Volt

[dbflyer]

Who must be an engineer? Lacrew or the Chevy management that decided to market the Volt? If you mean Lacrew, I'd agree. As an engineer in the aircraft manufacturing industry, I can tell you that cost/benefit analyses are a big part of our jobs. We strive to develop the design that gives the best bang for the buck. But management often decides to go with something else because it's greener, or it's more flashy, or it's more politically correct. And then you get the Volt.

I've used the same kind of analysis that Lacrew did, and at least for me, the Volt makes no sense. I want the best bang for my buck. I'm not trying to be more green or reduce my carbon footprint (although I think those are goals to strive for). I'm trying to transport me and my family from point A to point B as economically as I can.

To take Lacrew's analysis to the extreme, I can buy a 2000 Chevy Suburban for $5000, so the difference between that and a Volt is $27,000 and change. It isn't an apples-to-apples comparison because I'm comparing used to new, but if we're talking about owning the vehicle for 5 years, which is pretty typical, I can drive a fairly late model used car for little more in maintenance cost than a new car. At $5/gallon for gas and 13 mpg, I can drive the Suburban for 5 years, 14,000 miles a year, and at the same time haul my entire family, 2 dogs, a couple of canoes, camping gear for a week, and a couple of bicycles, and I still come out money ahead of the Volt. And since it's built like a bridge, I can do so without spending much more for maintenance than I would for a new Volt. At the end of 5 years, my $5,000 Suburban will have depreciated by maybe $2,500. How much will the Volt depreciate?

All that said, I'm glad to see the auto (and airplane) industry continuing to develop electric technology. It will become more economical one day as motors become more efficient and reliable and the energy density of batteries continues to improve. But it ain't there yet, and for me, any kind of electric/internal combustion hybrid is a non starter.

Originally Posted by john_galt

Must be an engineer...

I do think that production cost, recycle cost, and battery disposal fee should be included in any comparison. After all we're not just talking about the price to the consumer but the cost to the earth.

[Guest010418]

Crew:

You did a GREAT job taking us through the numbers.

Hey Galt, I really like your avatar.

I think I'll stay with my Cadillac.

[lacrew_2000]

Some tid bits from GM's web-site:

It is recommended that the Volt not be parked in direct sunlight...whut?

It is recommended that the Volt not be parked for extended periods of time in temps below 32 F or above 85 F, without being plugged it...huh.

I found this interesting - lots of complaints about the $7,500 tax credit. People are not understanding that you have to have a tax liability of at least $7,500 to get the full credit (as a side note, why would anybody without a trust fund even consider buying a $40k car, if they don't make enough to have a $7,500 tax liability?)

Edmunds has tested it now - got 31.1 mpg in gasoline mode...comparable to the 30 mpg Consumer Reports got...and comparable to about a gazillion vehicles on the road today...and not surprisingly completely different than information GM has been putting out.

[catnipdipper]

I want to make it clear and I want to go oh public record that I have supported;

1. The Vega
2. The Corvair
3. The Citation

All major and dramatic innovations from GM



Once Motor Trend made it Car of the Year I knew it was a winner.

[Longermonger]

Originally Posted by lacrew_2000

Consumer reports got approximately 30 mpg in gasoline mode. I have a 10 y/0 compact with no special technology that gets 30 mpg.

I have no idea what the collectability of the EV1 has to do with anything...but if it matters, they were a lease fleet, recalled and destroyed by GM...I'm surprised any survive...but what does that matter. GM planned to sell 10,000 Volts this year...and they aren't even on pace to meet half that goal. That's GM's problem. Why are you worried about it?

You said the Volt would be a 'HOT Item' later this year. I never said that. You know I never said that. You should ban yourself, lol. Go stock up and sell them at a premium this fall (but I have to warn you, production has outpaced sales 3,200 to 1,200)

....and btw, nice video of a perfectly clean car, with a perfectly clean battery pack, and the station capable of changing UNO battery. A lousy gas station in this country has 200 customers a day...many are much higher, but we'll use the low number, since this battery 'station' would take a huge footprint to even accomodate 200 a day. First, that little robot will have to find a way to sort and stack at least 200 batteries...probably more to make up for charging times. Using 200, though, the 'station' will only need 8,000 amps to charge all of those batteries over-night!!! The transformer would actually be bigger than a Volt, and hold more cooling oil than a small tanker....and of course this doubles the needed supply of batteries...and if a charge only costs a few dollars, the premium could only be a few more dollars...so the robots and battery inventory will be paid off in around a thousand years....and everybody gets to stay in the car, with no chance of going inside to buy a bag of chips.

....all this to use a car with a 25 mile electric range. 25 mile electric range? Oh, I see you're rounding off to a round trip range and neglecting to mention the actual hybrid range. Wouldn't the average consumer just buy a high efficiency car and skip all the extension cords, charging stations, hydro-electric plants, and robots? Yes, as I have said before, the average consumer is an idiot. Take WalMart shoppers as an example. They buy the cheapest plastic junk made in communist China that they can find, but whine about the economy and vote in the Tea Baggers while wailing "Take my country back!!!"

If you just want a simple, cheap fuel efficient car that runs on gas or diesel then you're looking at a small stripped FWD economy car with a manual transmission and tall gears.

If you want a performance economy car, whose 'performance' is fuel efficiency, then you need to look at cars like the VW L1 Concept, or Edison2's VLC. (You also need to change the laws of this country.)

Most people just want to let carmakers slowly improve efficiency at their own lazy snail's pace, so they don't have to give up a single comfort or be shocked by any non-bland designs.

[Longermonger]

Originally Posted by john_galt

All energy comes from our Sun originally. No. The planet that you're currently sitting on has a big, hot energy source of it's own at its core powered by radioactive decay and does not get its energy from our Sun. It comes to us in the form of oil, wood, solar, wind, or coal. Nuclear is the only exception. Errr...the Sun is a big ball of nuclear fusion. So what you could have said is that all energy on Earth originally comes from nuclear fusion/fission/decay. Nuclear is the rule, not the exception. Success come to the people who can make it portable and affordable which why the US has been so successful. We were to mine coal and drill for oil. Are the previous two sentences in Engrish? I'm stymied. We distilled that oil into gasoline and diesel. We can put them into a plastic can and take them anywhere for our use. You can't do that with electricity. No, plastic batteries can never be shaped like cans...hurr durr. That gallon of gasoline will produce hundreds of watt-hours, more watt-hours than you can store in a battery that you can carry with the same ease. Yay! Energy density! Welcome to third grade! Yesterday Obama was touting a F-22 that was flying on biofuel and said we can do the same with trucks and cars which just proves he doesn't know the difference between jet engines and internal combustion engines. A jet engine IS a type of internal combustion engine. It combusts the fuel/air mixture internally, not externally. Look it up! Obama and I will be smirking smugly while you do. As Longer said the internal combustion engine goes back over a hundred years. Imagine a military of the future under Obama; lacking a beachhead we drop a MBT (main battle tank) behind the front lines of the enemy (of course we dropped in infantry, artillery, and everything else for war) and the tank is either electric or powered by biofuel. Sweet! The Army would love to have a silent tank with a low IR signature! Where do we find some way to power up? Okay we drop in an electric generator but what drives that generator? Diesel or jet fuel. So we have to drop large quantities of fuel to run the generator to charge up the tank so it can go fight. Why not just keep the diesel fueled tank in the first place. Oh, do you mean just keep the tank as-is and have it burn bioDiesel? Great idea! I'm glad to see that you agree with Obama. Diesel we can find more of on the battle field. Hey, just thinking out loud here...maybe we could find electrical power in that country...and use that country's powerplants to power our tanks? Then we wouldn't have to hire Halliburton to fly diesel fuel from the other side other world to Buttfuckistan for an outrageous fee? Same logic can be applied to large trucks and service vehicles. Of course that same logic can be applied to your family car.

See if you can find out how much it costs for Halliburton to deliver fuel, per gallon of Diesel.

[Longermonger]

"And in an Edmunds fuel economy test of a Volt with its battery depleted, the car returned only 31.4 mpg in mixed driving."

1. 31.4 MPG of mixed driving, not highway.
2. The battery was depleted.
3. The Volt was probably trying to charge the depleted battery while this test was being done. Edmunds doesn't say.

So big deal. It gets over 31 MPG while zipping around in city traffic while simultaneously charging it's own battery.

[lacrew_2000]

That's GM's problem. Why are you worried about it? I dunno...maybe the public stake in GM keeps me interested.

I never said that. You know I never said that. You should ban yourself, lol. hmm - "(New car sales will go tits up when gas hits $X per gallon.) You might want to start looking at buying a car later this year. Anything except a hybrid like a Chevy Volt or Prius. Those will be hot items." http://www.eccie.net/showthread.php?t=192651&page=2

25 mile electric range? Oh, I see you're rounding off to a round trip range and neglecting to mention the actual hybrid range...nope. Consumer Reports only got 26 miles on it - total. GM says it will vary between 25-50....annoying things like wipers, headlights, heat, hills, etc...they may have even snuck in a little time with the radio on. Edmunds average 33. Their worst showing was 23...best showing was 39 in eco mode...no independent testing group has achieved anything close to 50.

Yes, as I have said before, the average consumer is an idiot....I still await enlightenment.

[Longermonger]

Oh wow! So this whole thread is a spin-off of another thread and you took my conditional comment about high gas prices affecting new car sales (with the exception of hybrids) out of context to start this thread? I wondered why you started a thead about the Volt.

Okay, so big victory for you. I did use the words 'Volt' and 'hot' together in a sentence in another thread about another topic last month. I meant that IF gas prices went up to a certain point BY THE END OF THE YEAR that new car sales would drop WITH THE EXCEPTION of hybrid cars, which would be COMPARATIVELY HOT in a COLD market. Whew!

Go ahead and feel free to call be a lying bastard on December 31st, 2011. Until then, wait and watch the Volt sales numbers.

[Longermonger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrol...t#Fuel_economy

Check out your Consumer Reports 'combined' rating on the chart. They got 89 mpg-e!

[catnipdipper]

PLEASE HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR


Thank you

[Longermonger]

Originally Posted by riskyr

Crew:

You did a GREAT job taking us through the numbers.

Hey Galt, I really like your avatar.

I think I'll stay with my Cadillac.

Caddy you say?

[lacrew_2000]

The mpg-e rating assumes that 100% of the energy of a gallon of gas is used to propel the car. Using GM's fantastical claim that the Volt goes 50 miles on a charge of 14.5 kw, and the 33.7 kw/gal theoretical energy content of gasoline, you are essentially saying that this theoretical gallon of gas would propel the car 116 miles.

Back on planet earth, gas engines are around 20% efficient.

The mpg-e rating is for sheeple who don't know any better. I prefer mpg in very simple terms - after the initial charge wears out, how far will I get on a gallon of gas?

Volt - 27/37 advertised - tested at 30 mpg by Consumer Reports, tested 31 mpg by Edmunds

[CuteOldGuy]

Thank god Longer is back. I needed a good laugh tonight. Hey, Longer, let's go cruisin' in your Volt. PAR-TEE!

[Longermonger]

Originally Posted by lacrew_2000

The mpg-e rating assumes that 100% of the energy of a gallon of gas is used to propel the car. Using GM's fantastical claim that the Volt goes 50 miles on a charge of 14.5 kw, and the 33.7 kw/gal theoretical energy content of gasoline, you are essentially saying that this theoretical gallon of gas would propel the car 116 miles. Since you like throwing numbers around, what speed are you talking about? 116 miles per gallon is not out of the question for conventional cars like the Ford Focus if you drive them at 20 MPH. Drag increases at the cube of velocity, after all.

Back on planet earth, gas engines are around 20% efficient.

The mpg-e rating is for sheeple who don't know any better. I prefer mpg in very simple terms - after the initial charge wears out, how far will I get on a gallon of gas? It sounds like you just want range. The chart even shows you the European way of measuring the Volt, about 2.5L/110km. A dumbed-down way to think about is that you get 30-something MPG and then get a bonus 30 miles of electric power.

Volt - 27/37 advertised - tested at 30 mpg by Consumer Reports, tested 31 mpg by Edmunds There you go again! You're quoting the gasoline only mixed driving number. Why even do that on a car that isn't gasoline only?

FYI, the Volt has a drag Cd of 0.29. That's nice but not amazing. The CdA should be respectable. I'd rather see a much lower drag number and a total redesign of the car as a 1+1 tandem.