likes trees). ..so I’m looking into getting a couple of two-axis sun trackers.
Each rack will hold about 2 kW, they are about $1,500 a pop by them time actually get delivered (then install, more $, sigh)…but should give me about a third better efficiency. I should get…I hope to get about 5.8 kWh/m2 average…but thats a ’spring’ job, if I pull the trigger on it.
/clearly this is a ‘end of thread’ discussion, lol
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