Stas – You’re fighting the last war, and fighting it with bad data. I’ve just come back from a 3 week trip to Japan, and I’ve been making regular annual visits for the past 20 years.

The reason that the Japanese don’t buy many “small fuel efficient European” cars is that they have at least six domestic makers competing in the Kei market Toyota, Honda, Madza, Suzuki, Daihatsu, Nissan. These small cars comprise roughly 60 percent of Japan’s car market. Most of these cars advertise that they’ll get roughly 25Kilometers/Liter (roughly 60 mpg).

It’s very hard (and foolish) for a foreign maker to come in and sell a low cost car in this kind of fiercely competitive market environment, as profit margins are very small. Instead, foreign companies have focused on their status value and luxury value, just as BMW and Mercedes do in the U.S. During my most recent trip in late Feb/early March, the most commonly sighted foreign cars were VW’s, then Mercedes then BMW, followed by a smattering of other makes. I did see a few Mini’s and a Smart, but most imports were status vehicles.

By the way, the single vehicle inspections at import went out in the 80’s. Yes, they did exist, but so did dinosaurs at one point.

Finally, Toyota even tried selling Cavaliers as Toyota back in the 90’s with very little success…. you can look it up. Suzuki currently sells a few cars badged as Chevrolets, but they’re really Suzuki’s in bowties.

Now let’s stop the Japan bashing, and get back to the Volt.

Thanks.

There is no reasonable engineeering expectation that a Chevy Volt running its engine won’t have similar or better performance than a Prius’ 12.5 seconds to 60. A Prius with its 1.4 liter engine is no different than what you can expect form a Volt 1.4 liter genset engine.

As for 50 mpg, If the Prius 1.4 can do it, running at all different rpms, the EREV architecture so much more efficient when run at near constant and optimized rpm, cannot achieve better is a ridiculous engineering assertion.

You do not recognize that economic warfare is conducted by Japan, and many non tariff barriers including one-by-one inspections of foreign imported vehicles is the reason as to why there is a tiny foreign presence. Our domestic automakers foreign affiliates, and the European makers build plenty of small, fuel efficient vehicles that fit the Japanese markets, yet there is still only a tiny presence. Your answer makes no sense.

I live really near, and I would be able to drive a whole WEEK without a drop of gasoline, and charge only on weekends.

Sorry, this Toyota sponsored study just doesn’t hold water for me.

I want this car or something like it very soon. I don’t want to send my money to countries that sponsor terrorism or religion/government (often quite the same) that finds my lifestyle repugnant.

@Wayne, Nick

While $40k is certainly out of the “affordable” category, it’s not really only for the rich; a mid-upper middle class family can probably afford one. I imagine the 2nd gen, 3rd gen would be much lower in price. There’s a lot of cost cutting that can be done in a complex car like this, and given they are rushing for a deadline, they probably haven’t done it all yet for the Volt. There’s also factor of the scale of production for the battery, which plays a big role in the cost for the car.

You’re saying the Volt is comparable to a $20,000 ICE car? I’d give it more credit than that.

It’s just simple reality. A 100 fuel vehicle is $20,000, and the Volt is $40,000. With gas at $2 a gallon, it will take a long time to re-coup that other $20,000.

Heck in Europe they have had super high gas prices for years, and all that happened is they drive more fuel efficient cars.

Sigh… Since they first talked about the Volt, it’s price has just went up. At $25,000 it can work, and $40,000 it’s an experiment for the rich.

No different from lead paint being cheaper with better performance when they banned it in 1978.

Let us calculate the cost of billions dead / displaced, most coastal cities drowned in the next 100 years. Devide that on each gallon of gas (or ton of coal) that is the culprit over the next 10 years, using their CO2 emission.

All this not even including the cost of likely terrorism funded by gasoline money that we generously send to middle-east.

–
“And the value of driving without gasoline is for some, priceless.”

Thats why look forward to an pure electric car like the iMeiv.

Making industrial progress has always cost a fortune and no the first units have NOT been cheap but I guess this is still news to some!

The Volt has a 16kWh pack. The $16,000 price tag assumes $1,000 per kWh, which is total and complete bullshit. That’s the price a consumer buying a few cells would pay from the most expensive manufacturer. GM’s cost should be below $500 per kWh for sure. It could actually be less, like $250 per kWh.

I’ve seen talk around the web lately about the difference between the Volt’s electric range and Tesla’s. The Volt is only allowed to use 8 kWh of the 16 kWh total capacity. This is being done because the battery is potentially going to receive deep cycles very frequently. When you have a massive battery like the Tesla, deep cycles are infinitely less frequent, so they are able to allow significantly more than 50% use of the battery.

So back to the mileage issue, GM is saying 40 miles per 8kWh, which is 5 miles per kWh. Tesla has a 52 kWh pack, which would deliver 265 miles in theory if total weight was equal to the Volt. The Tesla is also more aerodynamic and about 500 lbs lighter, so in actuality it would in theory get even more range. However, Tesla limits the deep cycle somewhat, so that leaves it with a 244 mile range, which makes perfect sense.

I actually do not understand why GM would consider LG Chem’s lithium-polymer battery or even A123’s iron-phosphate unit. They should be using Toshiba’s SCIB, which will be a MUCH cheaper version of Altairnano’s lithium-titanate battery. Instead of paying for a 16 kWh battery, they could get an 8kWh titanate unit and allow full deep cycling. After all, those batteries last 20,000 cycles easily. Although it would cost a bit more per kWh, it would still cost less overall since it would be half the capacity.

Nick/Leftlane

Actually, the study’s projections are based on PHEV versions of parallel split hybrids like the Prius not an EREVs like the Volt.