CR Gets It Wrong Again

[Evanston Jon]

I agree. Consumer Reports is getting less dependable -- very disappointing.

My response (referring to another commenter):

Well said unclewainey. The Volt is not a "converted Cruze". They are both derived from GM's Delta II platform, as is the Buick Verano, and a number of cars sold in Europe, Asia, and Canada.

The flat battery design is simply a different set of compromises. It trades off crash protection for interior space.

Interestingly, a Nissan engineer has been on the record (shortly before finding himself looking for work I suspect) indicating that incorporating a thermal management system would have cost the 5th seat in the Leaf. Another compromise, one that ultimately hurts consumers. Not coincidentally, Nissan does NOT warrant battery capacity while GM does.

It's fine to have opinions but please do a little research next time.

I see that the blogger has to approve comments.

[buckhead]

You guys are a level headed bunch most days, but please fall in line and agree that from a marketing perspective and from a "perceived needs" perspective the lack of a 5th seat is HUGE!

I certainly don't agree with that. While there are certainly applications where five seats are needed, there are many more where less seats are fine. On my daily commute, I rarely see cars when more than two people in them. And I know lots of people with large SUVs who have never had more than 4 passengers in them. Passenger space, like everything else, is a tradeoff with cost, performance, and comfort. There is no one-size-fits-all car. The current volt design is a package of a perfectly acceptable set of design choices. If you're a NBA basketball player or a socker mom who routinely shuffles around the local kids to sporting events, then you may want to look elsewhere.

The idea that the lack of a fifth seat is some kind of giant marketing problem is wrong-headed. There are much bigger marketing impacts for the volt, including the up-front cost of the vehicle, a misunderstanding of how the car works, and a large amount of disinformation spewing forth on almost a daily basis. A fifth seat is just noise.

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

The article claims the Volt lacks a fifth seat because it's not a purpose built EV. That's just wildly incorrect. The Volt doesn't have a fifth seat because it has a thermal management system which occupies the space that would normally be used as the fifth seat. Nissan engineering has admitted that if the Leaf had a TMS it wouldn't have a fifth seat either. Inaccuracy costs credibility.

I wasn't passing judgment on CR's accuracy. I was criticizing your accuracy. If you want to be seen as a credible source of information (which is important as a moderator on the Volt site) you need to stick to the facts. That means reading their article carefully and not making unsubstantiated claims.

As for how well the Volt's TMS will work: The Volt battery comes with a warranty. The Leaf's doesn't. Seems like a pretty good indication of what we can expect.

We simply cannot judge the effectiveness of the TMS because its effectiveness depends on whether it helps battery longevity. Saying "highly effective" is an unsubstantiated claim.

You can say why you believe a TMS is important. You can point to the Arizona LEAF battery degradation as a sign. But don't prejudge the effective of the TMS.

As for the warranty, besides the fact that the Honda hybrid battery saga has shown that it's not what you say, it's what you do, a warranty can be offered as long as it increases sales enough to offset the failure rate. It's not necessarily a sign of reliability.

[Bzzzt]

Anyone that thinks Volt=Cruze, should put both of them on a lift, and do a side by side comparison as to the construction differences.

[Fulgerite]

Umm... stop drinking the bath water. Do you really think they sat down and said: "We need a mid sized sedan with 40 miles of EV, luxury appointments and only four seats."? The car doesn't seat five because of DESIGN COMPROMISES that would NOT have existed if the Volt was designed from scratch. Are you saying that no future EREV or BEV will have a fifth seat because that inherently conflicts with having long-life batteries?

I know two people who are not buying Volts (despite my evangelism) because they have three kids. One is getting a PiP, the other is considering a Model S. I don't think they care WHY it doesn't seat five. They just know it doesn't.

I do NOT need 5 seats and the Volt is perfect for my needs. I am very happy to trade the 5th seat for an extra 300 miles of extended range... Thank you.

If you have 5 people in your family I agree the Volt will not work as your only car. On the other hand... What percentage of trips involve taking 5 passengers? For me... That is 0%.

[cnicholson]

I do NOT need 5 seats and the Volt is perfect for my needs. I am very happy to trade the 5th seat for an extra 300 miles of extended range... Thank you.

Ever heard of "selection bias?" How many people who NEED five seats bought a Volt and hang out here? How many additional Volts did GM sell because it lacks a fifth seat?

I obviously don't need it--- I bought one (in fact, for me, I think the sep seats in the back are kind of cool-- kind of Panamera-esque). I just don't think the absence of 5th seat is a selling point for a broadly marketed car.

Given the constraints faced by GM, I think they made the right choice. I (and CR, I guess) am just saying that, if they could start from scratch, they could have made it a five seater and kept the battery, and that end product would have been preferable. It just would have been more expensive and delayed more (life is compromise).

I predict that the next major redesign of the Volt (in the same size range) will have five seats. Does anyone doubt this?

[DonC]

Umm... stop drinking the bath water. Do you really think they sat down and said: "We need a mid sized sedan with 40 miles of EV, luxury appointments and only four seats."? The car doesn't seat five because of DESIGN COMPROMISES that would NOT have existed if the Volt was designed from scratch.

One of the problems of coming late to the party is that you don't know what happened earlier in the evening. Here's what you missed: When they came up with the design, which was most definitely from scratch, they asked the question: "If we use the T-shaped battery pack from the EV-1 what size battery can we use?" The answer was that, with a TMS, they could fit a 16 kWh pack in the "T". That was good because they knew that the "T" would protect the battery and that a 16 kWh pack would give them 40 miles. Of course they didn't want a four seat car, but the very obvious point is that if you use the purpose built "T" battery pack and you have a TMS then you don't have the room for a fifth seat and you end up with a four seat car.

CR and apparently you think that putting the batteries under the seats would give you a fifth seat That's just wrong. If the battery pack takes up X amount of space it doesn't matter whether you put it under the seat or in a "T" or on the ceiling, it's still going to take up X amount of space. That space has to come from somewhere. Consequently if have a TMS, which takes up more space than cells alone, then you're going to lose interior space. The Volt accommodated the TMS by taking the room which would normally have been occupied by the fifth seat. Had Nissan added the TMS to the Leaf it would have done the same. Nissan chose to skip the TMS, deciding that it would cost less to pay for some dead battery packs than to add a TMS to every Leaf. I think Nissan and certainly Leaf owners will regret the decision, but even if this turns out to be a good decision that doesn't mean doesn't mean the Leaf is purpose built and the Volt isn't. In fact you could say the opposite is true in that this is one more case in which GM built the Volt to last and Nissan built the Leaf to a lower price point.

We simply cannot judge the effectiveness of the TMS because its effectiveness depends on whether it helps battery longevity.

We know that heat kills batteries. We know a TMS controls heat. Want to bet? LOL

[DonC]

I wasn't passing judgment on CR's accuracy. I was criticizing your accuracy. If you want to be seen as a credible source of information (which is important as a moderator on the Volt site) you need to stick to the facts. That means reading their article carefully and not making unsubstantiated claims.

You seem to have some very serious reading comprehension issues. Here is what I wrote: To begin with, the Leaf does not seat five because the batteries are under the floor. It seats five because Nissan decided to forego a thermal management system for the battery pack. Sorry if you think this is wrong because it's 100% accurate.

Now I did say that the Volt doesn't have the battery pack in the trunk. That's absolutely true. But I didn't say that CR said it did. You're just pulling that out of your butt and trying to put it in my mouth. What I did point out is that, contrary to what CR suggested, which was that "purpose-built electric cars use flat-format cells sandwiched under the whole floor of the car", the Volt was using THE SAME design as that used by the FIRST purpose built EV, namely the EV-1, the natural implication being that the "T" was every bit as "purpose built" and the "under the seat" design.

EXACTLY what don't you understand here?

[mikeg3]

I think that this discussion is getting a bit heated.

Any car is designed by a series of committees, starting with a napkin and ending with an army of CAD operators. Trying to pin down the decision-making process, with each member of the team believing he or she was the key player, is futile and pointless. Bob Lutz was the corporate sponsor but not the sole decision-maker.

The Volt is what it is. If the EREV concept thrives, we'll see everything from 2 seaters to 8 seaters to pickup trucks.

I'll be surprised if that online CR article makes it into print. CR readers want to know about the product, not the process. CR provides objective facts and reasoned judgements. That article belongs in a car magazine.

The objective CR reviews of the Volt have been accurate and favorable. Let's not turn into a cult and jump on everyone who criticizes our baby. There are plenty of real malicious liars to go after, especially in November.

[AySz88]

I agree with mike about waiting to see if this actually goes into print. Right now, it's just a blog with incomplete information, corrected in the comments.

cnicholson - While nobody says that removing the fifth seat isn't a con, the claim is that having a TMS will make the Volt a better long-term buy for anyone that doesn't regularly need 5 seats. Your family-of-five examples might really need that fifth seat, but they shouldn't be surprised down the road if their batteries have problems (or, at least, more than a Volt would). But time will tell.

Also, note that main line of complaint is more about the assumptions about the design process made by the CR blog article's author - the consumer-side justification is a bit of a tangent.