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Chevy Volt Rated At 230 mpg In the City
necro81 writes "General Motors, emerging from bankruptcy, today announced that its upcoming plug-in hybrid vehicle, the Volt, will have an EPA rating of 230 mpg for city driving (about 98 km/L). The unprecedented rating, the first in triple digits, is the result of a new (draft) methodology for calculating the 'gas' mileage for vehicles that operate primarily or extensively on electricity. The Volt, due out late next year, can drive approximately 40 miles on its Li-Ion battery pack, after which a gasoline engine kicks in to provide additional electricity to charge the battery. Running off the gasoline engine yields approximately 50 mpg. Of course, the devil's in the details, because the conversion of grid-based electricity to gasoline-mileage is imprecise." Now we know the meaning of the mysterious "230" viral marketing campaign.
Mark this troll all you want, but after seeing what the US has to offer in the automobile market, I won't ever buy a car from the likes of GM or Ford. I don't care what kind of promises they make. They've proven time after time to produce inefficient, shit-quality cars.
Awesome! Does your company know you're stealing high carbon-output electricity from them?
> Utility officials have already stated that even during peak hours they have the capacity to cope with even several years worth of increases ...
Several years worth of increases at what level?
All of these estimates are based on the current level of plug in vehicle growth, which has been approximately ZERO per year.
In 2006 7,667,066 passenger vehicles were produced in JUST the US.
Assuming the Volt and imitators are wildly popular and garners 1 million sales:
1 million vehicles
25KWH per 100 miles (chevy's press release in TFA)
12000 miles per year (epa estimates)
12000 / 100 * 25kwh = 3,000,000,000 KWh / year
Or 3000 Gigawatts per million vehicles per year.
Since the US DOE says we have about 1087 Gigawatt total production capacity this suggest we will be short by 2 thirds.
So just WHERE were your figures coming from?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If the rich and stupid want to lower the price of gas for the rest of us by buying expensive plugin hybrids, WHO ARE YOU TO STOP THEM? (Although, higher electric prices could suck. . . but if you heat and cool your house with something like a Geothermal heatpump, and use power-efficient lights and appliances, you might personally come out ahead).