Chevy Volt Rated At 230 mpg In the City 1006
necro81 writes "General Motors, emerging from bankruptcy, today announced that its upcoming plug-in hybrid vehicle, the Volt, will have an EPA rating of 230 mpg for city driving (about 98 km/L). The unprecedented rating, the first in triple digits, is the result of a new (draft) methodology for calculating the 'gas' mileage for vehicles that operate primarily or extensively on electricity. The Volt, due out late next year, can drive approximately 40 miles on its Li-Ion battery pack, after which a gasoline engine kicks in to provide additional electricity to charge the battery. Running off the gasoline engine yields approximately 50 mpg. Of course, the devil's in the details, because the conversion of grid-based electricity to gasoline-mileage is imprecise." Now we know the meaning of the mysterious "230" viral marketing campaign.
Re:Vaporware (Score:5, Interesting)
should be available by 2010 according to this morning news.
I'll be buying one as well.
My RT commute is ~24 miles. I can charge at work. Free gas anyone?
Not having to charge at home means just a little more in my pocket each month. Since this will be replacing no vehicle (I'll keep my truck thankyouverymuch) I doubt it'll pay for its self simply on saved fuel, but maybe it will. I burn ~550 gallons of mid-grade fuel per year just on my commute. At $3/gallon that's $1650/year. Assuming the car lasts 10 years I'll save $16K just on not paying for commute fuel. Any other driving I do with it will still be more efficient than my pickup (at 11Mpg).
-nB
Re:MPG is outdated when you are using grid power (Score:1, Interesting)
CNBC (Score:1, Interesting)
Erin Burnette was spreading FUD about the Volt on Squack box this morning - here's a paraphrased quote "I spoke with auto parts manufacturers who said that these electric cars will create more pollution, the way the grid is set up there will only be more coal and pollution than with a gas engine"..
Oh. My. God.
At least her co-presenter, Mark what'shis name had the sense to say " oh i'd like to see the data before blah blah blah"...
Do we think people are intelligent enough to make up their own minds and realize that auto part's manufacturers have their entire business model tied to ICE and that 1 moving part is going to need fewer replacement parts than hundreds of moving parts?
edit: captcha is illusion!
How many miles... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Heat & A/C (Score:4, Interesting)
The Tesla uses electricity for both. It sounds inefficient, but compared to the power draw for moving the vehicle, it's a drop in the bucket.
Best part is, you'll be able to sit in your Volt in the parking lot and nap with the A/C or the heat running, and yet the engine can be off until it needs to start in order to charge the batteries back up. (which would probably be many hours later if you started with full batteries)
Re:Vaporware (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not vaporware once public betas are available for evaluation. The "vapor" part implies it doesn't exist at all, not that it just hasn't released yet. The beta can reveal a product to be vapor, if the product in the beta doesn't match the features of the pre-beta hype. But that just means the pre-beta hyped product was vapor. The crappy beta product is real.
I think this applies both for software production and for the Chevy Volt.
50MPG WTF (Score:3, Interesting)
Why in the hell couldn't GM have just come out with a normal 50MPG car that didn't suck ass like the Metro? That would sell well and be a ton cheaper to make.
Why all the hate? (Score:5, Interesting)
The only real difference between this car and previous hybrids is that this one will go 40 (maybe, I'm guessing closer to 30) miles before it kicks into hyrbid mode.
This car is a great concept and for the vast majority of people I know, will provide essentially gas-less lifestyles (except on road trips, but if you're taking THIS little thing on a road trip, you did something else wrong). And if you need to go 70 miles instead of 40 in one day, you spend what?
This is the kind of technology that can break the oil companies hold on the auto industry. yet people continue to bitch about how it's not good enough for them. I say fuck you all and I hope other companies follow in this car's footsteps. All technology has to start somewhere and this is the first version of a gas-free car to hit the market. Give it a few years and we'll be seeing cars that go 60 miles on one charge, then 100, then maybe even more. Give it time, stop bitching and appreciate how far we have come, not how much you still want to happen.
Re:the math doesn't work (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't fool yourself. People with the kind of cash to afford 40k on a car are probably more honest about their finances. There's a reason the rich remain rich; they're not idiots about their money.
Re:the math doesn't work (Score:2, Interesting)
If you have the cheddar to drop $40k on a commuter car, you probably don't think twice about the price at the pump. Let's hope there are enough people buying this for the novelty value that it will stay afloat long enough that production efficiency can improve to the $25k/unit level.
Yeah, no shit. And for the previous poster who calculated a fuel savings of $16K over 10 years, I can save $20K right now by just buying a $20K new fuel car rather than this $40K "hybrid" option.
And that's not even calculating the cost in 5-7 years to replace the battery pack(s), which will likely be single-source, no OEM or aftermarket, and be obscenely priced and likely a mandatory replacement at X miles/months down the road due to EPA safety regulations or some other nonsense.
But hey, cheer up, you're getting a HUGE tax rebate! It's huge, right?...er, right?
Re:MPG is outdated when you are using grid power (Score:3, Interesting)
Because we don't know where your grid power comes from. Coal fired? Nuclear? Hydroelectric?
The cost is different in each case.
Re:Vaporware (Score:3, Interesting)
in some areas it already is profitable with latest-generation ones to my understanding.
recent discoveries in photovoltaics have boosted their efficiency greatly and lowered their cost to produce at the same time.. cannot wait until those new generations hit the market.
Re:Heat & A/C (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you actually driven a hybrid? They shut off the air to conserve power and reduce petrol consumption.
Are you sure? I drove a Prius last week, and I didn't notice that. I did notice that when I had the A/C on my MPG was much lower (e.g. 28MPG instead of 50MPG), and that the engine stayed on more often, but I never saw the A/C automaticallly shut itself off. That would be a strange thing for it to do, since it would be contradicting the user's wishes.
Re:Come on GM, at least make the lie BELIEVABLE (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like the MPG is non-issue for this car, unless it's operating beyond that 40 mile range. In that case, we need something new....
Miles per dollar?
Miles per kilowatt?
Miles per Newton (or whatever we can equate all fuels to)? (i have no idea)
In any case, the 40 Mile range is AWESOME for some people. i could go for a few days w/o charging.
Re:Come on GM, at least make the lie BELIEVABLE (Score:2, Interesting)
Is it not possible to calculate the thermal heat in 1L of gasoline when burned at STP at the stoichiometric ratio? If we can get BTU or BTUh out of it, we've got something to work with.
Then compare that to the kWh at your power meter to charge the vehicle enough to travel until the battery system shuts down. (Disable the gasoline system on Volt-like cars.) Count miles. Repeat, average, etc.
I was able to find the right figures for natural gas, so I was able to figure out if it was better to use a single-room space heater or turn up the furnace. (Unsurprising result: A little bit of electricity for one room is better than a lot of gas for the whole house.)
They're also throwing around figures like "40 cents to charge, for 10 kWh, at Michigan off-peak rates." OK, sure, but in Ontario, that'll set you back over a Canadian dollar, as almost nobody has time-of-day metering. Massachusetts will be closer to $2 USD (20 cents/kWh)--which is still half the price of gasoline at last summer's prices in Ontario ($1.25/L).
Here we go. 125,000 BTU [cogeneration.net] in 1 gallon of gasoline, which is about 37 kWh [google.ca].
So, at 40 miles/10 kWh we've got 4 miles/kWh [google.ca], which I didn't need Google for but so you can see what I'm doing (show your work). That's the easy one.
I've seen 50 miles/gallon cited for the Volt, so we want miles/kWh... 1.36 miles/kWh [google.ca].
Both of those are "at the pump/plug" numbers: What you use in electricity net of any generation and transmission losses, compared to volume of gasoline from the pump at your filling station net of energy used to process it from the Alberta tar sands.
(My physics teacher would freak out at that SI and US Imperial unit soup, too.)
What I want to know about all of these electric things though... especially if they're quoting Michigan off-peak power prices... what happens in winter? Those of us in northerly climates don't just throw away all of the thermal inefficiency in the internal combustion motor. We vent some of it in to the passenger cabin as "heat". I'm not giving that up; and resistive electric head for the passenger cabin will kill your battery range real fast--everyone's left just the headlights on and needed a boost at one point, right? That's only about 180 Watts (two headlights + assorted markers.)
Re:Vaporware (Score:5, Interesting)
Screw the motorcycle. Drive a $1000 shittermobile. It's pretty easy to buy one that gets 30 mpg. Drive it for a year or two and either junk it, or sell it for a couple hundred dollars. You'll never approach the efficiency of that compared to buying any new car, hybrid or not as there will be no new manufacturing required.
stagnation of gasoline? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be worried that if all my runs were full-electric, that is to say that my 10 mile commute never required the car to dip into the gasoline, that without treatment, the gasoline could break down and gum up the injectors - like when you store a boat or mower over the winter...but who wants to drive around with a stabilizer-mix full time? that's gotta put a big hit on efficiency and power if you ever need the combustion engine to kick in.
i don't think i've ever seen that issue discussed when hybrids are brought up.
Re:Complete Crap (Score:2, Interesting)
But they I saw the claim that the charge to take the car 40 miles would cost $0.40. That's a penny a mile, and at current gasoline prices of about $2.50 a gallon, translates neatly into about 250 MPGeq (miles per gallon-equivalent, on a cost basis).
I agree that MPGs aren't the best measure, because it makes comparison between different vehicle types more complicated. $/M is not workable because the cost of different energy sources is not constant, and would just add another dimension to the already highly variable efficiency rating.
They will have to come up with something better, MPG is just not going to be useful as EVs begin to penetrate the market. The best would be some form of distance per unit of energy, or energy required to travel a certain unit of distance. There would have to be some way to correct for any losses. One virtue of MPG is that this is built in. Take the miles you drive and divide by the number of gallons of gas you buy, and the resulting number automatically takes into account any losses due to heat, operating conditions, evaporation, or whatever. I is straightforward to convert a gallon of gas to the HP or KWh it contains (although I don't have the coefficient at hand, I'm sure it's easily found). For electric drive, it would be easy for the control system to determine how much power it's drawing from the battery, but there needs to be a way to correct for the fact that you will necessarily be putting more energy in than you will ultimately get out, either using some estimate of the battery's efficiency (probably not a good idea, since that will change over time), or maybe circuitry on the charger that will measure the total energy put into the battery (which adds complexity).
Right now, though, they needed some quick and dirty way to come up with some comparison between the Volt and its competitors, all of which measure their efficiency in MPGs. If they really can get 40 miles out of $0.40 worth of electricity, then at today's gas prices, yes, the 230MPG claim is credible. However I don't know how credible that particular claim might be.
Re:Come on GM, at least make the lie BELIEVABLE (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Come on GM, at least make the lie BELIEVABLE (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Vaporware (Score:4, Interesting)
If I was a betting man, I wouldn't bet on GM being around in 10 years.
Sheldon
When's the last time the government ever cut a program or subsidy? Hell, we still have a subsidy to goat herders for mohair to make WW1 uniforms.
Now that GM has fully transitioned from company-that-makes-cars-for-profit into union-employment-welfare-program, it will never go away unless the government itself does.
Re:Gallons? (Score:3, Interesting)
Approximately 0.44 gallons.
A gallon of gas contains about 36 kilowatt hours of energy and the volt battery pack is 16 kilowatt hours.
Re:Why all the hate? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. This obviously isn't the ultimate alternative fuel vehicle, but this process has to start somewhere. Yes, it's expensive, yes it's hard to justify on pure economics at the current gas price of $3/gallon here in the US. But $3 gasoline isn't going to last forever. Last summer, before the economy crashed, we had $4.50 gas, and once the economy cycles back and demand for oil goes back up in the face of flat or declining world oil production, prices will likely climb even higher than that and the economic balance point will change. This car may be coming out a little before its time, but someone has to take the first step in this direction; it just happens to be GM, who everyone loves to hate right now.
Of course GM could totally botch things up like they did with the EV1, only time will tell if they learned anything from that and their current bankruptcy.
Totally Agree (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought my 2002 Prius after a six month wait time. I paid more for it then a comparably equiped gas car. There was no economic rationale for my purchase -- I did it because I loved the car, and had the privilege of driving a cutting edge piece of engineering for going on seven years now, with minimum maintenance and hassle. There's something beautiful about driving with virtually no noise and I still smile when I roll up to a stop sign and the engine shuts off.
Moreover, I am willing to pay higher than market rate because of the externalities associated with having the world's first mass-produced electric car:
I am supporting an environmental technology that I believe in.
I am supporting green-tech projects, built in America.
I love driving on electric power only.
I am willing to take a risk on buying the Volt or the Prius or any other quasi-experimental first-generation piece of tech hardware because I have the money.
I am buying it because as a child I wanted to know why I couldn't put a windmill on top of the family car and use wind power to make it go.
Re:Vaporware (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt it does this for PR reasons...
But it could just idle the gas engine to generate heat. It should consume very little gas to idle the engine, and if there's one thing ICEs are good at doing with high efficiency, it's generating heat.
Re:stagnation of gasoline? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How many miles to pay off? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Vaporware (Score:3, Interesting)
FWIW without divulging my employer...
We currently have 4 charging stations, configured for both EV1/2 (carryover) style paddle chargers, and with 110V20A & 208V20A available. we have 3 people using homebrew EVs that charge there in the fair weather months. When I was having power issues on my old diesel Merc I used the open slot to run a charger and block heater during the winter. (two bum glow plugs and a bum cylinder)...
Anyway, I talked to building management a while back about if I built an EV that needed different power requirements (208V30A or 208V20A3Phase) and they said they'd wire it up. In addition they will add as many stations as there is demand for. As long as the stations see use they will build more. Ironically, when I asked about converting the Merc to veggie oil they wouldn't give me the used oil from the cafe because of liability concerns (non EPA approved fuel, not taxed, etc.) fair enough, I guess.
So, in short I'm not worried about having my boss steal the station ;)
-nB
Re:Vaporware (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Vaporware (Score:2, Interesting)
Canada's installed electrical generating capacity in 1994 was 114 gigawatts (GW = 109 watts): 56% derived from HYDROELECTRICITY, 18% from coal, 14% from nuclear power, 7% from oil, 4% from natural gas and 1% from other sources. Installed capacity is the amount of power that could be generated at a given instant if all power plants were working simultaneously at full capacity.
See http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=a1ARTA0002565 [thecanadia...opedia.com] for more info.
The big problem for us is the cold weather sucking the life out of the batteries.
Re:Vaporware (Score:3, Interesting)
Prepare to be surprised. I've known several people who've asked their employer what they'd think about letting them charge there during the day, and not a one of them said no. One required a Kill-A-Watt meter (so they could bill the employee for it), while the others just let them charge for free.
Re:Ridiculous vehicle (Score:2, Interesting)
Lets do a little real-world figuring.
It's 14 miles to work for me. If I drive it to work each day, my mpg is going to be infinite.
Town is 20 miles 1 way, so 40 miles round-trip. If I can charge it back up before going to the gym, my mpg will again be infinite. If not, it will likely be very, very high.
I do go on long trips during the weekend, about 500 miles last weekend. OK, if it's getting 49 mpg on the open road, which isn't all that much of a stretch considering the aerodynamics, hybrid mode with the regenerative braking and all, I've still got a winner with 460 miles at about 49 mpg = 9.38 gallons. That's going to look real good at $4 a gallon, and... how about $7 a gallon? In case anyone was wondering, an economic "recovery" is impossible because as soon as there is prosperity, the ragheads will jack up the price again, and the more prosperity, the higher the price. They'll make as much money as they can while once again ruining our economy. And, they'll be able to do it, until we all buy cars like this one, and can tell them to stick it.
As for the battery in 10 years, how do you know what a battery is going to cost in 10 years, or whether this one will need one? There are hordes of science people working on battery breakthroughs, and someone is likely to be lucky or good in that amount of time, and this car will then go 300 miles on a charge, charge in 3 minutes flat, and cost $200 for a new battery. Well, it could happen... But we have to start thinking seriously about these sorts of vehicles, or we're going to continue to be toast, and easily defeated by those with the oil.
Re:Vaporware (Score:3, Interesting)
"Utility officials have already stated"? Oh yeah, that's comforting. Are these the same "utility officials" who mismanaged the power grid in CA so badly a few years back that we had rolling blackouts all summer?
By that you mean the California voters who voted to deregulate to the system we got? I really wish I could blame the officials, but we did that to ourselves... sort of like our current budget.
Re:the math doesn't work (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the math doesn't work (Score:2, Interesting)
Take that $40k, invest it instead. Assume ~8% returns (historically accurate for the index.) That's $3.2k per year that you're already spending in just not having money invested.
Assume the cheap beater car is 25mpg, $3/gallon of gas, that's almost 27,000 miles per year that you can drive before you've spent your $3200/year. More, if your $40k car isn't free to drive.
From here it gets hairier as you'll have to factor in things like repair costs.
People grossly overestimate the cost of gas and grossly underestimate the real cost of large purchases.
Re:Vaporware (Score:3, Interesting)
Driving over a plate to charge by induction is a clever idea. I don't think it would work though because induction is very sensitive to distance. Trying to move the plate closer to your car (or vice-versa) would be a process I am guessing would be complex and/or prone to failure.