Positive Volt Article in IEEE Spectrum April Issue

[bronco7TX]

IEEE Spectrum - April Cover.jpg

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) publishes a monthly magazine called the Spectrum. The April issue sported a big picture of the Volt on the cover and a 2 page article of their test drive. Overall a fair article that praises the new technology but that it comes at a price.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/advanced-cars/top-10-tech-cars-2011 Volt article is on page 8 of the online article.

[Steverino]

"Although the Volt is frugal, owning one is not about saving money, at least not until economies of scale slash the cost of lithium-ion batteries. If saving dough is your sole criterion, you'd be better off with a five-year-old Honda Civic.

Certainly, the Volt is not for everyone, least of all people who see gas guzzling as an American birthright. But for early adopters and committed greens, or Americans who have come to view energy independence and conservation as a patriotic act, that old Civic can't touch the Volt."

[Raymondjram]

The new Civic can't touch the Volt, either.

I like that the IEEE is now using the Metric system to post comparative values such as distance traveled on a single charge and liters per kilometer instead of miles per gallon. Most of you don't realize it, but the United States and Great Britain are way behind in adopting the world standard, which is much easier to learn and use since it only has three units for all measurements (liter, meter and gram) and it is based on the decimal system for larger and smaller units. Our present system for distance has four (inch, foot, yard, and mile), yet all can be covered with the simple meter. Same for volume and weight. We are part of the international economy, so we must teach our children to use and understand it. I do!


Raymond

[larry4pyro]

From IEEE Spectrum this is a real about face. They have been absolutely negative about the Volt for some time authoring articles such as Why the Volt is a Loser, or some such. Their biggest grip has been it will never justify the cost, but their comparison is with economy cars, which drive like econonomy cars. In this article they seem to start to understand that there is more to the Volt.