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The Truth About Cars: 2013 Volt review

7K views 23 replies 20 participants last post by  RobbertPatrison 
#1 ·
#5 ·
Pretty decent review with 2 issues.
How the heck was he driving to only get 32 miles on a charge? At 70MPH I regularly get in the high 30's.
He also says when the engine kicks in, it is more noticeable than a shift in an automatic transmission. I don't know about you, but I've never felt anything in my Volt.
 
#6 ·
Fortunately, a few Volt owners are speaking up in the comments section. A pretty fair exchange is going on, Obama and Fox News are yet to come up ... :)
 
#8 ·
The comments are pretty on target and not political unlike some other sites. I can't get the video at work, but, I read all the text. The text is pretty comprehensive for a car review.

Like most of these reviews, the reviewer does not rate the Volt in it's sweet spot. The Volt is at it's best in a 40-50mile commuter situation. Comparing at highway speeds and distances is atypical operation even for other hybrids. Harping on the 'low' CS-mode gas mileage totally ignores the Volt's actual value.

Although a self-selected subset of Volt owners (making any conclusions suspect), VoltStats does show that Volt's value for these folks is greater than the sum of it's parts.
 
#11 ·
... Harping on the 'low' CS-mode gas mileage totally ignores the Volt's actual value...
That detail seems glaringly obvious to those of us who drive a Volt every day, but many people seem to stumble on it. I don't know how to help them understand that an ICE that is only used 25% of the time is not worth spending a ton of money optimizing.

Also, the Volt has almost twice the AER of the C-max (which has almost twice the AER of the PiP). The more of your driving that you can do on electricity, the lower your operating costs. That justifies the price differential.
 
#15 ·
I thought he did an unusually bad job on the review, although I am focusing on his explanation of the drivetrain. The Volt is not shaped like a Prius or Insight as he says it is, which is one reason I like it. Almost everything he said about the drivetrain was wrong. His explanation that the Volt engages the ICE to get more power makes it sound like every other hybrid. The fact that it doesn't do what he said is what differentiates it as a mostly electric car. He enumerated the modes correctly, but doesn't understand how they work. He also got terrible fuel efficiency during his road test. I don't know how it could have been that bad.

His review wasn't political, though, and was at least neutral, instead of panning the Volt, so I give him credit for being open minded, if uninformed about how the Volt works. But, most people are uninformed about how the Volt works, so that's not so unexpected.
 
#16 ·
Comments range from it's just a Prius with a bigger battery and worse mileage, to it's "too complicated". As usual, lots of armchair "engineers". :)
 
#17 · (Edited)
The issue of the gas engine helping at high speed is a common (and somewhat understandable) mistake made from not having fully understood the drive train operation

The video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX5ZwzNwTc4 )needs to be watched a few times to realize that at high speed (above 70mph) the Electric generator is being used as a secondary motor to help the primary one as this is more efficient than pushing the main electric motor.

When you have battery this is done by using electricity to use the generator as a motor

When you are on gas (battery depleted, hold mode..) and only then, because the generator is then driven by the gas engine, you end up having the gas engine driving the generator itself helping the main electric motor.

This was debated and clarified in the comments at the end of this Volt owner post

http://www.nicolatrwst.com/going-electric/
 
#21 ·
...
The video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX5ZwzNwTc4 )needs to be watched a few times to realize that at high speed (above 70mph) the Electric generator is being used as a secondary motor to help the primary one as this is more efficient than pushing the main electric motor....
That video says that two motors can work up to 100MPH. Is this true for maximum acceleration, or just for a cruising situation?
 
#18 ·
I watched his C-Max review and he said the C-Max rode better than the Volt but was "less grippy" than the Volt. In the Volt review he said the Volt rode better than the C-Max but the C Max was "more grippy" than the Volt. He contradicts himself directly between the two reviews.
 
#19 ·
So Bertel's gone?

I'll have to revisit. Many of the TTAC refugees hang out at curbsideclassic.com (which, of course, carries different content).
 
#24 · (Edited)
Great review!

This is hands down the best deep-dive review I've seen on the Volt. The author got many details right, certainly more than most car 'journalists' that either just copy GM's marketing messages or have an anti-EV agenda. A fun detail is that the navigation display shows that he show the video in 'my backyard': the mountains of Silicon Valley. This is where I think the Volt shines: silent acceleration up the mountains. There has been only one rainy day this summer, so its even easy to reverse engineer the taping day.

The unbelievably poor 32 mile EV range and the misunderstanding about the relevance of CS MPG have already been pointed out. My nitpick issue is with the reported difference between CS or CD acceleration. Its likely just a measurement inaccuracy as all of aggressive driving is done exclusively on MGB in Voltec.

The author did his homework well to point out that Voltec is both parallel and serial hybrid. Its much more advanced than the HSD in the Prius or Ford hybrid since the ICE can be disengaged from the wheels using clutches.

The problem is that he misunderstood the Volt's parallel hybrid ('power split') mode. In contrast to Toyota's HSD, Voltec is only in parallel hybrid mode at speeds above 50 MPH that do not require high torque demand. That is because the ICE and MGA are at the low ratio end of the planetary gear, while tye 150hp MGB is at high-ratio end. So it will very unlikely ever be in parallel/powersplit mode on local roads or during 0-60 tests. Using my dashaq, I verified that I have never seen it in in power split mode in the Santa Cruz mountain where the author taped his test drive.

Its a relatively small detail, and its still nice that the author as one of the very few tried to explain Voltec right.
 
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