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GM Working on Feasible Electric Car
WindBourne writes "While Ford wants to simply offer cosmetic changes to automobiles interiors and exteriors, General Motors has finally gotten the message about electric autos. They are about to introduce the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid which gets 40 Miles on a charge, but has a generator that can keep the auto going up to 640 miles range. From a styling POV, it is not a tesla, but it is also not a focus or a pinto. From the Rocky article: 'GM did not release cost estimates but said they recognize the Volt's price will have to be competitive. Company Vice Chairman Robert Lutz said in a statement that more than half of Americans live less than 20 miles from their workplace and could go to work and back on a single charge.'"
Also coming from GM in model year 2008 is the full hybrid GMT900 truck platform [1, 2, . This encompasses the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban, the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL, and the Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV, among others. The hybrid uses the GM/DaimlerChrysler Advanced Hybrid System 2.
The hybrids will feature:
- 5.3L FlexFuel Vortec V8 (able to run using E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline)
- Active Fuel Management (AFM)/Displacement on Demand (DOD), disabling cylinders as needed for cruising
- Two 30kW electric motors inside of the same physical space as the normal automatic transmission
- A continuously variable automatic transmission
- Conventional 110VAC power outlets on board
- Hybrid system derived from the advanced system on already in use on GM's Allison transit buses
This advanced hybrid system, while not plug-in, will be offered on all model year 2008 GM full size SUVs, as well as pickups and fleet vehicles. The expected fuel economy gain is 30% over today's figures on the gasoline/FlexFuel-only AFM variant, approaching 30mpg for city driving. That's a damned good improvement. And when used with FlexFuel, they're using less fossil fuels - even including the fully burdened fossil fuel costs of ethanol - than Prius and Civic hybrid drivers, in addition to contributing to lower overall greenhouse gas emissions. As the process efficiency increases over the next few years, these numbers will improve.
Whether or not one likes or dislikes SUVs, or thinks people should be able to be told what types of vehicles they should or shouldn't be driving, or think subjective judgments can be simplistically made about what other people "need" or don't need, it's still an excellent step forward. While the Volt is very interesting (conspiracy theorists: think of some way the Volt is really still a GM plot to "keep electric vehicles down" or to assist big oil) and using centralized power generation and leveraging the existing electric grid and production capacity is a necessary step to the future, the full hybrid SUVs will be one of the big things that people buy in the short term, not to mention being one of the major things - if not the thing - that may make or break GM in the next decade.
Larger, centralized electricity production is more efficient than having tons of little internal combustion engines running around. On top of that, it's much easier to control pollution at a power plant than it is on all those cars on the road. As I understand it electric cars themselves should be more efficient (fewer moving parts and such, in some designs they can do away with a transmission altogether). Also, we can burn less coal and gasoline, and process less uranium, if more of the power production systems move to renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro-electric).
On top of that, hydrogen is not an energy source. Hydrogen is an energy storage/transmission medium. You have to get hydrogen from something first, and at the moment, I think many producers of hydrogen get it from fossil fuels. So you'd end up with similar problems unless the grid switched to mostly renewable sources. However, I still think it's better than having all those individual little gasoline engines.
...will still occcasionally burn the occupants alive, but a sophisticated emmissions system will only release water vapor with a hint of pork.
When they talk about electric/hybrid cars with more nuclear power plants nationwide, *then* we'll have a plan. Otherwise, it's trading one problem for another.
Rest assured, California is not the only state with barely enough power-generation capacity. This could be "just the ticket" to justify hugely higher electric rates nationwide. Has anyone quantified the "recharging load" on the grid? Many people would have to recharge at work during the day to make it back home in the evening. Not all recharging could occur at night. Don't get me wrong. I think it's the right direction. But, the whole system needs to be planned and made to happen. Not just the cars.