Why not convert the entire Saturn division to work the Volt drive-train into a variety of cars that people will want?

“It seems now, they’ve retracted the former explanation,and now say that after the 40-ish mile electric capability is over, all battery powered power is over.Done.”

Yes this is the real world, once a battery is out of electricity, that’s it no more electricity.

It switchs to the generator after the battery runs out but you don’t want the generator to charge up the battery because you’ll burn gas to charge up the battery when you could just charge up later at home. The range extender’s job is to just keep you going and use as little gasoline as possible until you get home.

“This is going to be a big debacle for the General, not it’s saviour as advertised. My Prius will run a 1,000 mile trip and transfer between ICE and electric power based upon load and charge. The Volt will go 40 miles on all electric then burn gas all the rest of the 960 miles to my destination. Sorry GM, please go back to the drawing board.”

Look, I drive a prius also but I’m not a dumb prius groupie like you. Who drives 1,000 miles? Tell me who does that. Maybe taxi drivers but normal people drive around 35 miles per day. That is a fact and I actually drive a bit less, so as soon as I trade in my PRIUS for a new VOLT I will cut my gasoline consumption down by about 80 percent.

The volt is going to be a much better car than the prius and will allow most people to eliminate ALL of their gasoline consumption. The prius will still be one of the best cars on the road, but it will not be the best anymore.

“The moral of the Volt story is just what Grandma taught us all: If it looks too good to be true-IT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.”

The moral of the story you just taught us is that, illegal DRUGS ARE BAD AND THEY FRY THE BRAIN.

GM recharges for the future

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080925.whGMmain0925/BNStory/specialGlobeAuto

The Volt only goes 40 miles on a charge. Period. In 2007 while touring the Volt Concept all over the world, GM’s press releases proudly exclaimed that the three cylinder, turbocharged ICE would run at a constant rpm after the car’s drive batteries were depleted to recharge the batteries. Today, GM issued a new detail – to go along with the production version rollout. It seems now, they’ve retracted the former explanation,and now say that after the 40-ish mile electric capability is over, all battery powered power is over.Done.

So now-as GM has pulled this shell game over on all of us, the Volt sits as a piece that is unable to charge it’s batteries beyond keeping them at a level charge above damaging them, but not capable of continuing on your trip on electric. So who cares if a little three cylinder turbo is fueling an electric motor—IT’S DOING SO ON GAS GAS GAS!!!!

This means TOYOTA MOTOR CORP., who earlier this year claimed GM’s claims for the Volt were impossible to acheive, WERE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!

The Volt has gone from a promising new technology to basically a hybrid car who, rather than start out a gas-assisted electric hybrid automobile, has turned out to be a plug-in electric that goes 40 miles before you have to plug it in again. NOT GOOD!

This is going to be a big debacle for the General, not it’s saviour as advertised. My Prius will run a 1,000 mile trip and transfer between ICE and electric power based upon load and charge. The Volt will go 40 miles on all electric then burn gas all the rest of the 960 miles to my destination. Sorry GM, please go back to the drawing board.

So what if you can plug it in?!!! It’s far less efficient than even the most inefficient PHEV conversion or car on the drawing board, no matter the battery composition!

The moral of the Volt story is just what Grandma taught us all: If it looks too good to be true-IT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

The reality is “range anxiety” for regular BEV’s is no more an issue than it is for conventional liquid fueled vehicles… the fear comes from a lack of understanding and unfamiliarity with a different technology, which of course is understandable.

I’ve had “range anxiety” many a times with all my cars I’ve owned/driven in my over 25 years of driving, and for good reason, I’ve run out of gas at least twice. A few months ago I thought I was going to run out of gas when I had to go somewhere and forgot to leave earlier to get gas so didn’t have time to. If I had a plug-in (regular or hybrid BEV like the Volt) it would have actually avoided the anxiety in this case because it would have been plugged in all night and ready to go.

The real issue is that folks have a “one size fits all” mentality, meaning that one type of vehicle has to meet the needs of 100% of the population. But there is a sizable market for regular BEV’s where it satisfies what it’s being bought for. The obvious one is as an everyday commuter where the household has another vehicle that can be used for vacations and such.

I wish I could quote the real world data, and it’s probably out there somewhere, but I don’t recall hearing of anyone depleting their charge in their BEV’s during the age of ZEV (California’s Zero Emission Vehicle mandate that had GM’s EV1, Toyota’s Rav4-EV, Ford’s S10-EV and Th!nk, etc on the road), or the ones still surviving (Rav4-EV’s and S10-EV’s).

The other preconditioning I think folks have when it comes to range is that they equate a BEV’s range with that of a gasoline fueled vehicle and don’t understand that unless you drive enough that you have to fill up your gas tank every day, the two can not be directly equated.

No, the Classic model became profitable its final year… before the redesigned HSD model. And battery “quantity” wasn’t reduced. In fact, the physical size didn’t change much either. Cost came down as a result of chemistry & production improvements.

I would think it would be a small charge though – I can not imagine walking across a road that has 240 volts running through it.