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Your information is incorrect. I drive a 2014 Volt. It still has the same range as I had at the start of ownership (6K miles) as today (50K miles). By your logic I would be replacing the battery pack. I'm not. Not even close. Chevrolet also provides a 8 year/80K mile warranty on the drivetrain -- including the battery. Would GM offer a warranty that would require two replacements of the battery on average? There are at this point more than 70 EVs at my office from a range of manufacturers. I'm in touch with a lot of that community. No battery replacements. There are longevity tests conducted by Idaho National Labs (a US DOE testing facility) that show the battery of an EV will last hundreds of thousands of miles. A nice summary with backing data for the Volt is presented here Tesla owners have gathered real world data to show 10% degradation at 160K miles There are many other such studies in this vein. Batteries are also to some extent like hard drives. They are sold with extra capacity to allow for failure of cells over the vehicle lifetime. Hard drives and SSDs also have this same capacity with blocks/sectors the user cannot access but are remapped as others fail. So even if a battery drops 10% of its capacity, the range presented may not change. Or in the case of the Volt, a 10% change in capacity would present itself as the loss of a couple of miles of range.

A little bit of digging shows the chevy volt uses a 350v setup.

http://gm-volt.com/forum/archi...

GM officially lists the cell voltage as 3.7V nominal, making nominal pack voltage 355.2V

so Yeah, 70% in 2 minutes might be a bit more reasonable then.

May I introduce you to the Chevy Volt?

Here is a pretty neat article on how the Chevy Volt uses its battery to modulate energy production from its internal combustion engine, allowing it to run nearer its optimal range more of the time. Note it is right in its sweet spot at 72 mph. (That said the car gets 'only' 40 mpg on the highway on gas, even though it can bypass the electrical drivetrain on the highway. It does weigh 700 lb more than a Prius so maybe the problem is the weight of the batteries which aren't very useful on long trips, but could allow you to drive up to 40 miles per day in the city without ever buying gas again.)

To be fair, LA is 266 miles away from Las Vegas; drive 1mph slower and you'll make it. Alternatively, they plan to put in a fast-charge station in Barstow (152 miles away) as one of the first 6 fast-charge stations just to make sure people can make it from LA to Las Vegas.

Many families in the US have multiple cars and only take one on a road trip at a time. Most families don't need both cars to be able to go 450 miles on a tank that's fillable anywhere in 5 minutes.

Most people live on the coasts, and are a lot closer to places they'd regularly drive to. You could drive from New York City to Boston or Washington DC on a single 265 mile charge. In southern California, you could drive from LA to San Diego and back on a 265 mile charge. You could even drive around the entire San Francisco Bay Area on a single 190 mile charge (the $60,000 version).

A large number of (wealthy) people in San Francisco, New York, etc. don't even own cars. Surely if they don't need a car then a limited-range EV would satisfy their needs. Sure, EVs aren't for everyone; but a lot of US driving done with gas-powered cars could be easily done with EVs.

Yes, but they're upgraded piecemeal. If people suddenly started buying EVs en masse then they wouldn't be able to find enough labor (or budget) to upgrade all the neighborhoods.

I may be getting old, but I always hear about some catastrophic effect that new technology will have. As CPUs approached 50Mhz, people were telling warnings about if their frequencies got faster, there would be widespread FM interference.

With the public availability of wifi, people made relations to the 2.4Ghz signal being so close to microwave ovens, that the world population would be sterile, we'd all die of cancer within a few years, and other false claims.

Ages ago, it was suggested if the population started (oh my gosh) having their own vehicles, the road infrastructure would fail. There simply wouldn't be room on the roads for all the cars, and if there were, there would simply be no usable area for anything but highways.

And lets not forget about oil shortages. The 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, (I think we forget about it in the 1990s), were all going to be the end of the world, because there would be no more oil, or at least not enough to provide for consumer use. I doubt many people here remember WWII war rationing.

As for your assertion that there will be a conflict with electric vehicles and power grids, is irrational. Sure, if everyone bought an electric car today, and plugged them all in at 6pm, it would most likely cripple some areas.

We'll use the Chevy Volt as an example, since it is a newer plugin hybrid that is available to consumers.
http://gm-volt.com/2009/08/20/charging-the-chevy-volt/

There will be a portable 120 V unit (R) that can be plugged into any standard receptacle. It will be able to recharge the car fully in 6 hours at 12 amps or 8 hours at 8 amps.

The other device option (L) is a 240 V stationary wall-mounted unit that has to be installed in the owners garage per code. This unit running at 16 amps can recharge the Volt in 3 hours.

For comparison, a 3 ton residential air conditioner draws about 14A@240VAC. A 4 ton draws about 17A @240VAC.

It could be equally claimed that building newer homes in excess of 3000 sq/ft with vaulted ceilings would have crippled the power grid. I may not have received the memo, but it looks like we all still have power for our computers, so I'm guessing the power grid survived. That gives a good impression of what the peak current is. For those who turn on their air conditioner (or heater, depending on location and climate) when they get home, make dinner, watch their big screen TVs, etc, etc, the peak power consumption is higher.

The only real problem would be if everyone bought new plug in electric cars within a *very* short time span. If I were to step outside, and look at my neighbors cars, I would see cars made from the 1970's through maybe 2010. I don't need to look right now, I did last night. I've also noticed similar trends just about everywhere I've been (which is an awful lot of places).

Just like the telephone and cable companies upgraded areas to support faster Internet speeds, the power companies will upgrade areas as needed to support higher demands.

The article makes a 20 year prediction that half of new cars sold will be plug-in electric. That doesn't mean half of homes will have them. That would indicate for half of homes to have them, you'd still be looking more like 50 years in the future. Now think, what was the spot you're sitting in now, 50 years ago? Where I am was a partially wooded rural area, a few miles off a 2-lane highway that was probably farm land of some sort. Now it's a residential neighborhood, surrounded by residential neighborhoods, off of a 6 lane highway, and a 4 lane bypass.

If you think back (or imagine, if you aren't old enough), households have grown, power needs have grown. A typical 1940s

And modern electric cars do loose half of the battery capacity in cold climate

That's simply not true. As GM points out, most of the winter difference, which isn't as dramatic as you make it out to be (25-30 miles instead of the average/nominal 40 miles, with 45-50 in spring) has nothing to do with loss of battery capacity, and is simply that it takes more energy to drive a car of any fuel source in the winter, between increased tire losses, snow, harsher driving cycles, interior cabin heating, etc. In case you didn't notice, your gasoline car also gets worse mileage in the winter. Also, the Volt unfortunately doesn't have a reversible heat pump, just a standard resistive heater, which is a big hit. Most future EVs should be expected to have reversible heat pumps for climate control, with the motor and/or battery pack as the "hot" reservoir.

Lastly, a pet peeve of mine...

If you covered the entire property of a typical single-family home with solar panels (*all* of it, not just the roof of the house/garage), you still wouldn't be able to take in enough energy to charge a typical eCar in under a week.

What are you talking about? The Chevy Volt charges from empty in 13 hours on a 120V circuit pulling a bit under 1KW. Its range on that charge is about 40 miles. Generating 1KW is easy - here is what it looks like - those plug straight into your existing outlets using built-in circuitry. Of course, people drive very different miles per day and live in different places, so I'm not saying it's currently feasible for most people. (I happen to live in New Mexico and have an 18 mile round-trip commute). But what you said is a big exaggeration.

That's called a serial hybrid (energy flows from engine to battery to wheels). It is not "different" or new, but was invented nearly 100 years ago.

And not what the volt is. The engine does offer mechanical assist to the driveline. Brought down to basics, it's just like a Prius. Just the first link I grabbed from google: http://gm-volt.com/2010/10/11/motor-trend-explains-the-volts-powertrain/

Then ttac has it wrong. Gm says otherwise, and there's a whole slashdot like foruim that tracks these kind of things at: http://gm-volt.com/forum/index.php You have to know that not all journalism is deserving of the name. In this case, they couldn't even read a press release right?

...with the same gas mileage as my 20 year old toyota. :-\

http://gm-volt.com/2010/10/10/popular-mechanics-finds-chevrolet-volt-gets-32-mpg-city-and-36-mpg-highway-in-extended-range-mode/

Obvious troll but let me indulge you.
The 2011 Chevrolet Volt does NOT have a direct mechanical connection between the engine and wheels. http://gm-volt.com/2010/06/30/combustion-engine-does-not-and-will-not-turn-the-volts-driveshaft-ever-got-it/
Now off to your bridge.
BTW my brother and I carried the motor and transmission (still bolted together) from my 95 neon about 50 ft. My weight 135lb, my brother 155lb. My neon motor is way bigger than the volt motor so I must be like Superman or something.

http://gm-volt.com/full-specifications/
9.3 gallons of gas at 7.48lb per gallon is about 69.54 lb.
And an inline 4 engine with 85.3 cu. displacement probably does not weigh more than 200 lb.
I think Chevy claims all related systems for the combustion engine weigh 700 lb.

So your solution to protecting the batteries are adding heavy Steel plates to the car. Which in turn adds more weight and gives less mileage. We can't find a metal that is lighter and stronger?

They've said the additional bracket (it's a stretch to call it "steel plates" has it's not exactly armor) weighs about 3-4 pounds and will have no noticeable effect on efficiency.

Photo of the bracket is here:
http://gm-volt.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ChevroletVoltPartsInstallation115-724x1024.jpg

From this excellent overview of the actual "fixes" that GM will be doing to customers that CHOOSE to bring their Volt in for it:
http://gm-volt.com/2012/01/06/gm-chooses-to-%E2%80%98go-extra-mile%E2%80%99-with-volt-battery-protection/

Also, you might want to google "Volt high strength steel". The car has some of the highest structural rigidity in the industry. Yet another way in which the Volt is demonstrating a big leap forward in automotive technology.

So your solution to protecting the batteries are adding heavy Steel plates to the car. Which in turn adds more weight and gives less mileage. We can't find a metal that is lighter and stronger?

They've said the additional bracket (it's a stretch to call it "steel plates" has it's not exactly armor) weighs about 3-4 pounds and will have no noticeable effect on efficiency.

Photo of the bracket is here:
http://gm-volt.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ChevroletVoltPartsInstallation115-724x1024.jpg

From this excellent overview of the actual "fixes" that GM will be doing to customers that CHOOSE to bring their Volt in for it:
http://gm-volt.com/2012/01/06/gm-chooses-to-%E2%80%98go-extra-mile%E2%80%99-with-volt-battery-protection/

Also, you might want to google "Volt high strength steel". The car has some of the highest structural rigidity in the industry. Yet another way in which the Volt is demonstrating a big leap forward in automotive technology.

I don't know where you get the idea of short distances at low speeds from, but you're wrong.

The reviews when it first came out said that it used the gasoline engine when driving at highway speeds because the electric motors weren't powerful enough to handle high-speed driving by themselves.

Here's one of the first results Google found:

http://gm-volt.com/2010/10/11/motor-trend-explains-the-volts-powertrain/

Which implies that it's more complex than those reviews said, so the gasoline engine will come on to help run the car in various situations, depending on what mode it's in. Like going up a steep hill at more than 40mph(!).

Nissan Leaf does 0-60 in 7.0 seconds. Chevy Volt does 0-60 in 8.5 seconds. Tesla made a conscious decision to build some performance acceleration into their car. It fits into the "sports luxury sedan" niche. That's a niche marketed toward people of means, hence my description of it as a rich person's toy. It's not a car one would buy for purely practical reasons.

My Hyundai Sonata Hybrid uses Lithium Polymer batteries that according to this article already implement this technology.

It's a completely different technology.

FTA:

The Leeds-based researchers are promising that their jelly batteries are as safe as polymer batteries, perform like liquid-filled batteries, but are 10 to 20% the price of either.

A five to tenfold reduction in the price of batteries sounds pretty significant.

My Hyundai Sonata Hybrid uses Lithium Polymer batteries that according to this article already implement this technology.

It's a completely different technology.
FTA:

The Leeds-based researchers are promising that their jelly batteries are as safe as polymer batteries, perform like liquid-filled batteries, but are 10 to 20% the price of either.

A five to tenfold reduction in the price of batteries sounds pretty significant.

My Hyundai Sonata Hybrid uses Lithium Polymer batteries that according to this article already implement this technology.

Lithium polymer technology uses a completely different approach. Rather than using a liquid electrolyte, which requires a robust metal casing, lithium polymer batteries use a polymer gel as the electrolyte

If you are correct that there is no market for the gas guzzlers, than what the hell with the regulations forcing something, when in fact there is no point in them, if there is no demand for gas guzzlers?

But that's just not the case. In fact the government in US caused a massive increase of gas guzzler purchases, because it was subsidizing them with special tax incentives.

Either there is market for large vehicles or there isn't. If there isn't, there is no need for the legislation. If there is, then the gov't is getting in the way of the choices people make in the market, and thus causing more imbalance in the market.

I googled for what the Chevy Volt takes for a recharger (It's just what jumped to mind, I've seen too many ads for it) A statement on in this page http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?6307-HOW-TO-ORDER-YOUR-HOME-CHARGING-STATION says it's a 16 Amp, 220V plug. A normal "dryer" plug is a 50Amp, 220v plug. So if you had the ablity to use something as large as a dryer plug, It'd let your car recharge about 3x as fast. But to do that, you also need a larger electrical service in some cases. Some older houses don't have a very large service, and so you'd end up causing problems (either your main breaker tripping, or worse a fire) if you tried running your dryer, your household heater (or A/C) and charging your car at the same time.

Some vital stats:

* Gas/petrol usually costs about 15 cents per mile. This (and other electric cars presumably) will cost just under 4 cents per mile (based on current electricity costs), so the overall cost is only 4x cheaper (I was hoping for a full 10x or even 100x cheaper, but it's still good).

* It takes 10 hours to do a full recharge to do a full 40 mile recharge on 120 volt, but only 4 hours with a 240 volt supply. Maybe America et al. should switch to the 240v power like Europe to get faster charging (our kettles boil in half the time too). I'm not sure if anyone in the world has 480 volt mains, but that sounds as though it could be useful.

Most info obtained from here: http://gm-volt.com/chevy-volt-faqs

What far left ideas? Forcing private citizens to give their money to giant corporations? Checking my leftist handbook, I don't see that one. Gently slapping the wrists of giant corporations that completely screwed our economy? Once again, it isn't in my lefty handbook. Bailouts? Yes, those would be if they actually helped people, and not more giant corporations. Continuing a couple unjustifiable wars that only benefit politicians and giant corporations? Nope, that isn't in my handbook either. Not pursuing justice against the previous batch of corrupt nincompoops for potential war crimes, and not reversing the policies that allowed them? Nope, not in the book either. Not reversing the erosion of civil liberties, and actively trying to erode them further? Nope, still not in the book.

Ah, but that's because you've fallen into the trap that Republicans favor business, Democrats favor the people. Or perhaps I should put it that the thought is conservatives favor business while liberals favor people as there are conservatives and liberals in both parties. The real problem is liberals support a philosophy that, by it's nature, puts people in power to exert control over the population. At it's heart is that the public is too stupid to govern itself and must have government control. Without that all those evil corporations would run rampant over the sheeple.

However, that idea leads people into office who simply want the control.

The left is just fine with paying off corporations--when the ultimate goal is control of corporations. When somebody gives you money, you have to follow their rules. As states have found, federal $$$ come with a lot of purse strings. Just look at GM. The federal government had a defacto takeover of GM, propped up the unions, named the majority of the members to a new corporate board, stiffed former stockholders and control what type of cars are produced. Now they have the Volt, which retails for $41K, but costs $40K to build. This is probably the best illustration of government involvement in business.

Conservatives want limited federal government with more power (where needed) going to local control. Local politicians who are accountable to the people they serve. For example, I have much more control over elections in my city or state. But I have no control over what Senator gets elected in say Florida or New York or California. That's how it should be per the constitution, but that doesn't mean those senators should have the bulk of the power over everyone. The federal government needs to keep the country safe from attack--it does not need to regulate every aspect of our lives.

Politicians have forgotten they work for us. That's a lot about what happened in the last election. The people said, "No! Stop!" The politicians just said, "We know better than you," and kept pushing their outrageous bills. They knew this was the chance to get in their wish list over the public's wishes.

Not a single left thing? How about his health care bill? No one would argue that health care has things that need fixing. We need competition and the ability to take our heath care with us from job to job. Doctors need tort reform. What it didn't need was an overhaul that will cost taxpayers more, do nothing to solve the problems and it's goal is to push us into a single payer system. That IS Obama's goal as he stated. That is also the goal of many liberals despite such health care leading to abysmal care in those countries. And yes, death panels. I don't know what else you call it when the government curtails care to it's seniors. There is example after example of those over 50 being denied things like common screenings, like PSA screening for prostate cancer. Or women denied mammograms even though the risk of cancer increases which age. But the

Under normal, battery-charged conditions and under 70 MPH, the gasoline engine does not run at all.

This is not correct. The gas engine doesn't turn on at all when the car is in electric mode, even when driving over 70mph. When the car is in charge-sustaining mode, that is the battery is depleted, the gas engine is directly connected to the wheels under certain conditions from 30mph.

GM says: "The engine WILL NOT turn on while the car is in electric driving mode (which for your trip two days ago approached 50 miles) – simply put, it is a full-performance battery electric vehicle.

Once the battery is depleted, the Volt’s gas-powered engine engages to create the power needed to extend the range of the vehicle several hundred additional miles. In extended range mode the Volt is powered by either a 1-motor series or 2-motor combined mode. The vehicle will select the most efficient mode for the driving condition: 1-motor series – for operations almost exclusively below 30 mph; 2-motor combined almost exclusively above 70 mph. At speeds in between 30-70 mph, the Volt will select the most optimally efficient drive mode amongst the two."

Assuming, of course, you don't have to replace a $30,000-$40,000 battery pack every 3-5 years. The problem with the Roadster is that the laptop batteries they're using (or at least used initially... not sure if they've fixed this yet) only support about 300-500 charge/discharge cycles before they're seriously failing.

Hybrids, including the Volt, solve this problem by short-cycling the batteries. On my 2003 Prius, they only run 40% of battery capacity, so after 130,000 miles, it's virtually good as new. They extended this to 60% starting in the 2004 model year (they also cut down on the number of cells, so the capacity is the same). These are both NiMh, but the same seems to be true of Lithium based technologies.

The Volt is supposed to have a newly engineered cell that supports more cycling, more like 5,000 charge-discharge cycles (at least, that was their goal). That gets you about 200,000 miles on a battery, if you believe the 40 mile range as a useful average. And yet, at least in the original design, they weren't going to charge the battery on-the-road, as a hybrid does ... you'd run it down, then the ICE takes over until you recharge it at home.

It sounds like they fixed this, at least, and the generator is actually charging the batteries in-flight. The writeup I read is here: http://gm-volt.com/2010/10/11/motor-trend-explains-the-volts-powertrain/

Basically, they've switched around the positions of the two motor/generators and the ICE in this design, versus the Prius. It looks like, while technically the ICE is providing power to the same system as the main drive motor, its intended purpose is to run the generator. Much as the Prius's smaller motor/generator drives to change the effective gear ratio between the big motor and the ICE, you could claim it's proving some motive power, since technically it's adding power to the system, but that's a tiny side-effect of its real function.

Q: How is the Chevy Volt different than other cars on the road?
A: The car is a plug-in range-extended electric vehicle with an on-board gasoline generator. It will have a large battery that stores power from your home electric outlet and which is connected to an electric motor. The electric motor directly propels the car. The battery can last for the first 40 miles. After that, should one continue to need to drive, the on-board gasoline/E85 generator will power up to provide electricity for the motor.

The real win for series plug-in hybrids is that energy from your power company is a fair bit cheaper than energy from your engine crankshaft

But is it? An average modern car gives you 30 mpg. You use 1.5 gallons and drive 45 miles, this costs you today about $4.50. The Volt will eat 200Wh/mile, or 9 kW*h. Assuming 50% efficiency of the charge-discharge cycle you need to pay your electric company for about 18 kW*h, which for many consumers (at PG&E E1 rate) will cost $5.40 (assuming that you exceed the base load, which you certainly will with an EV, many times over.) You may be able to get a better rate at night time, but still the costs are comparable - the electric energy is not 10x cheaper or something like that.

Read the recent review of electronics-laden electric GM Volt:

http://gm-volt.com/2010/04/02/gm-volt-reader-test-drives-the-nasaman-report/

THE VOLT IS BY FAR THE EASIEST TO DRIVE, THE MOST RESPONSIVE & THE MOST EXCITING CAR I’VE EVER DRIVEN!!! It’s impressive from the getgo! Just a touch of the accelerator starts the car rolling without even the slightest hesitation or jerkiness like I’ve come to expect from any ICE-powered car. From a replay of the video I shot, I blurted out, “Oh man! .talk about torque!!!“ at the first nudge of the Volt’s ‘go pedal’. We turned the first short-radius corner so sharply that my new HD video camera, on its normally very-secure dash mounting rig went careening across the dash —and as I grabbed for it the Volt ignored my ‘panic antics’ and continued smoothly around the sharp turn on the wet, slick pavement with no detectable leaning or sliding —it felt like it was on rails!

_AND_ it will get 50mpg on ICE.

A range extender turns your pure electric commuter into a "modular hybrid"

That is exactly what the volt does, except without a trailer lugging behind. Unlike the Prius it is not as you say, a "traditional hybrid".

http://gm-volt.com/chevy-volt-faqs/

Q: What is the driving range of the Chevy Volt?
A: The car is being designed to drive at least 40 miles on pure electricity stored in the battery from overnight home charging. After that the gas engine will kick in and allow the car to be driven up to 400 miles on a full tank (~8 gallons) of gas.

Q: How many miles per gallon will the Chevy Volt get?
A: A bit of a trick question. For the first 40 miles it will get infinite mpg, because no gas will be burned. When the generator starts, the car will get an equivalent of up to 50 mpg thereafter. One can calculate the average mpg per for any length drive starting with a full battery: Total MPG = 50xM/(M-40). GM has announced the car will get 230 MPG for the average city driver over time assuming nightly full recharges.

Q: What is the cost of operation of the car
A: With current average U.S. electric rates of ~10 cents/kwh it should cost 80 cents to drive for the first 40 miles, and then get 50 mpg thereafter using gasoline (market rate).

Sounds like the battery has a 60+ mile range, but the generator kicks in at 40 miles to give it some room to maintain optimal efficiency.

Q: How many miles per gallon will the Chevy Volt get?

A: A bit of a trick question. For the first 40 miles it will get infinite mpg, because no gas will be burned. When the generator starts, the car will get an equivalent of up to 50 mpg thereafter. One can calculate the average mpg per for any length drive starting with a full battery: Total MPG = 50xM/(M-40).

If GM is right, then the gasoline-only energy efficiency is not bad at all.

in the mode you described battery will last for 2 years max.

According to one source the batteries "will be guaranteed for 10 years/150,000 miles." Using those numbers that would be 15,000 miles per year. Yet an Aussie taxi cab company puts on 125,000 miles a year on it's Toyota Priuses.

Falcon

"Where have they guaranteed this?"

In many many press-releases. You can follow the http://gm-volt.com/ site.

"I was reading comments on the GM blog and someone noted that the EPA watt-hours per mile actually translated into 32 miles range for 8KWhs. The GM answer was already hedging the range saying the 40 miles was "up to" 40 miles and the EPA used pesky things like AC."

Yes, of course. GM calculates the range based on a 'typical' usage (with some AC, hills, etc.). It will probably be different in the real world. 8 miles change does not sound extraordinary.

And also let me rephrase it this way, GM's guarantee means that Volt's battery will have 8kWh of usable capacity even after 10 years.

>If you have the cheddar to drop $40k on a commuter car, you probably don't think twice about the price at the pump.

Well, there's supposedly a 7.5k rebate for this from the federal government. Lets say you live in a state that has a 2.5k rebate too, so lets assume 10k off. Now its a 30k car.

Granted, its not exactly cheap, but a lot of people can afford that as the average new car price in the US is 29k. You'll be saving in gas too. 85 cents in electricity to charge for 40 miles is $8.50 dollars for 400 miles, which is 2 tanks of gas on my saturn, which costs me $60-70 today. Thats hard city driving for my saturn, rural and suburban mileage will be better, but nothing close to the Volt.

The Volt is not a BEV, it is an EREV. That is, the Volt is a plug-in series hybrid that uses a small gas engine to drive the electrical system (somewhat like a diesel-electric locomotive except with gasoline). The goal is to run all-electric for 40 miles (covering 75% of commuters) and kick in the gas engine when the battery gets low enough.

And it appears to be on schedule for 2010. More info here and here.

But where, exactly, would the batteries that can push 60 kilowatts go? I don't think they would fit in the trunk of a Mazda Miata with this magical imaginary computer.

Or more importantly, batteries that can push 60 kW for any period of time. I think that with enough cells, which you can make about as small as you want, you might get the power, but you definitely won't have the energy to run it for anytime whatsoever. The energy density is nowhere near good enough. But, Sticking with the Miata example, there's easily enough power under the hood to drive both the car and the computer, particularly with a high output option like the BPT. You just need a generator, like the 53 kW version in the Volt. For an automotive sized and powered vehicle, using year 2000 level power and materials technology, you could easily add such a computer and all it's benefits. That means effective, mobile, car sized autonomous fighting vehicles (since this is a DARPA project, I'm considering the military applications first) are extremely easy if you have this kind of computer, and motorcycle/Terminator sized units are probably possible, just using gas burning engines -- no advanced technology except the computer.

I apologize that wasn't clear from the original post.

--sabre86

There is no new technology required to deliver electric cars. Just retool the factories and get started. Now that the government owns a big part of GM why not have a cheap electric car for 2010?

Well, there's the Chevy Volt, which is looking to cost about $40K.

There's more to it than just taking an electric engine, sticking it in a car, and calling it done. Remember when American car companies did that during the oil embargoes of the 1970s? They end up with a bunch of cars that couldn't get out of their own way because all they did was drop a 4 or 6 cylinder engine where there had been an eight cylinder engine. Consumers hated it and went and bought Japanese cars. So just sticking an electric engine in a car will give you crappy range and battery life, which will create an electric car that people don't want to buy.

For example, one of the issues they ran into with the Chevy Volt was the windshield wipers. How would you feel if, say, you only got 75 miles, versus say, 100, from a charge because it was raining and you were silly enough to run the windshield wipers? You'd then be complaining about how stupid GM was for thinking they could get away with this.

So yes if your building a train that drives on perfect road/track, and you only care about efficiency, not performance, comfort, and rarely have unplanned stops, more weight is not a bother.
So sure, you can make up for weight with exotic materials, but using those on hybrids just throws even more advantage to them.

First, the Volt will be around 3500 LB
while the Tesla model should come in around 3800 lbs. They are within 10% of each other.

Since any decent performance battery is still way less reliable than any ICE system, that argument of complexity of gen set = higher failure is currently so crazy to be laughable. A hybrid car will have lower maintenance and life time cost than any all electric car built today, unless you only do short trips between charges, then the hybrid would be equal (engine not needed.)
So, you are saying that the failure state of a pure battery system will be higher then a battery system AND a ICE driving a generator????? You are obviously not an engineer if you think that two systems; the electrical being simple and the ICE being complex is going to be as simple as a simple battery system. The hybrid will require a great deal more maintenance than a pure battery. In fact, because the hybrid has a smaller battery pack, it will require replacing much faster (though cheaper).

GM stated the following criticism of the study:

1) The cost/benefit ratio was based on a battery price several hundred dollars more than they're currently paying. And GM claims they are making advancements that will lower the cost in the future.

2) The study compared the 7 mile electric only mode of some proposed plug-in hybrids. However, GM criticized the study for not taking into account the need to recharge every 7 miles.

I know for myself, that 7 miles doesn't do me much good. Even going to the grocery store doesn't would eat up a lot of that range.

More thoughts with better quotes here...

http://gm-volt.com/2009/03/04/gm-vp-jon-lauckner-blasts-carnegie-mellon-phev-study-and-says-volt-cells-several-hundreds-less-than-1000-per-kwh/

Nope. GM gambled pretty much everything on Volt's success: http://gm-volt.com/2008/12/15/gm-plans-to-build-a-strong-hybrid-small-vehicle-but-will-spend-twice-as-much-developing-e-flex-cars/

E-Flex cars are now their top priority in funding. Also, IMO the 'generic' design for Volts is a plus. GM tells us Volts are not going to be exotic items, but rather a good old boring automobile which will JustWork(tm).

Also, I don't expect much success with the first models. They are probably going to explode/burn/crash too much. GM is in a better position here - they are performing thorough testing of battery and drivetrain. I don't expect the same level of testing on Chinese models.

If GM lasts long enough to build it there is real innovation in the Chevrolet Volt.

Tesla is interesting in its way, but it is not a car that many could hope to afford. Perhaps the best thing Tesla Motors has done is convince Bob Lutz that GM could/should make a real effort at at practical electric car.

Additional Volt information from a fan of the project.

By independent accounts they have been realized. Lockheed Martin for example has taken out a license and confirmed the performance claims that EEStor makes http://gm-volt.com/2008/01/10/lockheed-martin-signs-agreement-with-eestor/. When the technology will make it to the market is still a bit of an open question. In 2009, supposedly. But given the big vested interests in the oil industry, I would not be surprised if it will be delayed.

Where are you getting these figures? They're not exactly correct.

http://gm-volt.com/chevy-volt-faqs/
This isn't Chevy's official site, and it might be out of date. Chevy's official site (I believe) use to have the 50 MPG claim, but it isn't there anymore. That might be because they are trying to get some type of combined electric/gas equivalent MPG rating of 100 MPG from the EPA:
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/cars/story.html?id=6a8c4641-3318-4b0c-813d-951db9742907
I don't know if there is a more current estimate for pure gasoline MPG.

Where are you getting your 30 MPG from? And please clarify your 10 reasons for this idea as being 'laughable'

You wrote that the Volt would be "a couple grand more" when the reality is that it'll be at least $8k more than the Prius' starting cost (at which it's well equipped, BTW). And that's assuming that it comes in at under $30k as initially announced... for reference, last month Lutz said that closer to $40k is more realistic, which would put it at ~$18k more than the Prius' starting price.

I dunno why you don't want to compare the size of the 2010 Volt to the 2010 Prius, but it isn't especially relevant since (as I noted) the interior volume of the 2010 Prius > current Prius > 2010 Volt. At least that's true for legroom, shoulder room, and headroom. I'm not interested in spin... if the Volt has more cargo area or other space, then that's obviously important. But you wrote simply that it's larger without quantifying or supporting your statement. What is its interior volume? (the Prius has 110 ft^3)

It was widely reported when GM revised its realistic highway electric range from 40 miles to 32 miles (city range will obviously still be higher). My point about your use of the phrase "infinite MPG" is that it's misleading. Even if you never use any gasoline, you're still using energy, and most plug-in hybrids or electric cars provide a "MPG equivalent". For example, in the case of the all-electric Tesla, different numbers have been thrown around but for highway driving 135 MPG is commonly used.

I am curious about something else you wrote, which was that the Volt would take 3 minutes to charge. GM said:

"at 220 volts we will be in a position where within an hour you might be already have half of your range pumped into the battery".."those batteries have this behavior where the first half is faster than the second.".

At 110V, it'll take even longer. Where's your 3 minute charge time from?

For the record, I'm not anti-Volt or pro-Prius. Every car is a compromise. But you yelled at jonnythan for using FUD and not researching when you yourself seem to be guilty of it.

Wrong spinel; there are several (just for manganese alone, there's LiMnO2, LiMn2O4, Li2MnO3, and combinations thereof). This spinel is the primary one being investigated for automotive applications. Read more about the differences and Argonne's work on the subject (they have their own version). For LG Chem's cells, accelerated aging tests suggests a lifespan of 15 to 40 years. When referring to automotive batteries, when someone says "spinel", it's cells like LG chem's that they're talking about.

Look, before you start spouting off, educate yourself. If you had to look up the terms on these most basic issues of battery chemistry, you're way out of the loop and need to get in the loop before you debate the topic. It's not like these are esoteric details; we're talking about the fundamentals.

The phosphates probably are the most widely known. These are what powered, among many other different vehicles, the Killacycle electric motorcycle, with its 0-60 in less than 1 second. Check into them -- A123 reports over 7,000 normal cycles on them, while independent testing by people on the RC Groups forum (they're becoming popular for RC aircraft) put them through over a thousand incredibly abusive cycles (3-4C charge, 6-8C discharge, sometimes all the way down to 0V) and only lost 20% capacity. And, heck, while you're at it, check out the titanates. They're even more impressive, IMHO, than the phosphates and spinels. AltairNano has done over *20,000 cycles* on a single pack. They're so stable that they're being used for grid load balancing, where the cells go from drawing 2MW from the grid to feeding 2MW to the grid, over and over whenever demand or supply fluctuates, to give peaking plants time to come online.

So your 10-20 year lifespan of the battery isn't documented on the website anywhere that I can find.

They've stated they're using lithium phosphate in news articles (example here). Lithium phosphate batteries have a 10-20 year lifespan in normal use. Normal laptop cells have a few hundred to a thousand or so cycles before 50% degradation. A123 cells have 1000 cycles to 5% degradation (in an Aptera, 1000 cycles is 120,000 miles). And everyone I've seen who's talked about using A123 cells in their own experience says that if anything, the spec sheet is too pessimistic. A123 was initially saying "10+ years and 7000 cycles+" for the Volt's pack (which will be a lot more stressed than the Aptera's, since it's a PHEV). Now GM is saying they expect it to be good for 15, and are planning to give it a very long warranty. And even then, you're not talking about the battery dying; you're talking about it being down 20% capacity or so. Spinels can last even longer -- LG Chem expects theirs to be good for as much as 40 years in typical EV use.

There's nothing inherent about batteries that means they have to rapidly degrade. Jay Leno has a 1909 Baker Electric that still runs on its original Edison cells. It all depends on the stability of the battery chemistry. Lead-acid and LiCoO2/graphite li-ion are not stable chemistries. LiP, titanates, and spinels are.

I also note on the Aptera site that the car isn't designed for cold climates.

Says who? Aptera has only said that it's not initially going to be *tested* in cold climates. A123 lithium phosphate cells are rated for -30C for operation and -50C for storage. And lightweight tadpole configurations like the Aptera can do exceedingly well in the snow -- for example, the Messerschmidt KR200 (which is a far more primitive and less stable design). Smaller vehicles have lower moments of inertia, so they're easier to stop. Compare the stopping time on a semi with a typical sedan, for example.

Availability is almost non-existent as well

Availability *is* non-existant because it's pre-production; only the prototypes exist. They've fully raised their final round of funding for production and they brought on board the head of production for the Dodge Viper and Ford GT projects to manage it (a perfect match, as he's used to working with low volume cars with light alloys and composite structures). The first deliveries to customers are scheduled for late this year.

Last, and perhaps most distressing, Aptera offers no warranty on the vehicle.

Wrong. The site explicitly says, "The details of our financing and warranty are still being defined" and "We will announce further information regarding the battery lifespan and warranty policy well before we begin manufacturing the Typ-1 next October.", not "There will be no warranty". How do you have terms on a warranty when there is none? Perhaps you were looking at the terms of use of the *Website*? ("Aptera PROVIDES THIS WEB SITE, AND ALL CONTENT AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEB SITE "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY OF INFORMATIONAL CONTENT, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.")

But their technology seems to be for real. Lookheed also took out a license and confirmed their claims regarding energy density (ten times that of lead acid batteries). See this interview: http://www.gm-volt.com/2008/01/10/lockheed-martin-signs-agreement-with-eestor/

GM is developing the Chevy Volt which is slated for production at the end of 2010 as a 2011 model. GM should have test mules out there later this year. Progress looks good. Car specs are good. More information at http://www.gm-volt.com/

Interview with Dr. Cui, here.