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Hybrid Vehicles Chevrolet Volt Article Comments - 2011 Chevrolet Volt First Look
46 messages, Last post on Oct 22, 2008 at 4:38 AM
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2011 Chevrolet Volt First Look - The 2011 Chevrolet Volt is both more conventional than you might have been lead to believe and quite a bit more advanced than most potential buyers will know. (more)
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Replying to: tpe (Sep 23, 2008 2:33 pm) Well, what about this statement, which you pointed out earlier: Instead, according to Lutz, it will power up the batteries at the beginning of a trip, and then once the lithium-ion cells are depleted to the 30 percent of a full, charge them up again. Essentially the engine is meant to give the car 40-mile chunks of electric-only power. Like you, I would wonder why the generator would come on at all in the early stages of a trip? For me personally, I could go three months without driving more than 40 miles at a pop. Does that mean I could buy a Volt and run it "gasoline free" for three months or more?
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Replying to: larsb (Sep 23, 2008 2:59 pm) I have no idea what Lutz meant by that statement. The only thing that I can think is that if a person had not recharged the battery pack and had left the vehicle undriven for awhile then the ICE might start up initially to recharge the battery pack to above 30%. If you never drove over 40 miles between recharging then you'd never use any gas. However I suspect that GM will recommend that Volt owners deplete the battery pack on occasion to intentionally run the ICE . |
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I ad mire Chevy for putting the Volt in production, but I wonder, is 40 Miles enough ? With the generator that doesnt even fill the battery, i dont really get it. Smaller companys like Tesla have sport cars which have a 240+ mile capability, on a smaller charge. So a big company like GM can only do a car which is good for 40 miles ? Next morning, calculated exactly how many miles you do in a day, from going to work and back, then doing your groceries. Im sure youll do more than 40, and if its the case, its not for you.So who is the Volt for ? 
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Replying to: madofcars (Sep 24, 2008 4:54 am) GM could do a 150 mile range Volt, but it would have so many batteries, it would cost $80,000. Cost is the limiting thing here. Very important factor. "Im sure you'll do more than 40, and if its the case, its not for you.So who is the Volt for ?" If you do, say, 60 miles in one day, then the on-board engine only has to run during those last 20 miles, not the whole day. Your gas mileage would still be great, probably something like 70 MPG that day. Pretty good. If you do 200 miles in one day, a bit high mileage but some people drive that far, then you would probably drop down to 40 MPG for that day only. Still OK. Most days most people will do around 40 miles total in a day and use zero gasoline.
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Replying to: coldcranker (Sep 24, 2008 9:36 am) If a 200 mile trip resulted in 40 mpg then you would have burned 5 gallons. And that would have occurred during the last 160 miles. Meaning that at this point you're now only getting 32 mpg. I think that's low. GM is estimating 50 mpg when driving in this mode. That might not be accurate either but it certainly seems reasonable for an aerodynamic car that has regenerative braking, low roll resistance tires, a small engine (1.4L) tuned for max efficiency that will only operate at it's most efficient power level. If the 50 mpg figure is correct then a 200 mile trip will result in 3.2 gallons burned or 62.5 mpg. For a 100 mile trip you'd only burn 1.2 gallons resulting in 83.3 mpg. People considering the Volt should definitely take into account the kind of driving they do. If you routinely drive very long distances then you'd probably be just as well off with a Prius or Honda's new Insight and save some money. But for the vast majority of us who's annual mileage consists primarily of short trips the Volt is going to deliver significantly better fuel economy.
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Still wondering.........Anyone have opinions on this question: For someone who buys a Volt and drives 20 miles round trip every day, will the car EVER use gasoline? Could a person technically buy a Volt and have a tank of gas last a YEAR and still drive 5,600 miles during the year, paying for only a couple hundred dollars in electricity?
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Replying to: larsb (Sep 24, 2008 10:25 am) Just about every major manufacturer has some form of EV in the works right now. My crystal ball tells me that when these vehicles start hitting the road we will see a fairly rapid deployment of charging stations. If that's the case a person with a 80 mile roundtrip (40 miles each way) commute to work could potentially burn no gas during a typical day's driving. The more I think about the Volt's capabilities the more I like it. Sure it will occasionally burn gas but the option is carrying around 1,000 lbs of extra batteries that you'll rarely use. How wasteful is that, not to mention the added cost and performance hit that you'd take. When it comes to fuel savings there will definitely be diminishing return realized from increasing battery pack capacity past a certain point. For instance in my case a 40 mile battery range would probably reduce my annual fuel consumption by 70%. It's obvious that each additional 40 miles of battery capacity cannot possibly match the savings of the first 40 miles and at some point it will just become ridiculous.
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Replying to: tpe (Sep 24, 2008 10:59 am) I have spent $2,992 on 36,419 miles since I bought the TCH. That comes to about 8.22 cents per mile in gasoline costs. In 27 months that averages to $110.81 per month, or $1,329.77 per year. Taking the scenario where I would use 20 tanks of gas per year in the Volt (including fuel used on my semi-annual trip to Texas) I would spend $480 per year on gas and if I spent 1200 kwh on electricity then that would cost me around $120. So that would mean $600 a year on fuel (at gas prices of $4 per gallon). That would mean I would save $729.77 per year in fuel versus the TCH, or about $60.81 per month. So to save ANY money overall, I would have to get a car payment that is no more than $61 higher than my current payment, assuming insurance costs being equal. With the Volt's price being tossed around at $35K to $40K, financing it for 6 years would be somewhere between $657.00 and $750.00 per month with zero down - either payment is considerably more than what I pay now for the TCH. Looks like it would be financial idiocy for me.
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Department of Obviousness Department: Volt needs to "change the image" of GM Ya Think? |
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Replying to: larsb (Sep 24, 2008 12:06 pm) |
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