Quote:
Originally Posted by Russ
Sorry if this is a dupe.
Nice article at Jalopnik about how the Volt's a Hybrid even though they swore up and down that it wasn't.[/url]
-Russ
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Lets take a look at this, shall we?
Jalopnik didn't break this story, Edmunds did. In
this article Edmunds starts their agument based on this quote here:
"And when rumors swirled that a last-minute change had forced the Volt (and its sister the Opel Ampera) to using the gasoline motor for direct drive, GM said that was a lie. "
Smoking gun right? No, lets look at what the rumor that Edmuds is quoting actually said:
"A number of reports have surfaced in the wake of an Opel Ampera program in London claiming that GM is changing the powertrain setup in the Chevy Volt (right) and its European cousin (below) to permit the on-board internal combustion engine to directly drive the rear wheels under certain conditions."
That's the rumor referenced, Edmunds goes onto say that the spokesman claimed that the assertion that the gas engine would power the wheels was also a "lie", in Edmund's words. Edmunds goes onto assert that,
"The Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera, Peterson said, are and will remain cars that are driven solely by their electric motors, with the engine serving only as a power generator to supply electricity when the rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack is depleted."
But what was actually said? Other blogs have much different stores about this same rumour. Going back further, everything started with a
quote from the Telegraph:
"General Motors is working on the problem and this autumn plans to unveil a mechanical direct-drive from the engine to the front wheels through the existing twin-clutch planetary gearbox. This would reduce the energy losses of turning petrol power into electricity to drive the car at high speeds, and would also give the Ampera more spritely overtaking performance."
This is the rumor that Edmunds misquoted. And this is the
full response from
Patterson about the Telegraph's statement:
"This report is inaccurate. First off, the Volt cannot be driven without electric power. It always makes use of electric power within the drive unit.
Secondly, we have no plans to make any mechanical or control strategy changes prior to launch.
The team is in the final stages of validation and durability and have not identified any reason to make any changes. We have a very innovative drive unit that includes a number of clutches and a planetary gear-set which is highly efficient and exists in our pre-production vehicles today. For competitive reasons we won’t provide more details on the operation at this point, but will soon."
Patterson did not deny the use of the engine, only stating that the Telegraph was inacurate, and that there were no changes to the design. A play of words, but no denial about the engine's link in the drivetrain. This alone puts Edmund's *****ing aside (and misquoting), with their sources GM did not lie about the setup, they did not deny the setup. They did a play on words however, but as stated in Patterson's response, the full details would not be released until later.
Autoblog Green also
ran the rumor, but with much less anger. Though, they stretched Pattersons words to say that, "
the Volt's drive architecture remains the same as always with the engine only driving a generator." Reasonable assertion at the time, I suppose.
They later followed up on that rumor
here. While the details of the engine-to-wheels connection were still muddy, ABG asserted that it was still a rumor, citing that a change this
drastic was impossible this late in the game. And they'd be right, if the change really was made this late in the game (June of 2010).
I'll touch on that later, but ABG finishes the post with a quote from an engineer of the Volt's Opel twin, the Ampera, by saying:
"
In any case, the report cites Andreas Voight, an Opel project engineer, who is quoted directly – "We are considering driving the wheels directly from the petrol engine" – and that we can expect an announcement on the matter this autumn. We'll see, and we'll be pestering GM for a comment in the meantime."
Gee, GM just about confirmed the notion of the engine powering the wheels at high speeds, just under 6 months ago.
In fact, this is later backed up by
Hybridcars.com's chat with patterson which goes onto state that,
"
“Efficiency is the Volt’s mantra,” Peterson said. “We will take whatever method we have to get there.” Asked if Volt engineers would use the gas engine to power the wheels—a signature of a parallel hybrid system—if it meant greater efficiency, Peterson replied, “You could do it. Absolutely. It’s a matter of software.” He added, “You have some motors, a planetary gear box, there’s a variety of things we can do in there.”
While not revealing details about the Volt’s technical design, Peterson made it clear that the Chevy Volt employs some degree of hybrid efficiency strategies while the car is in so-called "charge-sustaining" mode.
According to Peterson, Volt engineers borrowed technology not only from its previous electric car, the EV1, but also from the company’s two-mode hybrid system—a clutched gas-electric system designed to give hybrids as much efficiency on the highway as in city driving."
ABG quoted hybridcars.com's article, and also spoke directly to Patterson to clarify. While they settled on the assertion that there would not be any engine power to the wheels, they did ask,
"The question was essentially this: if driving the wheels directly the way current hybrids do could improve efficiency, would that be possible in the Volt. Peterson told ABG that in general, the engineers would do whatever they felt was necessary to maximize efficiency including direct-drive if they thought that was the answer"
Again, with out a direct quote from Patterson, there's still no denial of the engine providing some power.
So I ask, 5 months later, why the hell is this big news? If you connect the dots, and read the links (and the link inside) that the detractors quote, you'd easily find that GM has been hinting at this for a long time, since the preproduction models started making their rounds. The articles that stated that this change was impossible (essentially, ignoring Patterson and the quoted engineers) didn't put forth any effort to think that this was built into the design long ago, as Patterson only denied that these changes were made [i[this late[/i] in the game, and it's a very reasonable assertion that he's been hinting that this decision was made long ago.
As promised, this fall GM finally (officially) explained the Volt's drivetrain, and reasoning for it. I can't understand the *****ing that's been involved by the media, or some members here when the change to mechanically couple the engine and generator to the drivetrain was made in the sake of EFFICIENCY. Boohoo if a team of engineers realize that 100% electric power is not the most viable solution in every condition, and see there's a way to make the package as a whole more efficient. Unfortunately, they had to compromise the full electric drivetrain idea, but would you prefer it to be less efficient with pure electricity?
What's important here, and what Patterson said 5 months ago is this,
"What I want people to know is that it’s a full performance battery electric vehicle for the first 40 miles. And after that, it has an extended range capability. It gives you the freedom to do your 340 miles. I don’t care what you call it. What I want them to know is that it’s capable of being any person’s only vehicle, regardless of what category it is."
As far as I'm concerned, outside of some unrealistic expectations, there has been no lying. GM has, for as long as I can remember, called it an Extended Range Electric Vehicle, and it is simply that. When the battery is charged, it's a pure electric car, even on the freeway. Only once the battery is depleted enough, does it turn on the engine, much less couple it to the drivetrain (more fuel efficient than just providing electrical power). This is the part where your Nissan Leaf would be tethered to a wall.
As far as real world fuel effiency,
Motor Trend has this to say:
Never mind the yellow journalistic brouhaha taking place on these here fine internets in regards to the 2011 Chevy Volt. Here's why I'm so geeked on the Chevy Volt and why you should be, too. In normal, everyday driving we got 127 miles per gallon (fine, 126.7 mpg). Which is pretty amazing. Broken down, over the course of 299 miles on Los Angeles highways, byways and freeways, the Volt burned 2.36 gallons of gasoline (fine, 2.359 gallons -- we rounded up). Most other cars use up a tank of gas going 299 miles. The Volt, to reiterate, used 2.36 gallons over 299 miles. That's freaking amazing!
[After their 2nd trip, with aggressive driving]
At the end of the journey, we'd covered more than 120 miles. City, hard-core mountain roads and freeway -- we even took the Volt up to its limited top speed of 101 mph. Well, the speedo indicated 102 mph, but we were pointed downhill. Let me also mention that we had the A/C on because it was 100 degrees out. Factoring in the mountainous part of our romp, where Frank and I acted like utter hooligans and neglected (on purpose) to put the Volt in Mountain Mode, we still averaged 74.6 miles per gallon over 122 miles.
This post took me about an hour and a half to research through the links. Had any of these "news" blogs taken that amount of time to even look at their sources, and the links with-in them, they wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on. Yes GM could not build a pure EV car, but GM never promised a pure EV car when it went into building the production car.
I'll repeat this quote from MT:
In normal, everyday driving we got 127 miles per gallon
