Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com - Teardown reveals Chevy Volt's electronic secrets

Quote:

Originally Posted by cfg83 (Post 306531)

Ptero -

I'm an adVoltcate, but that's NUTS.

CarloSW2

I am an advocate of hydrogen cars. Hydrogen cars were essentially perfected (by GM and others) at the end of the last presidential administration. But hydrogen cars required a renewable energy source and a nationwide distribution network which would have worked like an Apollo program to bootstrap our nation into actual technology leadership again. Despite their blatant posturing, Republicans fought renewable infrastructure, gave little support to a hydrogen distribution network, and sold their political influence to international oil companies who realized vast profitability by using the military and State Dept to enable their seizing of resources overseas and transferring associated costs to incredibly gullible taxpayers.

Now the Democrats have stupidly trashed billions of dollars of taxpayer investment in automotive hydrogen research in favor of the dead end of non-refuelable batteries. The $45,000 Chevy Volt is a perfect example. GM does not dare allow the battery pack to charge or discharge beyond 60%. An incredibly complex electronic control system attempts to control charge and discharge cycles of 288 cells which the scientific literature states can burst into flames if overcharged or overheated.

Regardless of their sophistication, electric cars remain and will always remain city cars. Long-range EVs are up against physics limits with lithium-based technology. Future experiments with advanced battery types are driven by industry lobbyists, not promising science. Improvements will be incremental and inconsequential. And the fast-charge vs. cell degradation issue is not going away.

Of course, the Chevy Volt is a plug-in hybrid. But after a few dozen miles, without a recharge it is just a gasoline car lugging around a heavy battery as I zip by in my $14,000 50-mpg Smart Car. Below a few dozen miles, it can be an electric car but don't run a pay-back analysis unless you are a masochist.

Battery advocates ignore the well-to-wheels baseline. Lithium comes mainly from Peru. It is mined with diesel fuel. It is shipped to LG South Korea with bunker fuel (the dirtiest liquid fuel), assembled into cells, then shipped to Detroit with bunker fuel where the cells are assembled into the heavily subsidized $8000 battery packs. A recent study by EV skeptics claims that each Volt is actually subsidized to the tune of over $200,000 when component research, government cost-share or grants, and well-to-wheels analyses are included.

Then there is the issue that electric cars essentially run on coal. Yes, without aggressive government involvement in expansion of a renewable national infrastructure, neither EVs or H2 make sense. Hydrogen cars share similar prototype-to-market cost issues but consumers could drive them anywhere. And fuel cells had demonstrated significant year-on-year cost reductions. Hydrogen cars were a product targeted for the general automotive market. Electric cars, aside from city cars (which I have no argument with, if one can afford two cars), are merely toys. No one is going to choose a car that you have to wait for more than a few minutes to fuel. No one with only one car will choose an EV. EVs are targeted at a strange market segment: rich people willing to fork out huge amounts of money for a second car they can't drive to see Grandma. Even more disturbing for EV advocates is recent evidence that hybrid and electric vehicle first adopters are returning to conventional gasoline cars in droves.

We have lost the dream. It's over. Choosing EVs over hydrogen cars, watching the Space Shuttle go to the Smithsonian when we have a Space Station in orbit... We are done as a leader. As Thomas L. Friedman said, "We are going to become a second-rate nation." Good luck.