As we reported previously, the plug-in electric – gas Chevrolet Volt will not, as originally stated, recharge its batteries on the fly. Which raises all kinds of questions about exactly what it DOES do, how it does it, how much it will cost to do it and why they’re doing it the way they’re doing it. While GM didn’t step-up and spill the beans on this mission critical mechanical issue (they were “outed” by Edmunds), an eagle-eyed TTAC reader spotted a post-facto mea culpa at the bottom of a USA Today article on the company’s investment in Flint. “GM initially said the Volt would be able to run 40 miles on its lithium-ion batteries, with a small internal combustion engine recharging the batteries to extend the range hundreds of miles. A top executive said the same thing as recently as last week. But company spokesman Rob Peterson said Wednesday that engineers changed the design so the Volt engine will power a generator that would run the electric motor after the batteries are depleted. A small amount of power from the generator will recharge the batteries, but most will be used to directly run the car, he said. He said bypassing the batteries is more efficient, and GM did not intend to deceive people by maintaining that he motor would only be used to recharge the batteries. ‘At the end of the day, to the consumer, the vehicle will operate much the same way,’ he said.” [thanks to peteinson for the link]
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I suppose that the originally-planned 1-liter 3cyl motor would have had insufficient output to propel the car using the generator and wiring.
Now that there’s a 1.4 l four, there is enough “grunt”.
There’s a chicken/egg thing going on here — did GM modify the capabilities/intent of the Volt drivetrain at the last minute because of the availability of the (to be Flint produced) 1.4 liter motor?
Something’s fishy here.
Shaker,
I think your right. The news about the Flint engine plant came less than a week after the mysterious change in Volt’s production specifications. While I think it’s great they’re trying to save money by using the same engine twice, they are lying to us about the reasons.
Less vibration? More Grunt? Please.
They mentioned that the smaller engine would have to run at higher RPMs in order to re-charge the battery after depletion. So what? Mazda’s 1.3L rotary red lines at 9,000 RPMs!
From the previous discussions on here and reading the quote in the article, I have formed an (unfounded) theory.
1.) Engines run most efficiently at a constant load. This can be increased if the engine is optimized for that load.
2.) Generating electricity, then storing it, then using it is less efficient than just generating and using it.
If the generator making a constant amount of electricity and the car is using a varying amount of electricity, couldn’t the remainder be used to charge the batteries? Thus, more efficient driving = more charge.
I would think that the most efficient technique is to run a very small (1 litre you say) engine at full throttle to recharge the batteries. Then you have enough power in the batteries to actually accelerate, and the engine is running at its most efficient setting.
I suppose the major drawback is when you’re sitting at a traffic light in your electric car, and the gas engine is roaring away at full throttle.
Regardless, it would seem to be an easy thing to make fully adjustable for the driver. Just flick the switch to “Electric Only” if you know you’ll make it home in under 40 miles. Heading into the mountains? Better switch to “Full Charge” and keep the batteries as fully charged as possible. Feeling adventurous, switch to “Random Charge” and see if you can scare some neighborhood kids on bikes.
I would think that the most efficient technique is to run a very small (1 litre you say) engine at full throttle to recharge the batteries.
Judging by the home generator I used to power my house post-Ike, 3000-4000rpm is all you need for an ICE to power a generator.
A one liter engine with a diesel-esque cam sounds good to me.
OK if this is actually the case (it operates like a parallel hybrid after the battery is ‘drained’) why wouldn’t they produce variants of this that have different all-electric ranges, and therefore different battery sizes, and therefore different prices. For example, a $25K Volt with a 10 mile all-electric range, due to a smaller battery (and lighter, so more Fuel Economy with the engine on) would be attractive to many, many people.
Does the change even matter in the end? As much as I’ve never bought into the Volt (or the fact that it can revive GM, which it won’t), I do think this is a smart decision. Why have a motor charge a battery when it’ll just drive for you? A battery won’t be more efficient than that.
The new Volt still sucks though. It’ll be small, too expensive (even more that the trendy Prius), and not sell enough to matter in GM’s bottom line. It’s sure a nice sob story for the government to eventually bail’em out, though.
He said bypassing the batteries is more efficient
He’s right. If the engine charged the batteries, you’d have:
Engine>Generator>Batteries>Motor>Transmission
…instead of
Engine>Generator>Motor>Transmission
There’s a lot of power wasted charging the batteries–not even the Prius does this. In fact, if the aim is net efficiency, the Prius actually does better, because there’s fewer wasted energy conversion steps in it’s three modes:
Engine>Transmission
Motor/Generator+Engine>Transmission
Motor/Generator>Transmission
Here’s my take on it….
The “original” volt concept was to use the engine to recharge the battery through a generator and the battery drives the wheels through a motor.
The potential advantage with this is that you can run the engine at its peak efficiency point to recharge the batteries. So the engine would start and stop when the batteries needed to be charged…independent of the vehicle driving cycle.
But this makes sense only if you can allow the battery charge to vary…say you let battery charge drop to 25% then start the engine…charge the battery to 100% and turn off the engine.
If you cant let the battery charge vary too much for sake of battery life, then you may need to start and stop the engine every so often…..OR…keep the engine running and control the engine power output to keep the battery charge more or less constant (or rather within a narrow state of charge band)
Of course with this you lose the advantage of always running the engine at its peak efficiency.
But now that the engine is running for a larger portion of the time, may be you could gain some efficiency by bypassing the battery and letting the engine drive the motor directly through a generator
My guess is that the engineers must have come up with a system that allows the engine to simultaneously power the wheels (albeit through a electrical connection) and recharge the battery if needed (very similar to a hybrid…except that in hybrids there is a mechanical connection between the engine and the wheels) and concluded that this is the more efficient and long-lasting approach.
The bigger 1.4 L engine must have certainly helped with this approach
If this is indeed the case, I am not sure whether its an EREV or a PHEV….it seems like a PHEV except that the EVT is replaced by some sort of electrical circuit.
Makes you wonder though if a PHEV style approach with some mechanical link between the engine and wheels would prove more efficient than routing engine power through a generator and motor?? But an all electrical system would probably be cheaper and easier to package.
I’ll bet the engine runs at some throttle speed relative to the speed of the car. At a stop the engine prob runs at something near idle. During acceleration it prob runs 2800-3400 rpm and the same going down the road.
I could imagine they could charge the battery by keeping the engine at a fast run while you are coasting and using regen but the focus groups might complain and ultimately they want to deliver max mileage even if it means you won’t have anymore battery until you plug in again.
Listen, for those of us who would use it as an electric car and commute with it, we’ll never care about the engine. For those folks who intend to travel with it, they won’t care either.
However it would be nice to have a button that allows the driver to run on gasoline from the start in case you anticipate being stuck in traffic near the end of your trip like a drive to a National Park where you want to slowly/silently tour and expect a “bear-jam”.
I suspect there will be a button labeled “a/c” or “defrost” that does make the engine run from the git-go. VBG!
I suspect vehicles like this one will be the Volt’s competition. The price is about the same. It’s my preferred ride over the Volt.
I’m also surprised that GM hasn’t badge-engineered either the future Volt or the Malibu – the only two cars it makes sense for them to re-badge. Instead, they only choose to multiply their shitty products. American ingenuity at work!
skygreenleopard:
Actually, the Chevy Malibu is a rebadged Saturn Aura.
Then how does this car differentiate itself with the forthcoming plug-in Prius? The range will be less, however it may be as much as $15,000 cheaper! Maybe I’m just confused.
I’m an engineer, but this shit is not making sense to me. Perhaps somebody can clear this up …
I understand charging the battery at home, and the driving 40 miles part. This seems, at least in theory, pretty efficient and inexpensive (in terms of running expenses … obviously not purchasing costs, as we’ve been hearing).
BUT … I have a couple of points:
1) I know what was originally promised by GM, but I honestly don’t know why people are getting annoyed by not being able to charge the li-ion batts with the engine. Charging from the engine is inefficient/expensive as compared to charging from the grid (right?).
2)If the engine is not going to charge the batteries in any significant way, why not reduce the number of components (and therefore energy transfers & cost) in the system.
In the current system:
engine -> alternator -> frequency converter (perhaps) -> motor -> transmission
Why not:
engine -> transmission
This is just not adding up!
The Volt has no gearbox, right? saves a lot of cost
It has a 1.4 Litre motor (small)
It has to have electric drive to work with only one gear, and needs no complicated electronics to switch from electric to ICE drive and back
It has a small glass area(cheap)
The Volt seems to be cheaper to make and less sophisticated than a Prius and designed to sell at no more than $20000
bobhaynes88:
don’t forget about the $10,000 battery …
Make the engine optional… or easily removable.
How much does the MGset weigh? Replace it with batteries: Voila! 60-mile range EV.
NOTHING about this vehicle “adds up”.
As a stupid consumer, I don’t really care about these details. They strike me as about as as useful as debating which audio decoding chip is used in an iPod versus a zune.
What I care about is performance and range on a full tank of gas. If GM chooses to run a generator with their gas engine while other manufacturers choose to recharge the batteries instead, then great. We’ll get to try out both in the market place and see which one wins.
Why not:
engine -> transmission
Because it’s a serial hybrid, not a parallel one.
The Prius’ planetary gearset (the one between the CVT and the engine & MGs) allows it to choose any one of a number of power sources in concert or on their own. The Prius could–if packaging wasn’t an issue–in theory, accomodate a diesel engine, a gas engine, and a hybrid drive. It’d be just another powerplant that would feed into the transmission.
In a serial hybrid, each source is inline with the next, and the engine essentially must be first and the drive motor last. The serial hybrid is mechanically simpler and probably easier to package, but less versatile.
srh:
Please don’t lower yourself to the “stupid consumer” level! Our discussions here are attempting to understand why the engineers at GM (presumably smart people) are making these decisions (if, indeed, they are). The fundamental drive system design is of utmost importance.
psarhjinian :
“The serial hybrid is mechanically simpler and probably easier to package, but less versatile. Therefore, the Prius’ mileage is going to pwn the Volt on the highway (after the battery runs down), and cost less to boot!”
Better?
I am skeptical that in the real world that inserting a battery in between an internal combustion engine and the wheels makes a car more efficient. If that were the case how come we haven’t been doing that for 100 years?
Isn’t that like a violation of the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics or something? And let me interject that whatever explanation you’re about to throw at me, it looks like that’s now been proved wrong, huh?
More to the point, using an engine to fully recharge a battery that powers runs the vehicle means congrats, you are generating electricity with … GASOLINE. Keeping the battery charged with gasoline means you are no longer charging it from the grid, right? Why even have a plug-in? Every time you pull into the garage, the battery is charged up from driving. What’s the point?
If the engine were to recharge the battery, and you return home with a fully recharged battery, your MPG would be worse than if you had just the 1.4L, or whatever, engine. So for the VOLT to make any sense at all, they had to choose to avoid recharging. On the other hand, it seems to me a 1L engine would be inadequate for situations, when the battery was discharged, such as merging uphill with a full passenger load. Even a 1.4L in such a case might get you into white knuckle mode given the extra weight of the generator/battery. If this had been a normal product developed by engineers instead of PR types, this kind of stuff would have been dealt with long before public awareness.
I don’t think it’ll matter anyway since that $25B or $50B will be gone before this charade could appear.
There’s a lot of power wasted charging the batteries–not even the Prius does this.
OMG!!!!!!!!!
First, the Prius ICE most certainly DOES recharge the battery while driving. Duh! You CAN’T plug it in, so how can anyone make the statement that it doesn’t? The battery gets charged somehow! However, it is charging a tremendously smaller battery pack. So small it won’t even go solo electric over fifteen or twenty miles per hour, and then only for short distances, like a block or two. By contrast forty miles is like light-years of energy in comparison. The Prius electric motor is mainly for assisting the otherwise undersized ICE. The Prius simply accomplishes the battery charging by regenerative charging when going downhill, or when slowing and braking, and when that isn’t enough, also by the engine if and when it isn’t being required to give its all to forward progress. You can watch the battery charge status increase into the fully charged zone while driving down the road. So, the engine DOES help charge the battery, and it reaches full charge in a few miles because the capacity of the battery is very small. Gottit?
If you haven’t driven a Prius, you just simply have to drive one to understand it. When you (subtly) feel the engine cycle on and off at sixty miles per hour you will begin to get the grasp of it.
Now as for the Volt, isn’t it obvious that if it takes several hours to recharge it with 110V, or even a few hours at 220V, you simpy ain’t gonna charge ‘er up with 1.4L of engine while driving down the road? I would suppose the actual energy stored in the Volt battery pack would be a few hundred times the amount in the Prius. I think the unit of measurement you need to see is ampere/hours.
But a larger observation: I don’t see why we pistonheads don’t seem to be able to get our heads around this Volt concept. The debate of whether the battery pack is worth having after 40 miles is absurd! I mean, think about it. If you can only have one car, and you want to drive it to work/shopping/liquour store and back on electric only and you live within five or ten miles of civilization-like probably a majority of people-it works. You can go days on end without using gas. On the rare occasion you have to take the wife to see the mother-in-law a couple hundred miles away, you don’t have to rent a car. Your electric commuter will do just fine on the trip. And while you are there, maybe the hostile MIL will let you plug in at her house too! You can run all over town on her electric juice..costing you sweet FA, while your wife complains about you to her mother’s receptive ear while you are out and about.
I also reckon you won’t be obsessing about whether the battery pack was extra weight on the trip to mama’s and back because for the next several weeks after you are back home you may not buy gas for another two or three months if you don’t leave town. Just think about that for a moment: weeks without buying gas! Not a DROP.
And while you are driving electrically, if someone in the car says “Let’s go get fried biscuits at the Cajun Shack instead of cooking at home” you won’t have to sweat not having enough juice to make the side trip. The 1.4L is there to finish the job.
Now I am truly sorry if you have a seventy-five mile commute, or have the propensity to be the kind of guy that likes booting it and accelerating from sixty to eighty in the left lane on uphill climbs passing the suckers going sixty in the right hand lane. Or if you like taking the back seats out to save weight when you aren’t hauling the kids. But why can’t we let this Volt idea have a happy birth for those for whom it is intended. As a fellow auto enthusiast I note a distinct and rather ugly resistance to this new concept of travel. Envy perhaps? If we can be patient, I for one can see that there will ultimately be benefits for all who drive. Even if it means more gas for you.
Could GM be making the Volt up as it goes along, revising the specification when the previous iteration becomes radioactive?
The Volt may exist solely to extend executive tenures, pacify lenders and attract government grants. GM seems to have neither the information nor the time to compute the entire plan before making announcements. It only reasons about what to do next; what represents a believable next action.
In the current system:
engine -> alternator -> frequency converter (perhaps) -> motor -> transmission
Why not:
engine -> transmission
I went on a cruise a few years ago, and the captain explained how the propellors were powered by electric motors, who got their electricity from oil-burning internal combustion engines hooked up to a generator. Huh? Why not just connect the engines directly to the propellors? Answer: operating efficiency. The ICE gets to run in the range and load where it’s most efficient, and you eliminate the energy-sapping transmission. Diesel-electric locomotives have a similar setup. Imagine the 40-gear mechanical transmission for that beast!
In other words, the series-hybrid idea is not new, but it hasn’t made its way into cars until now because of cost and weight. Well, cost and weight are still issues, but I admire GM’s guts to go for it. I wouldn’t doubt that the series-hybrid drivetrains will appear in more cars as battery technology improves.
As for the controversy about the engine not charging the batteries — who cares? The powertrain’s raison d’etre is propulsion, not to make x kiloamphours of juice. Charging the big fat battery is best left to the utility company, whose fossil fuel to driving miles efficiency is way better than any automobile.
This is a fundamental change in the plan.
What this tells me is that this project is not nearly close to being ready for prime time. At the very least, it is going to be late, as it is already well behind schedule.
“The serial hybrid is mechanically simpler and probably easier to package, but less versatile. Therefore, the Prius’ mileage is going to pwn the Volt on the highway (after the battery runs down), and cost less to boot!”
Can I use “pw3d” in my next meeting? Please?
I actually like the Volt in principle. One nice point to the Volt’s architecture is that it’s relatively easy to swap in different batteries and engine/generators, where the Prius’ powertrain requires more engineering work. It’s more quickly adaptable to things like microturbines, diesel, small fission reactors, additional batteries.
In it’s niche, or with a better power source (or better batteries) it’s probably it best choice.
But yes, the Prius will pwn the Volt on the highway. It’ll cost less because of the batteries and because Toyota’s already paid for the R&D. The E-Flex system suffers from the same problem as Two-Mode does: it’s theoretically easier to repackage and redeploy for other implementations, but Toyota’s system is, real-world, a better system, especially in one-car situations.
GM is thinking about what’s easiest to reengineer and repurpose. Toyota is thinking about what will actually sell.
I think GM was probably going to do something like an E-Flex vehicle, but it was going to be a research princess like the HyWire or Sequel at best. The gas crisis and Toyota’s rising credibility forced them to put something into play. I’m also guessing that they’re having real trouble getting two-mode adapted to passenger cars, or we’d have seen it instead.
@rob: Earlier, the word from GM was that the Volt would have a small genset, and if the battery drained and you had to rely on that to supply all the electric power to move the car, it wouldn’t leave you stranded but performance would be reduced. That is why, for long trips, there would be driveability advantages to having the genset recharge the battery on-the-fly, even though it’s the most inefficient mode of operation.
With the announcement that the gas engine will now be larger than originally stated, I presume the generator will also be larger, and perhaps this is not longer an issue. We shall see.
@Kevin: A few of us have proposed (mostly in previous threads discussing the Volt) that it ought to have an “extended trip” button to inform the car that the driver will definitely be exceeding the 40 mile electric-only range on this outing. That would be the only mode where the genset would attempt to keep the batteries charged on-the-fly.
Gotta say it again. For the masses….maybe 80% of driving is local. Only occasionally driving longer mileage. You choose: 80% of driving without gas (Volt) or 100% with gas (Prius-and I OWN one).
My choice would be instantly….screw the gas whenever possible.
First, the Prius ICE most certainly DOES recharge the battery while driving. Duh! You CAN’T plug it in, so how can anyone make the statement that it doesn’t? The battery gets charged somehow!
If you haven’t driven a Prius, you just simply have to drive one to understand it. When you (subtly) feel the engine cycle on and off at sixty miles per hour you will begin to get the grasp of it.
It charges via energy reclamation, including at cruise from the motor-generators, not directly from the engine. The Prius does not treat it’s engine like a gas generator as the Volt would need to (but doesn’t), but it does treat it’s motor/generators and battery as a sink for excess energy.
I still don’t understand why I would want a Volt.
We are told it will be in the $30 -40 K range. Expensive. Buy a Honda Fit, use the rest of the money for gas.
We’ll also told that the Volt is of most usefulness for people who don’t drive very far – Less than 40 miles in 8 hours. Those are the people who have the lowest gasoline costs now. It will take them the longest (if ever) to recoup the extra expense of this high-tech drive train.
On the everyday practicality front, my commute to work is 19 miles each way. It’s true that the car will sit for 8 hours while I’m in the office, but there’s no place to plug the car in while I’m working. I suppose it’s possible that as a one-off geek, I might wrangle some deal, but if there were three people, then it would get complicated.
The company isn’t going to pay for the power for 25 employees to plug in their cars, and is certainly not likely to set up a special electric car plug-in parking area.
I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around who is going to buy this thing and how they are going to use it – except, of course, for the ‘gotta-be-cool” crowd.
A few comments on the comments above:
Sajeev: Judging by the home generator I used to power my house post-Ike, 3000-4000rpm is all you need for an ICE to power a generator.
Your generator at home runs at 3600 RPM because that’s 60 Hz which is what your home needs. It’s just easier to run the motor at the correct (or multiple of the correct) RPM and use the electrical output directly.
@Cavendel: I suppose the major drawback is when you’re sitting at a traffic light in your electric car, and the gas engine is roaring away at full throttle.
The cool thing is that if you maximize around one engine speed as the most efficient, then you can optimize everything else. If you know exactly that your engine speed is going to be in a very narrow range it’s trivial to design a muffler to take away all the noise. The reason standard mufflers don’t work great is that they need to work across all frequency ranges, get rid of that requirement and you’ll get lots of gains
I’d love a design where the ICE is either off or on at full throttle and that’s it (have the ECU manage that). When the ICE is off the car pulls all of its power from the battery. When the battery gets below a certain threshold the ICE kicks in and generates max power. Power can then go to the wheels from the ICE, what power isn’t being used for the wheels goes to the battery. When the battery is full the ICE shuts off. Rinse. Repeat. This way you have great efficiency from the ICE -> Generator -> Motor path, but you’re also getting ICE -> Generator -> Battery for the extra energy. And if the ICE isn’t enough for you can do Battery -> Motor. This allows for constant ICE power output and variable power use in normal day-to-day driving. I bet the (lack of) efficiency in storing to the battery will be made up from the gains in efficiency of running the ICE at constant power output.
As others have said above, diesel-electric locomotives and large ships have been doing this for years (sans battery) so the tech is there, it should even be simpler in a car since the power requirements are orders of magnitude less. In locomotives, they don’t (can’t) have a battery to buffer for variable power requirements, so what they do is run the diesel engine at variable power, but they do things like only have three speeds: 700, 1400, 2800 RPM. Since they’re all even multiples it’s easy to optimize the efficiency at those set engine speeds.
warning – off topic
iganpo:
I’m a Naval Architecture/Marine Engineer and currently working on my masters. I would disagree with the captain. There are various factors on a cruise ship that make electric propulsion a good choice, but “fuel efficiency” is generally not one of them. The real reasons are:
1) High “hotel” electrical loads (the ratio of hotel electrical power to propulsion power is higher than that of, say, an oil tanker).
2) packaging – The generators on such a ship are powered by high- or medium-speed diesels, which are much smaller than the low-speed diesels on commercial ships (low speeds are the size of a house and generally turn at less than 125 rpm). The generators can be located anywhere in relation to the propulsors. Also, some of these ships are equipped with propulsion pods, which save a lot of space for other machinery and cabins within the ship (the latter of which = $)
3) Power flexibility & reliability – electric drive cruise ships have multiple generators, meaning that one, or even several, can be off line for times when (a) less power, or speed, is required, and/or (b) maintenance is required. A ship with fewer engines (as in 1 or 2) would be slowed significantly or completely for maintenance, which would be unacceptable on a cruise ship. Also, running engines at reduced/non-optimal loads is inefficient. On tankers/etc, the speed outside of the harbors is kept fairly consistent, and therefore the engine(s) run(s) very efficiently. During a cruise, people expect the vessel to stick to the schedule (especially when turn-around times in port are measured in hours). Therefore, extra power is needed at certain times. This is where multiple generators help – more speed needed? Just start up another generator (assuming the propulsion motors can handle the power). However, at the typical cruising speed, a direct drive would be much more efficient (from a fuel use perspective).
4) Marketing – Our ship has diesel-electric propulsion, kinda like a Prius! Also, the exhaust smells of roses.
Essentially, it all boils down to cost. Sure, a diesel-electric cruise ship uses more fuel, costs more to build, requires more maintenance, and has higher insurance premiums than an equivalent ship with a direct drive, low-speed diesel. However, the diesel-electric version can stay on schedule 98% of the time, has room for more cabins, and has a greener image (god, not that green washing BS again!). Also, low speed diesels do not need transmissions.
I’ll take a stab at the reason locomotives have electric drive: 1) the torque of the electric motor at low rpms, 2) i believe you’re right – no need for a 40 speed transmission.
ANYWAY, sorry everybody … back to our regularly scheduled program.
I never thought about this, but take a typical road trip: Los Angeles to Las Vegas, about 275 miles. For the first 40 miles, the Volt will be cheaper than the Prius, running on pure electricity. But then for the next 235, the Volt will get the same gas mileage as a typical four cylinder sedan (or worse, since there’s a lot of a weight penalty for dragging along a non-functional electric motor and batteries), and the Prius will get double the MPG or better. Then, when you get to Vegas, you have to find a place to plug it in at your hotel (good luck), or you are stuck with Malibu-like mileage (or worse) until you get home, 275 miles later (plus whatever driving you do around Vegas while you are there). And for this, you will pay $15,000 more than the Prius.
That is, the Volt doesn’t act like a hybrid (with most of the recharging coming from regenerative braking, which is free power) at all, but more like an electric car grafted on to a traditional gasoline one (although I’m sure even the Volt will use regenerative braking when the electric engine is working, but on long trips that will be for a very short time).
Is anything about this wrong? If it’s right, this is much worse for GM that I thought.
I’m still trying to imagine what driving a Volt will be like. Once the batteries are depleted, the gasoline motor starts, to run the electric drive motors. Will it be running at a steady rpm, or will rpms vary depending on the positioning of the “gas” pedal?
GM should tell us what gas mileage you would get after the batteries run out.
If we are getting about 60 mpg if you remove the battery weight. Then by all means sell it now without the batteries.
IF we are getting about 55 mpg with batteries in the Volt because they weigh 500lbs and cost $20,000 dollars why are you doing it? GM!
Just sell us the Volt without the batteries. It has always made more sense to run with electric motors with a tuned motor running in a specific RPM range. The why we haven’t is because nobody cared about the cost of gas. Nobody except cheap folk like me. If the engine was tuned to run on ethanol, the loss of mpg would disappear. Bye Bye OPEC
With all the public press releases and speculation over the Volt, what make people think Toyota isnt already developing the same vehicle at a higher quality and lower cost. GM is failing because they have product no one wants right? Seriously, all this brings is another comparison, the 2010 Toyota Volt vs GM Volt. Hmm lets see can the failing near bankrupt company bloated on ignorance do it?
I remember vividly the Bush vs Kerry Presidential debate. The Bush answer was you can still suck and be sucessful America, in response to offshoring and American middle class jobs. Kerry’s statements reflected the “too bad America you’ll just have to get smarter” attitude. Why is everyone so surprised we’re here?
America just thinks pretending to be great and sitting at a desk 8 hours a day is enough, guess what you’re wrong. The average American sleeps through the school system, memorizes information they dont really understand, or care about for that matter, ends up in a day job and says give me my money. Meanwhile people in other countries who actually care are kicking your ass. Time to wake up. The elite class making the big decisions in this country dont care about your hourly middle class lifestyle or future, I’m sure theyre looking forward to you begging for your freedom.
“I’m a Naval Architecture/Marine Engineer”
I would believe the single point of failure is the diesel engine. I would also think the diesel engine when looking at MTBF would be 10x higher than the generators. The generators have perfect harmonic balance, no sludge ( during diesel combustion acids are created that literally eat through metal), this caustic dirty environment does not exist inside a generator.
I am confused.
but I honestly don’t know why people are getting annoyed by not being able to charge the li-ion batts with the engine.
Because they lied to us, man!!!1
I still don’t understand why I would want a Volt. We are told it will be in the $30 -40 K range. Expensive. Buy a Honda Fit, use the rest of the money for gas.
If you are homo econimus, then, yes, you’d skip the Volt at this price point. The first 10,000 are going to go to early adopters who want to stick it to the gas companies.
The price will need to come down for me to consider it, but I think it will, if not from GM than from another company.
The company isn’t going to pay for the power for 25 employees to plug in their cars, and is certainly not likely to set up a special electric car plug-in parking area.
Even at peak rates, electricity is still cheaper than gas in most circumstances. A 40 cent kilowatt-hour (a very high rate) will get you 5 miles. At $4 a gallon, you would need a 50 mpg car to get the same costs.
Howler :
You sound like my father law from Canton China. But, I believe you have a lot of rightousness in what you say.
I’m a company man working in the union. Find out what that means and you will validate your point.
reason standard mufflers don’t work great is that they need to work across all frequency ranges, get rid of that requirement and you’ll get lots of gains
A turbo charged engine does not need mufflers.
HOLD ON!!!
Wait!
Let me check.
Yup. It’s for sure.
The horse is officially still dead.
Whew!!
That was close!!
nonce :
“because they lied to us, man!!!”
Ummm, ok, you got me on that one. But it does not make sense, from an efficiency stand point, for engine -> alternator -> battery -> motor -> transmission. What would be better is engine -> alternator -> motor -> transmission. However, this second option (which is being proposed now) is still ridiculous – too many damn energy conversions/system losses!
blindfaith :
Oppps – I’m a Naval Architect (vs. Naval architecture …)
“I would believe the single point of failure is the diesel engine. I would also think the diesel engine when looking at MTBF would be 10x higher than the generators. The generators have perfect harmonic balance, no sludge ( during diesel combustion acids are created that literally eat through metal), this caustic dirty environment does not exist inside a generator.
I am confused.”
Just for clarity, the term generator refers to the engine & alternator package. I believe you meant alternator when you were mentioning balance/ sludge? Yes, the diesel engines are more maintenance intensive as compared to the alternator. With that said, I am confused as well … I’m not really sure what you’re getting at here. Could you rephrase your question/point?
Mannn, I love going off topic …
3banger/ 1L Geo metro got 50+mpg without the hybrid impedimentia. Methinks the situation is being over thought.
3banger/ 1L Geo metro got 50+mpg without the hybrid impedimentia.
Or any safety measures. Or more than notional cargo room. Or acceleration. Downhill.
I wish people would stop dredging up the Metro as some kind of counterpoint. You may as well bring up motorcycles as viable alternatives.
This again brings up a concern about traveling in mountainous areas. As I understand it, the Volt will only have it’s full drive wheel output available when both the batteries and the generator-set are providing juice to the electric drive motor. If the batteries are depleted in normal use and the vehicle then only has the generator set available to provide energy, what happens to the ability to climb long uphill grades? If you are passing on an uphill grade and suddenly hit the battery depleted state, what happens? Climbing the Rocky Mountains with a vehicle as heavy as the Volt (and it is going to be heavy) with the only propulsion available being derived from a 1.4l 4 banger is not likely to be a pretty sight, especially when dealing with the conversion of power from mechanical to electrical and then back to mechanical. Yes, this is more efficient then mechanical-electrical-chemical-electrical-mechanical, so I can understand the fuel economy argument for not recharging the battery pack, but what about ensuring the availability of power when needed?
correct me if im wrong and i might be. the epa required the engine to recharge the battery after completing the city cycle even though it was not drained enough to require it. if the gas engine is no longer responsible for charging the battery then the requirment for the charged battery not aply either. meaning that the rating would go from 48 to the hundread mpg because the motor never kicked in and gas was not used.
When the battery of the Volt claims to be empty it has about the same capacity left as an Prius when it is full. So think of an empty Volt as a car running in Prius mode.
Geotpf : The Prius doesn’t get its efficiency on the highway from its partly battery driven transmission but from its shape. A car with Prius but not its weight due to extra gears and batteries would most likely be more efficient on the route between L.A. and las Vegas.
Power flexibility & reliability – electric drive cruise ships have multiple generators, meaning that one, or even several, can be off line for times when (a) less power, or speed, is required, and/or (b) maintenance is required. A ship with fewer engines (as in 1 or 2
The I’m a Naval Architecture/Marine Engineer wrote this I did not. I took this to mean one diesel could drive multiple generators. I did not correct generators to alternators nor Achitecuture to architect. I just wanted him to understand that one diesel driving multiple generators, the diesel would fail before generators, that probably would need grease for bearing and brushes/points replaced both easy on the fly jobs.
It doesn’t matter what they say it will be, because
it won’t be at all. Look at how low that windshield is; ZZTop couldn’t drive this car. What a scam,
the taxpayers give Detroit money year after year to
meet this or that regulation or to help with battery
technology. At the end of the day Detroit says ‘ We can’t do it” Wonder where all that money went.
The Japanese can and are doing it, and have been for a long time. What would our
air smell like if we didn’t have millions of Hondas and Toyotas on the road? Let the Japanese foul their air with factories and build the cars. Send them all the raw materials they need.
The ‘Volt” is the final insult to the American
consumer. If they had spent half as much on development as they have on advertising this
(non)thing, we might already have one of their
paltry runs of proposed production. Here is one
area where they did not lie: their factories will
produce zero waste in the future because they will
not be producing anything at all.