new EPA label for VOLT
...here's the new 'dual-fuel' label being used for the VOLT:
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/w...-v6_Slide6.jpg Chevy Volt Gets 37/93-MPG Rating, 60-MPG Average | AutoGuide.com News |
383 wh/mi and 37 mpg... Not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed using either power source.
Hopefully real world numbers will be significantly higher than the window sticker. |
...35 miles on battery and 379 miles on gasoline.
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what a joke
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Is GM still insisting on calling this thing an "electric car" and not a hybrid?
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I don't think you can drive the Prius very far or fast on electric alone, so it's not like any hybrid out there. But in the purest sense of the word "hybrid", it is one. I think Chevy is trying to make its unique method stand out a bit is all.
I realize it may not be popular with everyone here, but I do like the idea of having a car that runs off electric for most of my driving, with the gas engine there as a back up if I'm caught short on electric power. |
i find these numbers acceptable.
my daily commute is 33 miles... (45 minutes). if i can charge my car at work, it may be rare that i drop to ICE. now on weekends i drive 150mi (each way after a charge). -- but i would mod for more batteries some how. lol. **here's a question that may already be answered: can i force the Volt to use ICE on highway miles then force it to use EV on city/rush hour traffic?? . |
The main difference that I see between the prius and the volt is that the volt can go faster and farther on electric.
For the same less money tho, you can buy a brand new prius and a large enough plug in battery pack to give it a 40 mile all electric range, so I can only imagine that once Toyota comes out with a plug in hybrid, that is designed to be driven as a plug in, that it will be cheaper then the volt with a comparable range. |
In a standard 2004 - 2009 Prius, the ICE turns on at around 34 MPH. If the computer in a Prius is programmed correctly, the Prius can go about 52 MPH on electric power. It is limited to that speed to prevent the main electric motor from over speeding.
Various companies that build extra battery pack systems for the Prius use programming that keeps the ICE turned off under 52 MPH, and others use a more simple programming method and use the built-in motor limit of about 34 MPH. My Prius will do 34 MPH before the ICE turns on, but it has not been modified. The factory plug-in Prius (possibly available in 2011 - I drove one a couple of weeks ago at a car show) is supposed to have a 13 mile range and a top electric speed of around 62 MPH. Above 62, it will turn on the ICE to help drive the wheels, just as the Volt does above about 70 MPH. The limited battery-only range in the plug-in Prius is because the battery is relatively small. The upside is that this configuration keeps the interior room the same as a standard Prius. In the Volt, there is only room for four passengers because the battery takes up a lot of room down the center of the vehicle interior. The planetary gear setup is slightly different in the Volt, which allows the electric motor to spin somewhat slower, giving it a somewhat higher top electric speed. The volt has a 'mountain mode' setting that will force the ICE to charge the battery pack. If the Volt encounters a steep hill with a depleted battery, it will only be able to go up the hill as fast as the smallish ICE can propel the rather heavy Volt. By some assessments, it will likely be in the truck lane after a few miles on long and steep hills, regardless of how charged the battery is before the hill. |
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Though I've never understood why most people seem to think of the plug-in hybrid as having/wanting to run on battery only until that's depleted, then running on IC engine alone. Seems to me that on anything more than a short trip, you would get better results using both together. |
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At some point the weight of the battery is going to cost you more energy to carry around than it's worth and I'm sure every manufacturer is playing with that size and watching the market's response to their competitors. Expect every Volt to sell off the showroom floors in a hurry, but only the sales the next year will determine if other manufacturers make adjustments to their product line ups. |
Old Tele man -
It's going to be interesting seeing the real-world MPGe for people that have big versus small commutes. My long commute would split me right down the middle where I would need the ICE on the way home, so I would be at about 65 MPG. CarloSW2 |
...CarloSW2 -- "Yes," real-world information would answer lots of questions, and I'd prefer such info came from real-owners and not from GM-marketing "Hypesters" who apparently can't tell the difference between reality and honesty.
...hm-m-m, which is worse? Political "spin" or Automotive-marketing "spin"? |
I can't believe they only pull 35mpg city in charge sustaining mode. Even a Fusion hybrid can pull 41mpg city and that's a full size car. Was engineering a smaller two-mode hybrid system or licensing some of Toyota's stuff really that hard?
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The numbers on the EPA label seem to not be reality based. For instance they base the electric cost on 11 cents per Kilowatt hour. See this info on this link Electric Power Monthly - Average Retail Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State, and you will see that very few states are below the 11 cent cost per Kilowatt hour cost! This means all of the cost calculations on this label are questionable at best. Thanks to the Government Motors lobby I bet for the twilight zone sticker.
Also many residential customers will get sticker shock when charging the EV puts them into a higher bracket for KWH charges. I recently attended an Energy Management course for businesses. There is a charge for business customers called Peak Demand charge. This charge is carried through for a period of time, sometimes an entire year based on the peak electrical use for a 15 minute period. So if you plug in your car to a business and it happens to be a 100 degree day, with the Air conditioners using max power, the business will pay more all year! This peak demand charge will sour most businesses allowing folks to recharge EV's at work. I spoke with one business property manager who said he would turn off the circuit breakers for the charging stations in his parking garage. Imagine driving to work, and not being able to recharge for the trip home? |
Actually, the EPA used $0.12/kWh on the Leaf's rating, and $0.11/kWh on the Volt. I'm not sure if these would be figured for the place that they are selling it?
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i want to add that the 2004 honda civic EPA label low-balled the MPG.
i often drove at 53 MPG. i hope the Volt's EPA label also underestimates. |
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It's fair AFAIK, both are running in charge sustaining mode. The Fusion gets worse highway mileage because it's a fullsize car, not a compact, but it should also get worse city mileage. The problem with the Volt is that running everything through to a generator, then converting that back to mechanical power via the motor reduces efficiency by ~15%-20%, and the single speed trans for he electric motor hurts a bit too (~5+%). If they sent mechanical power directly from the engine to the wheels in charge sustaining mode they would do a lot better than the Fusion hybrid and be very close to a Prius.
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The latter is how I originally thought the Volt would work, as it makes a lot more sense than the super complex set up they have now. |
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Regardless of which is actually better, I agree that GM made the wrong decision. Of the two sensible solutions (true series hybrid or Prius-like hybrid), they managed to combine the worst bits (having a transmission and going gasoline -> rotation -> electric -> rotation). |
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Not every employer focuses on the short-term nickel & dime, or tries to squeeze its employees. For instance the large computer company I once worked for, which keeps about a thousand acres surrounding its Bay Area research lab as a wildlife preserve. I'm pretty sure they'll be putting in EV charging stations before too long, if they haven't already. |
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yeah sure $400 FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR electric bill maybe. Nope sorry even the ENTIRE YEARS worth of electricity for the electric car would not cost $400
where do you get $400 electric bill? WORST CASE SCENARIO for your average driver assuming bad electricity price and horrible heat forcing the lithium cooling system into overdrive when charging your looking at MAX $30 on your electric bill (assuming a VERY VERY high $3 per 100 miles) for the average us citizen driving 12,000 miles a year so 1000 miles a month. I can't even fill my Geo Metro gas tank for $30 and the average person would need to fill it at least twice a month. (I fill it twice a week sometimes but I am unusual in that regard) |
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From what I've read the charging stations can tell the cars charger to charge at a slower rate if for example they are charging at a peek demand time or you have a lower amp service at that location. Having electric space heater under peoples desks is going to make a larger impact then the charging of electric cars. At my job they already paid for an outlet for my electric car charging, figured the 25 cents a day it costs to have me plug in was worth it. |
exactly. this is called propaganda. the actual electrical cost is TINY compared to pretty much ANYTHING ELSE. they use this as "scare tactics"
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...so far, to my eyes, what GM has shown/delivered seems to be: (A) great initial idea, but (B) poor production implementation.
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Frankly the EPA's estimates are pretty high for yearly consumption. $601 would mean a bit over 5,000 KW-H at 12 cents per KW-H and that is half of the average US household consumption(11,000 KW-H as of 2008). But that is probably the standard 15k miles annually estimate. Which is pretty ambitious IMHO. 333 KW-H is terrible EV only efficiency. I usually use 250 as a worse case estimate! Now I'm going to have to see the EPA informational regarding this, it just reeks of mal-adjustments. |
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