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GM Cornered Into Defending the Volt
Al notes a story in Technology Review reporting on a CMU study (now over a month old) claiming that the Volt doesn't make economic sense, and GM's response. The study suggests that hybrids with large batteries offering up to 40 miles of range before an on-board generator kicks in simply cost too much for the gas savings to work out (PDF). Al writes: "Unsurprisingly, GM disputes the claims, saying 'Our battery team is already starting work on new concepts that will further decrease the cost of the Volt battery pack quite substantially in a second-generation Volt pack.' Interestingly, however, GM admits that the tax credits for plug-in hybrids will be crucial to making the volt successful. Without those credits, would an electric vehicle like the Volt be viable?"
They forgot the actual link.
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...is that 10 years ago GM was telling us exactly that about the EV1, and we (the people who wanted one) were saying "but it's awesome, why are you telling us we don't want one?" and they were saying "there's no demand, it's not cost effective, it's terrible anyway".
Damn CARB for crumbling and allowing any car with a slightly larger battery that can crank itself along with its starter motor to count as a "low emissions vehicle".
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Forget the corrosiveness. Start thinking about where the stuff comes from, lupine (above) is correct. The 'well-to-wheels' efficiency of a hydrogen car is worse than that of a petrol car let alone a battery electric.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
You obviously don't value that the Prius is larger than a Corolla, more comfortable to ride in, and will probably last longer (based on the historical evidence of Prius so far).
By the time a new 2009 Prius kicks the bucket (15 years at least), we'll see where gas prices are. I'm betting we'll be above $5/gallon before the end of 2010.
Not only are you footing the bill with your tax money, but the government has to borrow the money to give to GM (due to the deficit) which decreases the available capital to invest in economically viable opportunities.
Of course, what the government doesn't borrow, they print, which decreases the value of every dollar in circulation (which also discourages investment).
Yes, and I bought one (a Toyota Prius). Of course I did that in Fall 2007 before the summer spike, because I value efficiency over origin.
The problem is that today in PA, the price of gas (this afternoon) is $1.83/gal x (1.4086 pound / $) x (gal / 3.7854 L) = 0.68 GPB / L (you have a 33% markup in taxes over our taxes!) Dealers today have more Priuses on the lots than they know what to do with, because people won't pay the $28,000 price tag for a 40% increase in mpg. At current prices, it's cheaper to pay $12-15,000 for a compact car at 30 mpg and eat the difference in fuel.
And that's what I see GM is up against. They are going to pop out a car that I'm sure will start at $30,000 for a compact car and go up to $40,000 with options (the gas/hybrid Prius MSRP is about $25,000 base). You won't have liquid fuel costs, since the fuel shows up on your electric bill, but it's still $0.0729/kW (that's from Exelon/PECO's web site for Residential rates). Wikipedia says that the Volt's battery capacity is 16 kWh, (wow, Wiki's cost estimates go from $35-40,000, only 30 with tax subsidies), with an effective use of 8.8 kWh. So, assuming you drive a full battery 6 days a week, 4 weeks a month, that's 6 x 4 x 8.8 x 0.0729 = $15.39/month to fuel a car, not bad! But what's harder to estimate is that your monthly loan payments are probably $300 higher... so that's where your gas savings go.
Know also, that diesel fuel has a higher energy density than gasoline. A (US) gallon of gasoline has 125,000 BTU of energy, while a (US) gallon of diesel has just under 150,000 BTU. Keep this in mind when comparing the fuel economy of a diesel to that of a gasoline engine.
www.wavefront-av.com
I have a 2006 TDI Jetta, and (in practice) it gets 40 city/46 highway. The 2009 models are supposed to be even better.
Because diesel in the US is taxed higher than regular gasoline. Therefore, it won't make economic sense for someone to purchase a diesel engine vehicle in the US. Until the government changes that situation, diesel will remain a small niche in the consumer market.
Comes mainly from getting stuck behind diesel cars in traffic. Not just GM or trucks; the Mercedes 300D was just as offensive, as are the few US diesel Volkswagens.
As someone else mentioned, an imperial gallon is greater than a US gallon.
40MP(imperial)G * .8327(US)G/(imperial)G = ~33.3 MP(US)G.
1. US gasoline is lower octane than European gasoline. The Astra engine was detuned from its European spec to use the cheapest fuel here, because almost all Americans buying economy cars expect to use the default low octane fuel.
2. GM, Ford, Honda, Toyota and Hyundai ALL sell diesel cars outside the US. Right now only Volkswagen and Mercedes offer diesel engine cars in the US because our diesel emission standards for non-commercial vehicles are very difficult to satisfy. If you're going to find the situation "offending", be offended by the automakers like Honda and Toyota who had plenty of resources to offer diesels in the US (unlike the domestic automakers) and still failed to do it.
I live in the USA. I'm fairly certain all the stations in Illinois use Imperial Gallons.
That's in a car that was built in '98. My '86 (which was quite a bit lighter) could easily get 48-50 much more easily.
The VW Polo I mentioned gets:
73.94 MP USG Highway
47.96 MP USG City
61.87 MP USG Combined.
Looks like a lot of them got posted to YouTube and it was for the Chevy Tahoe.
;-)
If you view one you get links to lots more.
Enjoy! I bet this bring back lots of good memories for the GM execs...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aasSEl-Cr9Y
Right now only Volkswagen and Mercedes offer diesel engine cars in the US
... and BMW with the 335d and the X5 xDrive35D
Currently, in the US state in which I reside, diesel is $2.089/US gallon, gas (petrol for all you people who spell it "colour") is roughly $1.889/US gallon. Both prices include all applicable local, state, and federal taxes.
My 2002 VW Beetle TDI w/ 150,000 miles on it gets an average of 45 miles on a US gallon of diesel. My wife's 2006 Beetle uses petrol and gets roughly 26 MPG.
Doin' the math that's more than 70% better mileage for only 10% more money, or, to put it in a different light, I get around 630 miles per tank while she gets about 360, or, to put it another another way, diesel would have to cost almost twice as much as petrol before I started to lose money on the proposition.
Oh, and since I run diesel my car is exempt from state emissions inspections where I live, thus saving another $30-40/year.
So, how exactly does this *not* make economic sense?
If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.
The following GM products have won comparison tests and awards, including some 'car of the year' awards:
2007 Saturn Aura midsize sedan. 2008 Chevy Malibu sedan. 2008 Cadillac CTS luxury sport sedan. 2007 Saturn Outlook 8 passenger crossover SUV and its corporate cousins the 2007 GMC Acadia, 2008 Buick Enclave, and 2009 Chevy Traverse. 2008 Saturn Vue small SUV. 2007 Chevy Avalanche pickup. 2007 Chevy Silverado pickup (and GMC Sierra). 2007 Chevy Tahoe and Suburban fullsize SUV (and GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade). 2006 Chevy Corvette. 2008 Pontiac G8 large sedan.
The Aura, Malibu, CTS, Outlook, Acadia, Enclave, Traverse, and Vue all have 5 star crash ratings across the board from the US government, standard electronic stability control, and Good ratings in the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety front offset and side crash test.
The Aura and Malibu 4-cylinder models offer best-in-class midsize sedan fuel economy among non-hybrid models until the 2010 Fusion goes on sale later this spring. The Outlook and its three cousins offer best-in-class fuel economy for 8 passenger vehicles, with the sole exceptions of the 4-cylinder and hybrid trims of the Toyota Highlander. The Chevy Silverado Crew Cab 4WD pickup is longer, wider, and 800 pounds heavier than the Honda Ridgeline pickup, its engine displaces an additional 1.8 liters, it has 60 additional horsepower and 60 additional foot pounds of peak torque, it carries an additional 150 pounds in the bed and tows 2300 pounds more, and gets just 1 mile per gallon less in the city and on the highway.
GM's lineup is far from complete. The 2010 Buick LaCrosse will be a welcome replacement to the mostly useless current Buick sedans. With the exception of the G8 and the Solstice, Pontiac is limping along with a joke lineup. The 2011 Chevy Cruze, Chevy Volt, and Chevy Spark will be welcome fixes for the gaping weakness in GM's small vehicle offerings. But for the first time in more than 20 years, GM has a real selection of damn good products. That's not damn good for a domestic, it's damn good, period.
Actually, the dual-clutch transmission in the Jetta TDI should result in the automatic model actually being *more* efficient than its manual counterpart.
The dual-clutch gearbox is essentially a computer-controlled manual transmission (although it's a bit more complicated than that). There's no torque-converter to kill the efficiency.
The system also allows you to switch gears in the semi-manual mode faster than you could ever possibly do with a "real" manual transmission (around 8ms).
They're also available on a number of petrol-powered vehicles from a variety of manufacturers.
(Re: -40F: I know of quite a few gas powered cars that won't start at those temperatures! Electrics/hybrids also won't hold a charge without heating the batteries.)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I'm opting to buy a plug-in prius next year. It will be cheaper than the Volt, and most likely higher in reliability.
At least I am seeing some return on my tax dollars, as the Volt has stimulated Toyota to keep their Lithium-ion plug-in on schedule.
Per kilogram of fuel is variable. It's distance traveled per unit of energy that matters.
I wish people would stop spreading the misconception that US gasoline is lower octane then European.
Octane is simply measured differently in the US vs Europe. 87 octane in the US is equivalent of I believe 92 in Europe..
Don't know where you are living, but down here in the south diesel is about $1 higher and always has been to my knowledge. I have family in construction and they all drive the big diesel duallies for work trucks and the major complaint from all of them is the higher cost of diesel down here.
I don't know if it is true or not but a buddy that works for the state told me that it is because American roads, and roads in the south in particular are made very badly compared to Europe with too thin a bed laid down before the asphalt is poured which causes large vehicles (like diesel big rigs) to bust up the roads much quicker than cars. So instead of building the roads correctly we simply tax the hell out of diesel and patch the hell out of the roads. I know here in AR our freeways have two states: ones that have potholes you can bury a dog in, and ones with potholes you can bury a cow in.
My buddy who just got back from doing a stretch in the Army in Europe was shocked at how shitty American roads are compared to what he got used to in Europe. He said there simply isn't a comparison. So maybe if we actually built our roads correctly we wouldn't overtax the diesel and would actually have roads that last. But a politician give up taxing? Nah, never happen.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Some already do. Many(almost all?) diesel trains are really diesel/electric. Trucking companies are getting electric assists motors that are powered by electricity generated when idling at the dock or in slow traffic.
You do need some storage though. That, and how powerful an engine you can fit before displacing the ICE, are the limiting factors.
GM bought Opel in 1929 and Vauxhall in 1925. It wasn't like they just bought them out recently to acquire their new and exciting diesel technology. I believe that they are mostly designed in Europe though, by European GM engineers.
There appear to be a few common myths being repeated here.
No, it isn't. Octane rating methodology is different. Read Octane Rating
1. Please make sure your are not quoting UK gallons - they are bigger than US gallons, and therefore get more miles.
2. Please understand that fuel efficiency measurements in Europe are quite different than in the US. The 2008 US EPA measurement methodology is much more conservative.
Diesel in Europe is cheaper than gasoline only because it gets vastly preferential tax treatment.
It may have something to do with poor diesel history in the US, but also with health side effects. Even with ULSD, the nanoparticles are suspected contributors to pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases.
BTW, I love diesels. I love driving them, I love the torque, I love increased fuel efficiency. However, it is important to know the whole story because the other side has very good points as well.
As for hybrids and plug-in hybrids, yes, I will likely buy the new Honda Insight when it becomes available even if it costs more than a regular vehicle of the same kind, and even if I cannot recoup the extra price. I would rather pay more money for R&D into technology than drop coins into Al Qaida's collection box.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
Battery replacements are horrendous for the environment and they're expensive.
US gasoline is lower octane than European gasoline.
I don't understand why people keep saying this.. No they don't. They rate Octane differently than we do. They use Unloaded Octane reference engine values. The US uses (Loaded + Unloaded) / 2. Says so on every freaking gas pump in the US. There is typically a swing of 2 to 10 Octaine points between loaded and unloaded - thus the averaging allows for greater variability in synthetic blend possibilities while simultaneously giving a more accurate performance characteristic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating
-Michael
Ummm, the Tesla is an American car and is currently available in the US, Canada and Europe.
Your units are all wrong. You're dividing dollars by mi/gal, that does not give you anything per gallon. It's much simpler just doing 520 fills * $39 per fill = $20,280. Then the Prius improved efficiency reduces that by 25%, which is $5,070. Still not $6,000 but a lot closer.
-- Tim Little
Also, at least in my neighborhood (South Carolina,) diesel is still over $1 more per gallon than gasoline, negating the marginal BTU advantage that it has over gas. While it gets more miles/gallon, it'll cost me close to $60 more per month, on top of the price of the new car...
788652 = 2 x 2 x 3 x 3 x 19 x 1153
Please stop modding this informative.
Octane IS measured differently in Europe, but ON TOP OF THAT, if the two were compared on the same scale, European fuel would still have a higher octane rating.
There is approximately a 4-5 point different between the RON (European standard) and (RON+MON)/2 (North American standard) since the RON and MON typically differ by 8-10 points.
The lowest octane fuel you'll find in the US is rated 87, yet in Europe the lowest you'll find is 95. This is an 8 point difference, GREATER than the 4-5 point margin that arises from the different rating systems.
This is all straight from the wikipedia article if you bother to read it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating
Because of the 8 to 10 point difference noted above, the octane rating shown in the United States is 4 to 5 points lower than the same fuel elsewhere: 87 octane fuel, the "regular" gasoline in the US and Canada, is 91-92 in Europe. However most European pumps deliver 95 (RON) as "unleaded", equivalent to 90-91 US (R+M)/2, and some even deliver 98 (RON), 100 (RON), or 102 (RON).
This is correct as there are 2 methods for determining the octane rating. If you drive a European car that was made for the US you will usually see 2 octane numbers on the gas cap or cover. Each number has the name of the method used to calculate it. Also the pumps in the US specify the method that they use so just match the method name on the pump to the what is on the cap to figure out what octane rating is correct.
Time to offend someone
Bah - the 2009 TDI is not any better than the 2006 in fuel economy. If anything, it tends to be worse because of the extra emissions control equipment used to drastically reduce NOx and soot emissions.
Fuel economy of the 2006 and 2009 TDIs are very similar in practice with the 2006 slightly edging out the 2009. Both averaging a bit over 40mpg according to http://fueleconomy.gov/
So electric cars are actually the cheap, proven technology here.
I had a squiz at the wiki:
The first electric motor using electromagnets for both stationary and rotating parts was demonstrated by Ãnyos Jedlik in Hungary in 1828. Jedlik built an electric motor-propelled vehicle that same year.[1]
http://michaelsmith.id.au
And it's people like you that PHEVs are designed for.
Once again, Slashdot does its best to continue ignorance by leaving out the core criticism of the study: that the study's authors assume a battery pack price of $1000 per kilowatt hour, and that's not even close to they cost today, let alone 5-10 years from now. And that's hardly their only mistake. I'll list their assumptions, and make a few quick comments on them:
* A 2004 Prius with varying size packs
* They upgrade the size of the motor to be sufficient to operate as series, but still keep the parallel configuration (why...?)
* 52 kW motor (70hp), yet weighs 40kg (huh...? The Tesla Roadster does 185kW with a 31kg motor)
* The main assumption that 1kg of batteries requires an additional 1kg of structure (Um.. really?). They also test 0kg and 2kg per 1kg of battery mass.
* Li-ion (unspecified chemistry). 100Wh/mi -- similar to LiP and some spinels -- and a 25% packaging weight penalty (on top of the 1kg weight for every 1kg of batteries)
* Only 50% depth of discharge (i.e., they're only using half of their pack)
* Charging at $0.11/kWh (US residential average)
* Gasoline at $3.00/gal (probably a reasonable long-term value)
* Assumption of $1,000/kWh battery cost (Um, no. I can get Thunderskys at non-bulk rates for a fraction of that. I can almost get A123s at non-bulk rates for that. The Th!nk's pack is $500/kWh, and they think they can cut that in half with production rates of several hundred thousand per year. Conventional li-ion, like Tesla uses, is ~$300/kWh currently. In short... no.). They justify their number by pointing out that it's cheaper than the original price of the Prius's battery pack (ignoring that small HEV battery pack prices don't scale linearly to BEV or PHEV packs or linear with capacity in general)
* GHG emissions of the grid are assumed to be fixed over time (Um, no)
* Vehicle lifespan of 12 years (the average vehicle *on the road* today is nearly 10 years old, and that number is increasing, so... no)
* 12,500 miles/year (reasonable)
* Vehicle base purchase cost, excluding the battery pack, of $17,600
* Assuming by default no carbon tax, both on electricity and gasoline, but considering it under alternative scenarios
* No tax credits assumed
* No battery replacement (in the base case; an alternative scenario includes replacement)
* A 5% "consumer discount rate", No clue what that is, but they state that the higher it is, the less competitive PHEVs are. So it's some sort of penalty. (Perhaps purchase interest rate on the auto loan? If so, too expensive.)
In short: stupid assumptions in, stupid results out. Note this paragraph that they just skim over:
Cheap battery costs of $250 per kWh would significantly increase competitiveness of PHEVs, making them similar to or less expensive than HEVs and CVs across all distances driven between charges. A battery technology with an increased SOC swing, which would allow more of the battery's physical capacity to be used in operation, would also improve PHEV competitiveness, making moderate ranged PHEV20s cost competitive with the HEV and CV.
In short: "If we pick more reasonable numbers, PHEVs are great. But with the bad numbers we picked, they're not."
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
These problems exist due to fundamental limitations in electric battery technology. They simply CANNOT make electric batteries with good enough energy density to make electric cars with anywhere near the speed and range of gasoline powered vehicles
Um, huh? The Tesla Roadster, which was based on off-the-shelf technology and no appropriate modern infrastructure (they had to adapt equipment from AC Propulsion, which was barely more than a hobby shop at the time), does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds (3.7 for the Sport package) and almost 240 miles EPA range (less if you race it rather than drive normally, of course, just like with gasoline sports cars). The Wrightspeed X1 does it in 2.5 seconds. The Killacycle electric motorcycle, less than 1 second. The Eliica eight-wheeled electric sports car hits 230mph. This from an industry that has been living off of almost no outside capital since the end of the early ZEV era. In short, what are you talking about?
This will require a revolution in battery technology that hasn't happened and according to all the physicists I know, WILL never happen
Go ask "all the physicists" you know about metal fluoride or nanostructured-layered manganese cathodes and nanostructured silicon, tin, or LVO anodes. I can point to approximately two dozen technologies in the lab that can each 1.5 to 8x the energy density of their respective li-ion battery component. What do you think the odds of *every last one of them* failing is?
The only real remaining problem with batteries is the price. Current automotive li-ions are about $0.50/Wh, while conventional li-ion (like the Roadster uses) are about $0.30-$0.35/Wh (but they can't rapid charge -- limited to 1 hour versus 10-20 minutes for automotive variants -- and have shorter lifespans (5 years if coddled like Tesla does, rather than 10-20 under abuse like the automotive variants). Automotive li-ions are currently limited by capital costs and demand outpacing supply, rather than raw materials (as conventional li-ion is). Their raw materials are dirt cheap, and hence most market forecasts show dramatic price cuts for them.
The average streamlined EV uses about 200Wh/mi (hyperstreamlined ones like the Aptera can get closer to 100Wh/mi). So, multiply it out to your desired range.
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
The electric car raw material costs are significantly higher than other cars, so it's not like they would ever come down to the current price level of a standard car
What material costs? You know what goes into making lithium phosphate batteries? The anode and cathode contain little more than you'd find in mineral water, a can of coke -- lithium salts (usually lithium carbonate -- $5-7/kg), phosphoric acid, sugar (for carbon binding), etc. The anode is generally graphite or amorphous carbon. There's a porous plastic membrane and a corrosive but generally fairly cheap electrolyte. Show me where the expensive raw materials are in this list.
The demand for lighter more efficient electric motors, batteries, transformers, conductors is a several decades old problem with a already huge payoff for small improvements.
First off, where have you been for the past several decades? Haven't you noticed cars going from big hulks of steel to plastic-paneled things with tubular beams for support, the increasing amount of aluminum used in higher-end cars, etc? Secondly, since the battery is a bigger cost (which provides benefits in terms of operations costs), it makes more sense to build out of lighter materials in an EV than it does in a gasoline car -- you raise the body cost but lower the pack cost. Third, you're completely wrong on everything on your list:
1) Electric motors, "conductors"
and "transformers" (inverters and chargers): There has been a huge advancement in motors in recent years for electric drive applications. Twenty years ago, nothing even remotely resembling the Tesla Roadster would have been possible, and ten years ago, the closest you could really get wasn't much better than the EV1. The very concept of reductive charging (to borrow AC Propulsion's term), where you use your regenerative braking system as a high-power charging system, didn't even exist 10-15 years ago -- let alone an implementation. The mere possibility of the compact, high power AC drivetrain in the roadster is made possible thanks to IGBTs, which only existed in the lab until the 1980s, and only became as incredibly compact, powerful and affordable as they are now in the past few years (in fact, that was one of the main reasons why Tesla initially chose a 2-gear transmission rather than their current route of Powertrain 1.5). The Roadster's motor packs 185kW of power into a package the size of a watermelon, at just over 30 pounds. And this is just one particular AC drivetrain. Want to look at DC, look at the amazing work that's gone into producing the Zilla controller. Both the AC-55 and the Zillas were designed *specifically* for EV applications, where there are very different requirements from most stationary applications.
2) Batteries: Do you remember cell phones and laptops from the early 90s? That's battery tech advancement for you. Batteries have increased in energy density fourfold since then, with the automotive grade li-ions able to take a charge much faster to boot, with an order of magnitude higher power density and near-100% efficiency, low raw material costs, and near-zero toxicity. And there are absolutely no signs of slowing when it comes to li-ion tech; if anything, what's hitting the market seems to be picking up the pace, as does what's in the lab.
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.