Chevrolet Volt In a Gasoline-Only Scenario

s122604 sends in a performance review of the Chevy Volt, paying particular attention to what happens after the initial plug-in capacity has been depleted. This reader adds, "The review indicates that the performance is adequate, and perhaps better than anticipated. If the Volt can deliver technically, especially with the possibility that it could retail for less than expected (WSJ subscription may be required), does GM have a potential hit on its hands?" "How well will General Motors' Chevrolet Volt drive once it gets past its 40 mile all-electric driving range and starts to rely on power generated by its gasoline engine? That's been a question for both critics and fans of the Volt, and with just 11 months to go before this car hits the market, I got the answer."

Comments

Oh great, another subdized vehicle...

[Rogerborg]

...that's still too expensive for Joe Shiftworker. Doesn't it just give you a warm fuzzy to see people driving past you in cars that you can't afford to buy because the Government gouged you so hard in order to give your tax money to the people who can afford to buy them?

Re:Oh great, another subdized vehicle...

[Rhapsody Scarlet]

...that's still too expensive for Joe Shiftworker. Doesn't it just give you a warm fuzzy to see people driving past you in cars that you can't afford to buy because the Government gouged you so hard in order to give your tax money to the people who can afford to buy them?

Oh, I would love to hear you detail exactly how the government has been gouging you in particular. You know... new taxes, increases in old taxes, cuts in benefits, and how each one you list affects your bottom line. I'm sure lots of people here would like to hear all of the juicy details. So, let's hear it.

Re:Oh great, another subdized vehicle...

[Anonymous Coward]

but first, their Model S has to succeed.

it WILL. check out what BMW 5-series you can have for that price, and then compare the specs(0-60, interior space, practicality ...). the BMW can only compete on the range. And I think they already have thousands of reservations.

Re:Oh great, another subdized vehicle...

[kestasjk]

And who works for the car manufaturer? And how many for the car manufacturer? And how much tax money is made from those workers in the long run? And how much would be spent in welfare payments if they were out of work?

I don't think any government gives out money to spite the poor..

On Hybrid Vehicles

[Anonymous Coward]

How come all hybrid vehicles comes in the form of Gasoline / Battery ?

How come there is no hybrid vehicle that is in the form of Diesel / Battery ?

Do you know that diesel engines is much more efficient than that of the gasoline engine ?

And if we are really into the "Green" thing, why must we stuck with the gasoline engine ?

Why can't we change to Diesel / Battery instead, for hybrids ?

Can someone who knows much more about this give some comments, please?

Thank you !

Re:On Hybrid Vehicles

[Drethon]

What I'm curious about is why you never see turbine-electric vechiles. Turbines don't make good engines for normal cars as they are most efficient at specific speeds but this is not a downfall for charging a battery.

What seems like it has potential is to setup a turbine using the shiftless transmission so the turbine never changes speeds. Then use an electric to accelerate and put it in generator mode to decelerate. This allows the turbine to produce the power to maintain speed and the electric motor to change speed. I'm not that kind of engineer but it seems like that might work...

Re:On Hybrid Vehicles

[Anonymous Coward]

How come all hybrid vehicles comes in the form of Gasoline / Battery ?

How come there is no hybrid vehicle that is in the form of Diesel / Battery ?

In Albuquerque, half of the city buses are in fact Diesel/Electric hybrids. Very nice, in my opinion.

Re:On Hybrid Vehicles

[natehoy]

In 2002, I was in the market for a new vehicle. I wanted good fuel mileage, so at the end of my search I was looking at two vehicles, a Toyota Prius (which were pretty new at the time) and a VW Jetta TDI. Test drives made it no contest. I chose the TDI. It was somewhat cheaper, handled better, got better fuel mileage for my purposes, and included some niceties like a sunroof and more room. I was also concerned since the Prius was so new, whereas the TDI's been around for a very long time.

Most of my driving at the time was on the highway, and the TDI gets better highway mileage than the Prius. I don't know if that's true of today's models - I think VW added some horsepower to the TDI in '08 or '09 and may have cut the mileage, where the Prius probably gets better mileage since that's its major goal. The Prius also has a few more years under its belt and certainly has a decent track record - they aren't dropping like flies at least.

Fast forward 85,000 miles and 7 years, and I'd be sweating a battery replacement pack right about now on the Prius. I did have to replace the timing belt and THAT wasn't cheap, but it's nothing compared to a new battery pack.

When I first bought it, Diesel was a good bit cheaper than gasoline, too. That has since reversed, but I still get better miles-per-dollar than my wife's already pretty efficient Pontiac Vibe gasoline engine. Had a chosen a Prius, I'd probably be spending a little less on fuel now (maybe about $200/year), but I refer you again to the $3500+ battery pack, which is enough money for me to buy more than a THREE YEAR supply of Diesel fuel outright even if Diesel was at $4 a gallon.

I won't say the TDI is completely trouble-free, it's a VW with its share of problems. I've replaced a few expensive parts that really shouldn't have broken, and there are a few things that are broken that aren't worth fixing (front door "open" sensors are both shot, but at $500 a pop, they can stay that way). But it's still a comfortable, responsive, enjoyable car that gets great fuel mileage. Carries a couple of large kayaks on top without complaint, too. :)

I don't honestly know how much this car would benefit from any sort of hybrid tech. I suppose it might be useful to put a smaller battery in it and have a "booster motor" with regenerative braking, so when I come to a stop some of that energy could be stored to get moving again. But I'm not sure if there would be any significant savings.

Re:On Hybrid Vehicles

[MiniMike]

So what is the Detroit going to do for a business model when they sell a product with a 25 year duty life vs a 6 year duty life?

I don't think they plan that far ahead, especially when they are in danger of failing now (GM at least). Part of the problem might be the fuel supply, I recall reading that the U.S. doesn't currently have the infrastructure to support a big increase in use of low-sulfur diesel. Part of the problem might be what they think people want- a lot of people still have a negative view of diesel because they only see it on buses and stinky old European cars. I know that new diesel cars are as quiet and clean as gasoline cars, but if the manufacturers think that nobody wants to buy them, they won't build them. The trick is to make people want them, and let the manufacturers know it.

So their only choice is to figure out how to build something that seems better, but will still fall apart in 6 years.

Having owned two American cars, I can say that there is no lack of parts for them to design to fall apart in 6 years.

Re:On Hybrid Vehicles

[livewire98801]

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to install a new clutch in my 1996 "B4" VW Passat TDi wagon, which gets a REAL WORLD 40 miles per gallon in combined use, and that's a conservatively low estimate.

My 2000 Saturn gets 40mpg. . . and it's a gas engine that has more than enough power to leave most people behind. Of course, when i drive like that, I don't get 40 MPG :)

I am not on the battery powered car bandwagon. I'm also not on the compact fluorescent bandwagon either, I think both of these technologies do more damage to the environment than their "bad" alternatives. And your average hybrid really doesn't save much in the way of fuel over your diesel or my gas engines.

Do I think we need to get away from petroleum fuels in cars? YES. Do I think battery operated cars are the answer? not so much.

Re:I'd rather have more batteries

[iangoldby]

The article explains this. Apparently their research shows that the 40 mile all-electric range hits the sweet-spot for most American commuters.

Make the batteries bigger and you still have to have the gas engine for when you visit your cousin 300 miles away. Make the batteries smaller and you need to run the gas engine even for your daily commute.

Sounds like the perfect compromise to me.

The shopping use case.

[tjstork]

Make the batteries bigger and you still have to have the gas engine for when you visit your cousin 300 miles away.

It's not for longer trips that pure EV's get killed. It's the every Saturday when you have to run to the grocery store, bank, stop by your mother in laws, pick up some stuff at Best Buy, and you drive 150 miles running errands use case. Our leaders never mention this case though, because they actually don't drive for themselves.

Battery should be cheaper

[tjstork]

The battery should be cheaper, by far, because its a lot easier to dig coal out of the ground, have one big engine convert it to electricity and ship it over a wire, than it is to build container ships and oil drilling and refining apparatus send you energy that you can convert.

The US dollar is the world reserve currency

[Colin Smith]

And then they turn around and buy US debt with those profits.

The interest of which you service through your income taxes. What happens to slaves when they don't pay their income taxes?

If it wasn't for China and Japan, the US would be bankrupt

How so. Where do dollars come from? What is money? Who defines what money is? It's ridiculous to think of a nation as bankrupt. Money is simply bits of paper representing a claim on real goods. A nation can define it's own currency representing all the wealth that the nation can produce. In America it happens to be defined (for some reason, and to the benefit of some) as debt. Without China and japan exporting to America, products would simply be produced locally instead.

I just posted about this 10 minutes ago:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1506464&cid=30735248

If the US dollar wasn't the reserve currency, China and Japan wouldn't be exporting to the USA. It's great for those on the upper end of the US economy, kind of shitty for those at the bottom.
 

Re:The US dollar is the world reserve currency

[Dunbal]

The interest of which you service through your income taxes.

You assume I am from the US. I am not.

Plus, the US does not service interest on its debt through taxation. It services the interest by issuing still more debt, like a giant Ponzi scheme on an international level; and by inflating the currency to artificially reduce the debt and its interest. Taxation alone is nowhere near enough to pay the bills of the US government, on all levels. Look at California, for example. Yet they keep spending money.

It's ridiculous to think of a nation as bankrupt.

      It doesn't matter how many resources a nation has if its people are starving. The US is not there yet, but economic collapses can and do lead to unemployment and eventually if the situation isn't corrected - food riots. You can have farmers with bumper crops that literally rot in the field because there's no one to take them to market. Perhaps you're just too young to remember.

A nation can define it's own currency representing all the wealth that the nation can produce.

      It doesn't happen magically. For that you need credit. For that, you need someone to take the risk and invest capital into building all the networks that move things from place to place, and sell things to people. When a financial system collapses, credit disappears, companies shut down, and people are put out of work. The whole spinning wheel of economics grinds to a sudden halt. You can't restore confidence just by telling people everything is ok. Creditors and risk takers have to start seeing return on their investment again, before they will be willing to continue providing credit. That takes time.

Without China and japan exporting to America, products would simply be produced locally instead.

      You are out of touch with reality. There's a whole attitude adjustment that's required. Manual labor is now seen as something degrading in the US. The US has to import immigrants to do physically demanding work. The typical US citizen wants to own a business, or work in an office for a large corporation, or at best be in charge of machinery. No college graduate is willing to go and manually pick crops. They want a house or apartment and a car and a "good" job with a "good" income. They will riot before accepting a reduction in standard of living. Then let's not get into all the rules, regulations and by-laws that get in the way of setting up any sort of manufacturing business. Then there's all the hassle of employing people, and all rules and regulations involved with that. Why do you think so much American business has been moving offshore in the first place?

      Conversely working in a factory under a roof is a step up for the Chinese worker. It beats working in the field, or trying to raise and live off of 4 goats. It sure beats planting rice, and having to deal with the rats and your neighbor stealing your crops.

If the US dollar wasn't the reserve currency, China and Japan wouldn't be exporting to the USA.

      People export to the USA because the USA demands goods and is willing to pay for them. The dollar has nothing to do with it. China and Japan export to Europe, Asia, Latin America and Oceania too. Just the US is the biggest market. The US has a "standard of living" to maintain. This standard of living, however, is financed by debt. It's like the guy who takes out a mortgage on his house to go on holidays, and buy a big screen TV, and to drink booze. Oh he's going to live like a king for a while. But one day there will come a reckoning.