Chevy Volt

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us AAirways

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us AAirways
Can the Volt be run indefinitely on the gas engine, without ever plugging it in?

I know that sounds crazy, but what if you live in an apartment with no way to recharge it?
 
Yes, but then why would one spend the (substantial) money on a plug-in electric vehicle?
 
If it is leased, it's not much more than a regular car. With the $7500 credit factored in.
 
Anything for the smug feeling of driving a make-believe efficient car.
 
I might buy one if it were a little less expensive. Most of my driving is local. I could get an average week out of one overnight charge.

-Rich
 
us AAirways said:
If it is leased, it's not much more than a regular car. With the $7500 credit factored in.
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Then you are leasing a $25,000 car based on a $44,000 purchase price.

Makes zero financial sense when you run the numbers . . . . unless GM is having one of its 'deals.'

We own [lease] a Volt - we average about 80mpg cause the wife drives it 70 miles a day, and gets about 45miles out of the electricity. She leases it for car pool lane access - the only reason.
 
Why would one buy a volt when for the same price you could get a vette???

Better resale, 30mpg hwy, 400+hp, near 1g skid pad, better engineered, and people won't have to ask if you still have your balls attached.
 
comanchepilot said:
Then you are leasing a $25,000 car based on a $44,000 purchase price.

Makes zero financial sense when you run the numbers . . . . unless GM is having one of its 'deals.'

We own [lease] a Volt - we average about 80mpg cause the wife drives it 70 miles a day, and gets about 45miles out of the electricity. She leases it for car pool lane access - the only reason.
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$350/month for 36 months $2500 down. Financing a $25000 car would be $100/month more. How is that making no financial sense? Isn't that what happens when you buy any car??

I love the way it drove...zippy. Way better than the Cruze.
 
NineThreeKilo said:
Why would one buy a volt when for the same price you could get a vette???

Better resale, 30mpg hwy, 400+hp, near 1g skid pad, better engineered, and people won't have to ask if you still have your balls attached.
Click to expand...

And I agree, but all the vettes around here are $60-80k. And the camaro, I can barely see at all out the front,sides, or back.
 
If you aren't going to be able to plug it in, either at home or work, you would be better off getting a traditional hybrid or gas model. I have a customer with a C-Max "energi" a plug in hybrid, it's a company car that he refuses to plug in, ever, and he gets lousy mileage. Pull up to Walgreens or CVS, they have charging stations out front! ;)
And to answer your question, it should be able to run without ever being charged, at least the Ford products can, it's just very inefficient.:nono:
 
burn coal --> make steam --> turn generator --> make electricity --> step up voltage for distribution --> step down voltage for local use --> chemical change (charge battery) --> chemical energy to electricity --> electric motor --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

petroleum --> combustion --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

Burning the fuel is the most efficient way, in the physics sense, because a higher percentage of the fuel makes it to the wheels.
 
The Volt is a traditional car that has an electric drive installed. You would be better off getting a Cruze (the Volt w/o all the electric bs).
 
tinerj said:
burn coal --> make steam --> turn generator --> make electricity --> step up voltage for distribution --> step down voltage for local use --> chemical change (charge battery) --> chemical energy to electricity --> electric motor --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

petroleum --> combustion --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

Burning the fuel is the most efficient way, in the physics sense, because a higher percentage of the fuel makes it to the wheels.
Click to expand...

Electricity's still cheaper than gasoline where I live, so although I'm sure you're right about the physics, for me, it would still be cheaper to go with electricity. But the margin's not very wide: A significant increase in electricity prices or decrease in gasoline prices would rapidly erode the savings.

That possibility is part of the reason that I think the Volt is overpriced, both in terms of energy costs and just in terms of what it is. The credit helps bring it back within shouting distance of reasonableness, but not quite.

The first brand-new car I ever bought cost me $6,900.00. It got about the same fuel mileage as the Volt does when burning gas, as do other cars available now for much less money than the Volt. Even with the credit and the cost difference between gas and electricity, the Volt doesn't quite make economic sense at the current price. Given a sharp rise in electric prices (not unlikely given the likely demise of coal-fired power plants) or a decrease in gasoline prices, the Volt's economic advantage evaporates, leaving you with just an overpriced car that has more expensive parts to break down.

Of course, to me, a car is just transportation. I don't need it to be, for example, a validation of my masculinity, as at least one poster here apparently does :rolleyes: . It's just a car, and ultimately, what I want is the one that will reliably move me around while costing me the least money. And right now, that's not the Volt. Take another five grand off the price, and maybe it would be.

-Rich
 
Volt w/o electricity = Cruze

There is a new diesel Cruze model getting very good reviews and exceptional real-world (not EPA estimate) mileage.
 
tinerj said:
burn coal --> make steam --> turn generator --> make electricity --> step up voltage for distribution --> step down voltage for local use --> chemical change (charge battery) --> chemical energy to electricity --> electric motor --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

petroleum --> combustion --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

Burning the fuel is the most efficient way, in the physics sense, because a higher percentage of the fuel makes it to the wheels.
Click to expand...

I am not a fan of hybrids and prefer my 450 HP twin turbo daily driver that burns premium and gets 20 MPG on my commuting cycle.

However, there are a few things you leave out. Gas engines aren't very efficient at turning fossil fuel into power. You have a large percentage that goes out the radiator and the tailpipe. Then you have like right now, where I'm sitting in the Avalanche (5.3L V8) idling to keep the AC going for the sleepy baby. It is more direct, but there are lots of inefficiencies. Also, gas engines have a wide operating band, but any engine can only be tuned for a particular optimal efficiency point. Modern cars aren't even programmed to run at the most efficient point since emissions play a role.

Power plants are designed to run at a peak efficiency point, and they do. There are a lot of inefficiencies in transfer, but they are designed specifically for their operating points, which helps. So I don't think it's as cut and dry as that. Plus, when I hit the brakes it's wasted energy in a gas car. In an electric, it's regenerative braking that generates some power back.

The batteries are the real environmental fiasco until they can get a technology that is less polluting. Plus something that can charge easier for longer trips.

But I like horsepower, so I'll stick to gas. :D
 
N2124v said:
The Volt is a traditional car that has an electric drive installed. You would be better off getting a Cruze (the Volt w/o all the electric bs).
Click to expand...

With an electric and mechanical drive. The gas motor clutches into the drive train at higher speeds for efficiency reasons.
 
tinerj said:
burn coal --> make steam --> turn generator --> make electricity --> step up voltage for distribution --> step down voltage for local use --> chemical change (charge battery) --> chemical energy to electricity --> electric motor --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

petroleum --> combustion --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

Burning the fuel is the most efficient way, in the physics sense, because a higher percentage of the fuel makes it to the wheels.
Click to expand...

Are you forgetting the cost of getting the fuel into the tank?
 
tinerj said:
burn coal --> make steam --> turn generator --> make electricity --> step up voltage for distribution --> step down voltage for local use --> chemical change (charge battery) --> chemical energy to electricity --> electric motor --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

petroleum --> combustion --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

Burning the fuel is the most efficient way, in the physics sense, because a higher percentage of the fuel makes it to the wheels.
Click to expand...

What if we put the top edge of a long turbine wheel in the roadway across the traffic lane ? Then the motion of the vehicles would generate the electricity. We consume the most energy during the day when vehicles are most active.
 
tinerj said:
burn coal --> make steam --> turn generator --> make electricity --> step up voltage for distribution --> step down voltage for local use --> chemical change (charge battery) --> chemical energy to electricity --> electric motor --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels
Click to expand...

Yes. It's a coal powered car.
Which means it is using energy extracted here in the US, rather than sending dollars overseas to regions that are not our friends.
If I didn't need an AWD SUV, I would have a Volt.
 
flyingron said:
With an electric and mechanical drive. The gas motor clutches into the drive train at higher speeds for efficiency reasons.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ron. I laughed the first time I heard a Volt commercial that said 40 mile range per charge with a 300 something mile range on gas backup. To me it should be the other way around, but I'm not in marketing.
 
Bob Noel said:
Are you forgetting the cost of getting the fuel into the tank?
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Yes. He is conveniently leaving out the tremendous engery expended in extracting the crude oil > transporting the crude oil > refining the crude oil into something usable and then transporting and distributing the gasoline. He's trying to tell us that drilling and pumping oil miles beneath the ocean all over the world, or drilling into the ground and smashing up rocks inside the earth then injecting chemicals just to get crappy crude oil out, is the best way to turn the wheels on my car. I guess he also assumes all electricity comes from coal and it always will.
 
If you drive a substantial distance to work each day then you can benefit from fuel savings. I drive 45 miles to work and my Cmax uses about a gallon to get there. While I pay more in financing than my previous car, it's more than made up for in fuel savings. It's no Corvette but with 188 HP (combined) it has more kick that my previous vehicle. To me it's a win win all the way around.
 
N2124v said:
Thanks Ron. I laughed the first time I heard a Volt commercial that said 40 mile range per charge with a 300 something mile range on gas backup. To me it should be the other way around, but I'm not in marketing.
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Well, it would be nice if it were the other way around, but as you can see with the Tesla Model S, to get anywhere near 300 miles of all electric range (which even the Model S doesn't), you'll be spending well north of $100,000. GM figured that a smaller battery would equal a more affordable car and a study that was done in the 1980's in Los Angeles discovered that 80% of commuters in that area had a daily commute of 40 miles or less. That is how GM sized the battery, to serve that 80%.

When I lived in Oakland, my daily commute was 22 miles round trip. If I had a Volt then, I would have never burned any gas. Now my part time commute is more like 110 miles round trip, so the car makes less sense for me now. However, the all electric portion of the trip, my ability to plug in at work and the reasonable hybrid mode mpg combined, would produce some pretty impressive MPG numbers for my commute. It's just that, my car is paid for and I don't need car payments right now, nor do I need a new car. Electric car will have to wait.
 
Dav8or said:
Well, it would be nice if it were the other way around, but as you can see with the Tesla Model S, to get anywhere near 300 miles of all electric range (which even the Model S doesn't), you'll be spending well north of $100,000. GM figured that a smaller battery would equal a more affordable car and a study that was done in the 1980's in Los Angeles discovered that 80% of commuters in that area had a daily commute of 40 miles or less. That is how GM sized the battery, to serve that 80%.

When I lived in Oakland, my daily commute was 22 miles round trip. If I had a Volt then, I would have never burned any gas. Now my part time commute is more like 110 miles round trip, so the car makes less sense for me now. However, the all electric portion of the trip, my ability to plug in at work and the reasonable hybrid mode mpg combined, would produce some pretty impressive MPG numbers for my commute. It's just that, my car is paid for and I don't need car payments right now, nor do I need a new car. Electric car will have to wait.
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Maybe that's true for you, but not every employer would be okay with employees charging their cars on the company's dime. This isn't like charging a cell phone. I think I read that the charger pulls 12 amps, which would add up pretty quickly if more than a few people were doing it.

Another problem with these cars is that the spent batteries are eventually going to create a disposal nightmare, unless they can be recycled efficiently enough that it's at least a break-even situation.

Actually, I'm finding this situation to be typical of a lot of "green" solutions: Advantages in one environmental aspect have to be balanced against exacerbating problems in others. Windmills kill birds and bats, solar panels disturb delicate terrestrial ecosystems, both windmills and solar panels are unsightly and take up huge land mass, water turbines are harmful to marine life... everything has its costs.

In the balance, it seems like nuclear may be the least polluting solution of all. Assuming that the waste can be managed, nuke plants produce no carbon and have no adverse impact on wildlife. Get the bureaucrats and lawyers out of the way and bulldoze the protesters into the foundations, and it might also be the least expensive, which would make the operating cost of electric cars so cheap that buying one would be a no-brainer.

-Rich
 
us AAirways said:
$350/month for 36 months $2500 down. Financing a $25000 car would be $100/month more. How is that making no financial sense? Isn't that what happens when you buy any car??

I love the way it drove...zippy. Way better than the Cruze.
Click to expand...

thats lease vs purchase . . . its not a fair comparison.

You can lease a hybrid Altima for $299 a month with zero down.

We got $350 a month with zero down, 36 mo lease.

You can easily lease the vehicle for $1500 back of invoice, plus if you look around you can find another $500 off from GM and then you take the $7500 off for the lease -

Your residual should be around 60% and 15000 miles a year.

Plus - the residual is based off the cap cost of the vehicle - so your residual is usually around $26-27k - and there is no way the car will be worth that after 3 years - closer to $18k - so you can actually buy the vehicle for $30-31k, rather than $34k . . .
 
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tinerj said:
burn coal --> make steam --> turn generator -->....
Click to expand...

burn coal or natural gas or use hydro or wind or solar or nuclear fission to produce the electricity meaning you are not tied to a single finite source for your energy.
 
Not only does he ignore all that - guess who's the biggest power user in the country? Refineries. It takes almost 1kW/gal to crack/heat crude oil and distill into gasoline. That's a lot.

No, electric propulsion is the future for all human transport and the sooner we realise that, the better. The Tesla Model S is just the beginning of the car revolution and in 20 years time there will be no pure gas powered cars anymore. The prime mover will be electric. Mark my words.
 
I did a fair amount of math on the deal and wound up buying a pair of Prius Cs. This is for two active kids. I used a daily mileage of 40 with no charging stations along the way. All my calcs were done on base model cars, cash purchase. This takes out option changes, financing and lease deals so I could compare apples to apples.

The Contenders were the VW Golf Diesel, Hyundai Veloster, Prius C, Chevy Volt, and Ford C-max. I used the 8 year use schedule and calculated the time value of money at 5% just cause it was easy. the Volt came in second to last due primarily to the up front cost of the car. The Prius C edged out the Golf Diesel by a slight margin.

If the daily mileage were down a bit, and there were charging stations along the way, the Volt would have done better, but the base price of $36k was about $16k over the cost of the Prius C base model, and amortized over 8 years it didn't quite pay off. If we don't consider any time value of money, and freeze the dollar the Volt would have paid off right about 6.7 years.

The other thing I checked was the resale value of the Prius after 8 years and 120k miles. Quite impressive numbers, and I can't say what the Volt will be, but I guessed that it would be somewhat less. My brother in SoCal owns a Volt and his commute one way is 27 miles. He usually makes it without the engine coming on, but only if he doesn't use the AC. If he uses the AC(c'mon, it's SoCal), the car only goes about 18 miles on electric. He does benefit from driving in the HOV lanes alone, and he also gets some kind of state rebate on taxes which I didn't calculate because I"m not in CA. He put in a 240 volt charging station at his work but he has to share it with another Volt driver so he doesn't always get a full charge before going home, but hey, as long as the company is paying the meter, he takes what he can get.
 
docmirror said:
I did a fair amount of math on the deal and wound up buying a pair of Prius Cs. This is for two active kids. I used a daily mileage of 40 with no charging stations along the way. All my calcs were done on base model cars, cash purchase. This takes out option changes, financing and lease deals so I could compare apples to apples.

The Contenders were the VW Golf Diesel, Hyundai Veloster, Prius C, Chevy Volt, and Ford C-max. I used the 8 year use schedule and calculated the time value of money at 5% just cause it was easy. the Volt came in second to last due primarily to the up front cost of the car. The Prius C edged out the Golf Diesel by a slight margin.

If the daily mileage were down a bit, and there were charging stations along the way, the Volt would have done better, but the base price of $36k was about $16k over the cost of the Prius C base model, and amortized over 8 years it didn't quite pay off. If we don't consider any time value of money, and freeze the dollar the Volt would have paid off right about 6.7 years.

The other thing I checked was the resale value of the Prius after 8 years and 120k miles. Quite impressive numbers, and I can't say what the Volt will be, but I guessed that it would be somewhat less. My brother in SoCal owns a Volt and his commute one way is 27 miles. He usually makes it without the engine coming on, but only if he doesn't use the AC. If he uses the AC(c'mon, it's SoCal), the car only goes about 18 miles on electric. He does benefit from driving in the HOV lanes alone, and he also gets some kind of state rebate on taxes which I didn't calculate because I"m not in CA. He put in a 240 volt charging station at his work but he has to share it with another Volt driver so he doesn't always get a full charge before going home, but hey, as long as the company is paying the meter, he takes what he can get.
Click to expand...

The diesel wins handsdown, if you know cars.
 
NineThreeKilo said:
The diesel wins handsdown, if you know cars.
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I own a GTI and just sold a Golf GLS. I know them very well. Both were gas engines, because of the infamous VW diesel fuel injector and pump issues. I was a fan when I bought the two Golfs, but the constant turbo air leaks, and the crappy interiors turned me off the VWs. Also, you have to take into account the 6-10% bump in diesel fuel costs.

My kids liked the VWs, so I was inclined to them from the start, but the Prius C still outdid it. When I drive the Prius i'm getting near 60MPG mixed driving cause I drive it like a granny. My kids are doing mid to low 50s with lots of AC use in Houston. When we can turn the AC off we can get mid 50s easy.

It should be mentioned that the appointments on the Prius aren't as good as the Volt or the VWs, but they're ok for what we use them for. I was surprised at the low noise level of the Prius and discovered that they spent a lot of time and materials in sound deadening. It's not Cadillac but it's pretty good for an econ car.
 
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tinerj said:
burn coal --> make steam --> turn generator --> make electricity --> step up voltage for distribution --> step down voltage for local use --> chemical change (charge battery) --> chemical energy to electricity --> electric motor --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

petroleum --> combustion --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

Burning the fuel is the most efficient way, in the physics sense, because a higher percentage of the fuel makes it to the wheels.
Click to expand...

Not even close to the same efficiency, IC combustion engines are horrible for efficiency, where as a modern power plants are highly efficient, transmission losses relatively low, and electric motors also very efficient. From a pure efficiency standpoint advantage electric car
 
stratobee said:
Not only does he ignore all that - guess who's the biggest power user in the country? Refineries. It takes almost 1kW/gal to crack/heat crude oil and distill into gasoline. That's a lot.

No, electric propulsion is the future for all human transport and the sooner we realise that, the better. The Tesla Model S is just the beginning of the car revolution and in 20 years time there will be no pure gas powered cars anymore. The prime mover will be electric. Mark my words.
Click to expand...

The problem here is generation . . . I think we may have the power now to generate so long as all vehicles are charged over night. The vast majority of vehicles drive less than 40 miles a day total, making a 40-50mpg battery vehicle workable.

However, long distance travel and transport of goods will never work electrically. . . . diesel certainly - and having a diesel charge the battery of a vehicle like the Volt so it can go more than 45 miles- yeah - ok - that is prob a better choice because if you have diesel that gets you 80mpg when used as a generator for batteries - yeah, ok. Makes sense -

Not sure how we get otr trucks there . . .
 
tinerj said:
burn coal --> make steam --> turn generator --> make electricity --> step up voltage for distribution --> step down voltage for local use --> chemical change (charge battery) --> chemical energy to electricity --> electric motor --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

petroleum --> combustion --> mechanical motion --> turn wheels

Burning the fuel is the most efficient way, in the physics sense, because a higher percentage of the fuel makes it to the wheels.
Click to expand...


But, it's not PC

:eek:
 
"However, long distance travel and transport of goods will never work electrically. . . . "

This is why I'll stick with my 30mpg 1990s car. Even though my daily commute would be on pure electricity (similar to your volt story), what if I drive 300 miles for a weekend vacation? Last time I drove across country, longest gas stop was 9 minutes. If I switched my gas car for an electric right now, I'd have to save about 20k worth of gas cost to make it work, and that's a lot of gas. By the time I realize the 20k in gas savings, there's new electric batteries on the market.
 
comanchepilot said:
The problem here is generation . . . .
Click to expand...

Nope, it's energy density. Pump gasoline has considerable energy packed into 6.2Lbs (per gallon), or a cube about 7"/side. That same weight and size in the electrical storage media will only give about 21% of the same energy density as gasoline. Now, conversion efficiency is much better with electrical motors because we don't waste the thermal conversion to get the mechanical torque needed. Motors run much cooler than IC engine for the same work produced. It still can't overcome the massive benefits of the energy density of gasoline.

I've worked in the nuke field with many different kinds of reactors, and in that field the energy density conversion problem is 100 times worse. In that, we convert fission energy into steam, then steam into a mech turbine, then the turbine runs a generator. What a massive waste! But that's what we do to make electricity. Then, the transportation losses and reduction losses are also big.

Electricity is a great medium to work with, but for motive power, it still takes second place to gas. Things are changing with the lighter lithium batteries, and there are interesting things on the horizon with nano-tube capacitors, but it's a slow migration. Also, we have a massive, giant, huge fuel infrastructure. Overcoming that embedded mind-set is going to be toublesome.

Another major life cycle issue is the re-charge cycle. Right now, even the best and most advantageous re-charge cycle for a usable car is about 3 hours. In this age, 3 hours is a life time. No one is going to sit in a charging station for 3 hours. One way to overcome this is to have pluggable storage modules. You would drive your electric car into a 'fuel' station, and your battery would slide out the front, and a fully charged one would slide in it's place. Standards for battery modules would need to be in place, and there would need to be a guarantee that all exchanges would be equal so no one is left with a crappy battery module, but it could be made to work. If we had anyone in the DOT with an ounce of vision, they would be standardizing this right now, and setting up the rules and methods for battery module exchanges. But - no one has any vision, so the market is going to be left to figure it out.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I am not a fan of hybrids and prefer my 450 HP twin turbo daily driver that burns premium and gets 20 MPG on my commuting cycle.

...

But I like horsepower, so I'll stick to gas. :D
Click to expand...
Time for a Porsche 918 hybrid. 887 hp. 0-60 in 2.8. 80 mpg.

Nothing else to say.
 
Hard to do some of these calculations when fuel prices have risen 10% in the last 30 days and it's anyones guess where they are going. If they continue to raise then that may change the results.

In an 8 year out of warranty for 5 years modeling exercise, I'll take the Toyota every time. Maybe the others would be good, maybe not, that's the huge variable IMO.

Last and most important IMO, you have to drive something you like. People usually don't mind spending a little more for a vehicle they like vs. just buying the cheapest one according to a spreadsheet.
 
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