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GM Criticized Over Chevy Volt's Hybrid Similarities
Attila Dimedici writes "This article says the Chevy Volt is not what GM claimed it was: an Extended Range Electric Vehicle. The Volt is simply a plug-in hybrid. Instead of a vehicle that is only driven with the electric drive train that uses a gasoline engine to charge the batteries, the Volt actually uses the gasoline engine to drive the front wheels at speeds above 70 miles per hour or when the batteries run down. Additionally, the Volt gets nowhere near the 230 mpg that GM was claiming for it. If this is all true, why did GM misrepresent the car? The facts as stated in the article make the Volt a pretty decent competitor to the Prius and other hybrids already on the market."
A post at the Car Connection blog takes the opposing view, saying that accusations of GM "lying" are overhyped, since the capability to power the wheels with gasoline is reserved for situations where electricity isn't a viable option. The author says GM didn't mention this ability before now due to concerns over patents and competition from other companies.
Because hybrids like the Prius were already on the market, and "eventually, we'll get around to releasing a slightly-better hybrid on much the same model" isn't the kind of sales pitch that gets people to buy a conventional GM car now while deferring purchasing a hybrid for later.
Sending the message "we are going to real soon now come out with an electric car that will make hybrids obsolete" is somewhat better as an effort to slow the success of the existing, already-on-the-market hybrids.
Not on price. It's fucking forty thousand dollars! It's an ECONOMY car!
Sheesh.
People are pissed because they still owe us (US taxpayers) nearly 50 billion dollars. This was the big 'ace in the hole' the used in part to sell the bailout to us.
This piece of shit is not going to put GM on the road to recovery, and the US taxpayer on the road to becoming whole again.
Its a car that primarily electric driven and uses the gas engine when the batteries/motor can't cut it. Is it really that important what it's called? It's a car designed to be 'green' and that's what it's being sold as. The only thing that GM should be criticized for is the over estimation of the range you can expect. What we call is it pretty moot.
for most daya to day urban running it'll be electric. For long trips it'll be hybrid, so watt is all of the fuss about? The USA has such low oil prices it's lucky to see hybrids at all. I have an old Prius for gadget value, using EV mode to stealth around car parks etc. Still get worried when the motor stops at traffic lights etc. I would like to add the engine stop feature to my 'normal' car.
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So, if the batteries are dead, the car runs like a regular gasoline-powered vehicle. And people are upset by this? Isn't that a great feature? I'd be kind of pissed if I drove a Volt, were stranded in the desert because the batteries died, and when I complained, "jeez, why can't you just make it so if the batteries are dead, the gas engine runs the car?" "Naw, then it wouldn't be an 'electric vehicle!'"
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
That transmission is expensive to have in there, and expensive to run. The more layers that you have, the worse your performance. In addition, the higher your maintenance costs are.
My guess is that they did not add this for the end consumer. I am guessing that they added this to increase their bottom line.
As I have said all along, you would have to be a fool to buy a volt.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
From the car connection blog:
Okay, I think that's a fair point, but in my view it does make a difference. It means the Volt has to have a transmission, which means extra weight and maintenance issues, and all the complexity of an ICE-based drivetrain. It means the Volt's ICE may have to run over a range of RPMs rather than solely running at an optimal RPM.
So while I'm in tentative agreement that this isn't necessarily a lie, and that the Volt can still look appealing versus other hybrid options, it still makes a difference and reduces some of the advantages the Volt had.
The enemies of Democracy are
I want an electric car with a small generator that runs off gas or diesel. Just a normal electrical car with a small generator and a fuel-tank. It will increase somewhat in size, but there is no reason to make anything complicated out of it.
Well, one that had interchangeable power plant modules would make sense... going on a road trip? Take out the extended battery module, put in the ICE engine module.
I'm still hoping they'll see the light on in-wheel motors so I'm not holding my breath for that.
Someone had to do it.
The Volt uses a planetary gearset where the main gear is driven by the primary electric motor. The planet and ring gears can also optionally by driven by the engine and a second assist electric motor when needed. This allows the computer to continuously vary the power source that is driving the wheels. The only part of this equation that was not previously known was that the engine can directly give torque to the wheels under certain circumstances (without going through a generator).
Typical operation for a daily commuter is stop and go traffic of 20 miles or less each way, which means the typical commuter in a Volt will use only the electric motor. The gasoline engine will never even start up. The Volt also comes with plug-in support from the factory. These two things are what make it different than existing hybrid cars. If you can sell these cars and start moving them in large numbers then you can start moving the battery prices down and scaling the electric-only range up. You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good otherwise you'll never ship anything. We know that in software, in hardware (think 1st gen iPod), and it is just as true in cars. The Volt is a necessary evolutionary step and I hope it sells really well because battery prices will drop and we can take the next step even sooner.
I also find it disingenuous to run the Volt around with drained batteries so you can see its "true" MPG (whatever your definition of "true" is with this sort of test). That's like saying a hard-top convertible sucks because I wanted to see how it performed in the rain but purposely left the hard top in the garage. The whole point of the Volt is using 100% electric power for most people's daily commutes. If my commute is 37 miles round-trip, then the Volt gives me infinite MPG, which makes no sense because the electricity does have a cost to it. This just highlights how inadequate MPG is as an efficiency measurement.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
A poorly run company made a poor decision? Who could've seen that coming?
Not that I'm bitter about what they did to Saturn...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
...did they benefit from because of this misrepresentation.
There can be absolutely zero doubt that they knew they were being deceitful, although the purpose may have been relatively innocuous; however, when you add this to the other deceitful tactics they've already employed and have been debunked (230mpg anyone?) a pattern of behavior seems to emerge that would require seriously mitigating circumstances which aren't readily apparent.
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There still must be some detail missing from this picture.
They added the extra complexity of a power combining mechanism for extra efficiency and then only use at 70MPH and beyond.
That is outside EPA testing parameters, which means this extra complexity won't add anything to the all important for marketing EPA numbers.
So just how bad would the efficiency have to be through the ICE/Generator/Motor to add extra complexity to be used over 70MPH.
Something really doesn't add up.
I have a 15 mile commute (each way), and rarely am able to reach speeds of 70mph on my way to work -- 35 - 45 is more typical.
The Volt would give me an all-electric commute, yet I can still drive it 200 miles to Tahoe on the weekends.
The all-electric Leaf will give me around 70 miles of range, so no long weekend trips.
The plug-in Prius (official version, not aftermarket conversions) would give me around 15 miles of all electric range.
I fail to see the controversy - most people can have an all-electric commute with the Volt. It was already known that the ICE engine would kick in to supplement the battery, the fact that it supplements via mechanical connection in addition to charging seems immaterial.
Why dont they have the ICE drive the generator which then drives the electric motor which drives the wheels? And do that at all speeds in all cases where the battery is out of juice?
If the electric motor can handle highway speeds when the battery is full, there is no reason it cant handle highway speeds being driven by the generator set.
If there are no mechanical linkages between the ICE and wheels, it becomes possible to swap the ICE (or ICE and generator) for something different. Such as a fuel cell. Or a different and better ICE.
Also, the ICE would be able to be run without a transmission and be tuned to always run (when its running) at exactly the right speed to most efficiently run the generator.
"Seriously, A TRUE serial hybrid using multiple engine/generators DOES make sense for something like the hummer or even a semi. BUT, for small cars? Nope. Far better that these are pure electrics, and if you need a 'range extended', then simply buy a gas car."
Wrong. Volt-like cars are much better because you'll need much larger battery for pure electric cars. 40 miles is OK for Volt because it can fall back to gasoline at any time. Pure EV should have about 150-200 miles of range to be acceptable. Nissan Leaf with its 100 miles of range is barely acceptable for a fairly small niche.
Also, your SECOND car will run on gasoline ALL the time, while with 2 GM Volts you can ride almost all the time without using any gasoline at all.
Not necessarily. You can run the ICE->Generator at the most efficient point of the power band constantly. Depending on the efficiencies of the generator and electric motors, you may come out more efficient.
It makes sense for most homes to buy an electric
Hmm.. I would think that statement needs some serious backing up?
How many millions of people live in cities where they don't have driveways/houses? In other words, how many millions of people park on the street or some parking structure that is not remotely set up for plug-in cars? Currently i would think that an awful lot of city-dwellers, people who live in apartments, people who live in condos or even townhouses, are excluded. Heck, a lot of SFH-owners are probably excluded too!
(I'm assuming that a plugin car is what you're talking about ?)
But the idea of a car carrying both gas/electric makes zero sense
Why? Isn't gas in essence a very efficient and very portable battery?
well, the 30MPG vs 230 is just poor reporting. The articles clearly state that is IF YOU DON'T CHARGE THE CAR AT ALL. IE, if you drive it off the lot, and you never plug it in again, you will get 25-40MPG depending on driving circumstances. the 230 that GM claims is one of those crazy "pollution" conversion things, where if you drive it 40 miles each day, and charge it each day, so you are always using just electricity, then the pollution created generating the electricity to power the car is somehow equivalent to getting 230MPG burning gasoline.
Alternatively, you should never be driving the car at more than 70 mph as it is illegal to do so.
Oh yeah? Here in Arizona the interstates are 75mph. In parts of Texas it's 80mph.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Alternatively, you should never be driving the car at more than 70 mph as it is illegal to do so. Therefore it isn't an issue. Or at least that is the case with the identical Vauxhall Ampere sold in the UK. The rest of Europe uses km/h for its speed limits and the speed limit is typically between 110 km/h and 130 km/h. 70 mph is 112km/h.
I routinely drive from Phoenix to LA and back. The speed limit is 75 on I-10 between Phoenix and Blythe. In CA it drops to 70. If you're doing 75 you'd better not be in the passing lane because the average speed on that road is 85 to 90 for cars in my experience. I've driven that route more than 50 times...
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Sho nuff, bring back horses. Fodder can be grown locally, no oil derivatives used to provide locomotion, and if worse comes to worse, you can eat them. Hides make good shoes and sports equipment. Best part: idle youth can be put to work shoveling horse shit instead of posting it on slashdot.
Aw, horseshit!
I don't think you have ANY clue what you are talking about. One of my dads larger accounts is Timken. Among other things Timken makes bearings, they make lots of bearings for the auto industry, but they also make lots of bearings for the military. Neither customer base is large enough to sustain the enterprise but combined it's enough of a market to make a decent profit when things are going well. Timken is important enough to the military that their bearing plant in Canton Ohio had its own thermonuclear warhead during the cold war. Had GM gone bankrupt and stiffed Timken then Timken would have gone bankrupt and there would be no domestic supplier of a whole host of critical parts. If you WANT the government dependent on some supplier in Malaysia or mainland China for critical parts then you're a fool.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Actual lease costs were 33k, in the range of a much larger clientel. A lot of rich and celebs were lined up for it. First adopters, and think of the publicity. Mel Gibson and Tom Hanks had one for example. The production costs were 80k for an 2 model run of only about 800 models. Given that there was pent up demand for it, each run would probably have been larger reducing per unit R&D and marketing costs.
CA was also installing charging stations, which would have improved its popularity.
They had improvements to cut costs and improve performance in the works. We can only imagine what it would be like after 10 years of those improvements and economy of scale.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I can see their problem from an engineer's perspective. Management and sales are demanding an MPG number on a car that can run all electric, all gasoline, or any combination of the two depending on owner's choice and circumstances. What can you do? Give 'em an honest worst case and best case, and tell 'em neither will likely happen in the real world. I wonder which number marketing will jump on....
Alternatively, you should never be driving the car at more than 70 mph as it is illegal to do so.
Oh yeah? Here in Arizona the interstates are 75mph. In parts of Texas it's 80mph.
I can understand the confusion... let me explain. Texas is a red state... and seeing how this is a product of Obama motors I doubt it will even function in texas nevermind be allowed to exceed the pre determined max speed. You may note that Texas was recently denied disaster funds for the areas affected by the hurricane... same reason. Maybe next time those texans will vote the right way.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
The ICE only drives the wheels when going over 70mph AND the batteries are run down. The summary says OR, this is incorrect.
If you charge up, you do still have 25-50 miles of all-electric range, even at over 70mph.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Because people clearly buy hybrid cars for track use.
And that of course is just the posted limits which I've found is often not what the actual limits on a given road usually are. Here in AR the limit is 70MPH on the freeway but the cops don't care to bother unless you hit above 80-85MPH depending on road conditions. Talking to cops most said they consider "safe driving speed" more than caring about actually posted limits and on the long flat freeways don't care if you drive 85MPH as long as you aren't being stupid like playing with your cell.
As for TFA they probably lied because hybrids suck compared to small ICE vehicles, at least ATM. when you figure in the most substantial use of resources is in the manufacture of a vehicle, and a good well built ICE can last 20 years if well maintained VS...what do those batteries last now? 5 years under perfect conditions? Unless your last vehicle was a Hummer I just don't see a hybrid breaking even for most folks. Hell my Ranger gets a whole 14MPG (according to the government. I've found it gets more like 22-26 depending on conditions and whether my foot is feeling leaded that day) but since it is low maintenance, paid for, and I only average one 100 mile trip a month with the rest being under 30, I actually don't have to spend that much for gas as long as I keep my foot off it. with our hot summers I doubt the batteries on one of those hybrids would last more than 3 years around here, making any gas I could have saved irrelevant.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Your citation also proves that moderate ridership is more efficient than cars. It also ignores that train systems run LESS train-cars and less trains during non-commuter hours to even out density per total number of train-cars.
Factoring these in, plus lower maintenance costs of rail vs asphalt, mass-transit is still a win.
>>>80? really? Wow, that's fast.
Not when you consider Congressional Law requires interstates to be spec'd for 125 mph speeds. 80 is only 2/3rd of the maximum safe travel speed.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Ya know..... if you did just a little bit of research..... you'd know that US Priuses are now ten years old. I've not heard of rampant failures at the 5 or 3 year mark. Have you?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
At the beginning I guess: Evidence, the links you provided have plenty, thank you for saving me answering this part.
The fact is that public transport at least, consumes more energy per mile than cars.
Actually if you read that table again, you will see that cars are the worst on the list, with the exception of light rail. I could not find the light rail figures in the data linked (no I didn't read all of it so if someone could point me to the relevant table I would appreciate it) so I can only presume the examples cited are among the worst run and designed public transport systems in the world. Apart from this the car is the worst, followed by buses.
the incredibly cheap costs of highway construction
What evidence do you have to back up this? Highways are massively expensive especially in city centres. Highways cost around $1 million per lane mile in the most simple circumstances and as commuter tansit around a large already built up city they are astronomical, not to mention the upkeep and repair costs of highway are much higher than rail. some figures if you have as much trouble accessing that link as I am at the moment you can view screenshots of it here
In addition these figures are for mass transit in the USA, an unashamed car culture. As your own link notes:
Don't Europe and Asia do better? Much better. This Australian Study cites figures saying that Western Europeans use only 76% of U.S. BTUs/pm in their private transport, and only 38% in their transit -- 2.5 times more efficient. Rich Asians do even better at transit -- they are almost 4 times as efficient in terms of energy/passenger-mile.
So it is possible to do it 4 times better than those figure that the car is already at the second to last place on.
Finally
Finally, repeat after me, there is no energy shortage. There is no energy shortage. There is no energy shortage. There is an energy collection, storage, and distribution problem.
Well I hate to break it to you, but collection, storage and distribution problems result in there being less energy available for use than we want and need, this is the definition of a shortage
Its not deceitful, you just have to have a sliver of a brain, and use it. Generally when someone makes an outlandish claim to me, my first reaction is "well, that is clearly not possible following the rules of how the world works that I know, so either this person is lying to me, or they are applying a different set of rules" Then I proceed to figure out which they are doing.
In this case, there IS NOT AN HONEST STRAIGHT FORWARD WAY for GM to represent the mileage of this car, because the GOVERNMENT has not provided a way to do so... Sure that leaves the door open for applying whatever standard GM chooses, but it doesn't excuse people from using their brains to at least attempt to understand things. Hence my claim that people are being idiotic. If you just blindly believe someone when they say "Oh I have this 25k RPM Hard Drive" then yes, you are an idiot.
``If you use a commonly used metric to describe an attribute of your car and that commonly used metric doesn't mean anything close to what you're using it for, you're being deceitful.''
Problem is, they couldn't have. The EPA had not established a standard test cycle for the kind of car that the Volt is. So as far as using the commonly used metric the way it's commonly used (i.e. reporting performance on the EPA test cycles), it could not have been done. This has been known pretty much from the beginning. Now, they could have done any number of things. They could have tested their car on one of the already established EPA test cycles. They could have claimed "MPG? For most city driving, you won't be using any gasoline at all!" They could have cooked up some kind of equivalence formula. Or they could have waited for the EPA to come up with a test cycle for their kind of car, and gone with that.
According to many sources on the web, the 230 miles per gallon figure was based on preliminary/draft specifications for a new EPA city test cycle developed specifically for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, with final ratings to be determined by testing after the EPA test cycles for PHEVs would be determined. Does that strike you as GM being deceitful?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
"And yet, the Nissan Leaf has FAR FAR outsold the volt."
Leaf and Volt are being sold already?
You can't compare a hypothetically full car with the average-filled train. It would be just as silly as comparing a hypothetically full train -- using a complete guess of 400 passengers gives almost 900mi/gal, several times more efficient than anything else on the list.
The article already includes a 1.57-passengers car (35mi/gal), and an average train of 22 passengers (48mi/gal).
80? really? Wow, that's fast.
Nah, that's not fast. That's rush hour speed along some DFW highways.
I've heard different numbers for that "spec" but never seen any source. Do you know that for sure, or did you just hear it somewhere?
It's worth noting that government bureaucracies move no slower (and often faster) than private industry bureaucracies.
This is adequately demonstrated by GM's glacial pace of operations; the most significant innovations at GM in the last 80 years were driven by government mandates (seatbelts, fuel efficiency, pollution control, etc.) GM is literally slower than the intentionally deliberate processes of a democratic republic!
Organizations that have no bureaucracy - that run tight - can be very fast by comparison. But despite political rhetoric to the contrary, being a "government" bureaucracy does not automagically make something inefficient.
Any sort of bureaucracy (or large consensus-process effort) slows things down. That's why the military doesn't stop to vote on stuff on the battlefield - even the Finns save that kind of process for base camp. Dictatorship is fast and risky, checks and balances are slower and (most of the time) safer.
In a capitalist economy, investors decide which kind of leadership an enterprise needs at any given time, until a company grows too large to be led by anyone or anything but its own inertia. I think GM hit that wall decades ago.
The Tesla "Model S" is going to be costing about $50k per vehicle, and if you add in maintenance costs for a convention internal combustion engine over the lifespan of about 150,000 miles driven in the vehicle, that model starts to get real attractive compared to new cars. It still doesn't compete on the really low end, but Tesla is trying to push after the "luxury" automobile market like BMW, Lexis, and Cadillac rather than the cheaper end vehicle. The Model S isn't going to be a high performance sports car, but it is going to be a full-sized family vehicle capable of holding 3-4 kids plus parents and some groceries. The Roadster has trunk space for a golf bag and that is about it. That size was by design on the Roadster too.
There is a "Blue Star" vehicle that is supposedly going after the lower tiers of the auto industry, but I'm not holding my breathe for that to get built. The Model S, on the other hand, is already at the production prototyping stage with versions already on the highway so far as verifying performance and getting it ready for the battery of tests needed to get something into serial production.
33808 road deaths last year sounds pretty inhumane to me.
This country had 2222 road deaths and zero rail passenger deaths last year, and zero deaths (so far) this year. (Last year four people were killed on level crossings, and one maintenance worker by a passing train.)