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Hybrid Vehicles Chevrolet Volt Will the Chevy Volt Succeed?
544 messages, Last post on Oct 28, 2009 at 1:11 PM
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Let's see.... I can buy a very reliable Prius with a fair amount of room for $23K and get 50mpg. Or I (supposedly) can buy a Volt in a few years for $37K that can go 40 miles if I recharged it with a plug, then I use regular gas. And I wait to charge it. And I pay for the electricity (probably less than gas cost, true). How many miles would I have to drive to make up that ~$14K difference in purchase cost? Sorry, I think GM is toast here.
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Replying to: toyota4life (Sep 23, 2008 4:51 pm) Only an utter fool would actually want the engine to charge the batteries. All you want is just enough to keep things moving along until you can plug in again. "After the 40 or so miles, the battery becomes 400 pounds of uselessness, at least until the owner can plug the car into the electrical grid for a recharge." 400 pounds of uselessness, hmmm? Gee, you don't think this author has an agenda do ya? I'm sure the batteries are still perform a function (such as capturing free braking energy) and are not "uselessness". But I'm sure this author knows the system inside and out...
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Replying to: tlong (Sep 23, 2008 7:51 pm) Or I (supposedly) can buy a Volt in a few years for $37K that can go 40 miles if I recharged it with a plug" Then I guess you would not buy a Prius for $23K when you can buy a 36 mpg car for $13K. You can't make up that difference either. As for the $37K price tag this is new tech and new tech is always expensive. I remember when a 50" plasma cost $20K.... early adopters snapped 'em up and they didn't fail.
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Replying to: eaton53 (Sep 24, 2008 3:06 am) By re-charge I'm assuming the author means a full recharge. I'd like for the author to explain exactly why you'd want the ICE to fully recharge the battery pack? And if it did how would this increase it's electric only range? And as you said, since the battery pack is always powering the electric motor how can it be considered 400 lbs of uselessness? His statement implies that after 40 miles you might as well not have the battery pack. Does the author think that the ICE generator is directly powering the electric motor? Yes this person obviously has an agenda but his total lack of intelligence in this matter discredits whatever point he's trying to make. A way to describe the Volt configuration that possibly even this author could comprehend is that the ICE maintains the battery's charge at 30%. Is this re-charging? It's comparable to asking whether an air conditioner cools a home or just maintains a temperature? You can't maintain a temperature without cooling and likewise you can't maintain a state of charge without re-charging. |
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Replying to: eaton53 (Sep 24, 2008 3:22 am) The difference is that $23K is still around an average price for a car. $37K is a premium price that many fewer can afford. It's not just "is it a good value?", it's also "can I afford it?". As for the $37K price tag this is new tech and new tech is always expensive. I remember when a 50" plasma cost $20K.... early adopters snapped 'em up and they didn't fail. Well the first Insight and Prius didn't cost more than an average car price. When the plasmas were $10K I suspect there weren't many buyers other than early adopters. So according to this logic, GM may have a $27K Volt in 2010, but it will really be 2015 before they have a competitive product?
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Replying to: tlong (Sep 24, 2008 8:03 am) Regardless when the Prius first came out Toyota sold it for a loss. Gas prices were relatively cheap and it was very hard to justify the practicality of spending the premium for a hybrid when you could save thousands of dollars by going with a Corolla instead. The GM's executives were saying about the Prius pretty much what you're now saying about the Volt. In retrospect GM now admits that they made a big mistake. BTW, Toyota is also planning to release a plug-in version of it's Prius. It will only have a 10 mile all electric range and the estimated price premium over a regular Prius is expected to be around $6k. Since you don't think the Volt will be a competitive product even at $27k how competitive will a $29k plug-in Prius be with only 1/4th the electric range? |
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"So according to this logic, GM may have a $27K Volt in 2010, but it will really be 2015 before they have a competitive product?" If you mean "price competitive" then yes... but that doesn't mean the Volt can't sell in decent numbers. There are quite a few near-lux cars in the $30 - $40K range that sell between 50 and 100K units. IMO, there are a lot of people who will pay to show their greenness by saying they use no gas. It's just another way to impress the neighbors. "I agree completely. I read some of the most inane comments on Inside Line." Hence, why the Volt had to be put out there so early... the world is full of people who need to be educated, like so many horseless carriage owners at the turn of the last century. |
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The Senate is currently working on a proposal that would give up to a $7,500 tax credit for buyers of plug-in vehicles like the Volt. I'm personally not a big fan of tax credits but if they must exist then at least they should make some sense. I believe the goal is to reduce fuel consumption so any tax credit should be based upon fuel economy, not the vehicle type. If there are non-hybrids, non plug-ins that can attain the same or better fuel efficiency they are just as deserving of a tax credit. With that said the problem becomes how to assign a fuel efficiency rating to a vehicle like the Volt? I don't think that should be too difficult. First determine what the mpg of the Volt will be once the ICE generator has kicked in. GM is stating this will be around 50 mpg. Then estimate what percentage of the average drivers annual mileage will take place under these conditions. Let's say 40%. So for every 10,000 miles driven 4,000 will have involved the ICE burning gas to charge the batteries. At 50 mpg that's 80 gallons for every 10,000 miles driven or 125 mpg. That should qualify for any tax credit based upon mpg.
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Replying to: tpe (Sep 24, 2008 11:31 am) That's fine, but there needs to be an electric range number (in miles) for plug-ins. My understanding of the just-passed House tax credit is it starts at $3,000 for 5kWh + $150 for flex fuel capability + $250 for every kWh of battery capacity over 5kWh (up to a maximum of $3,000). A plug-in Prius would probably get nothing, while a Volt would get all $6,150. I think the 1st 250K vehicles fully qualify and it gradually declines after that. If the Senate gives more the bills will need to be reconciled. The object here apparently is not to promote high mpg, but no gas usage at all.
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