TTAC commentator Kixstart writes:
Once again, GM has dodged the question on the Volt’s ultimate flat-can fuel economy. From their FastLane Blog, a CoverItLive session with Bob Boniface, I read the following exchange:
[Comment From David]
Hi Bob, Can you give us an approximate number of how many mpg the volt will achieve after the battery runs out?2:04 Bob Boniface: When battery is depleted you should expect several hundred more miles running on engine generator.
I imagine several people immediately pounded away on their keyboards with “How big is the gas tank?” But that question was never selected and the answer never offered.
The message from a few days’ ago (as blogged on TTAC): “over 30mpg.” On an earlier CoverItLive session on FastLane, I noted that someone had asked, very specifically, about extended range fuel economy after battery depletion. He was cheerily told that GM expected the Volt to get an EPA score “in the triple digits,” which clearly includes the battery charge. I’ve seen the question asked clearly, elsewhere, and ignored.
When is GM going to stop dancing around and just answer the damned question? GM and the fanboys over on GM-Volt like to talk about how “open” GM has been about the Volt development process. But some of the most important items are buried in layers of obfuscation. As usual.
I love how different the “new GM” is.
Bunter
I believe the appropriate quote is, loudly,
“YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!
The original question (in the gm-volt chat) specifically asked about a rumored 30 mpg. The response was “much more than 30 mpg”. Regardless what that means, it would be nice if you quoted your own article, and the original chat, correctly.
Perhaps they’re still tuning the engine. Perhaps they want to wait until they have a solid answer, and some institutional guidance regarding how the EPA is going to evaluate the Volt’s Fuel Economy. For example, if you’re more likely to use the battery during city driving (presumably close to home), then should the ICE-only MPG estimates be weighted more heavily toward highway driving cycles? Too many questions remain about how a plug-in should be evaluated, so I think that keeping it in their pants is the right approach at this point.
“much more than 30 mpg” = 32 mpg?
frank rizzo,
But GM is only too happy to talk openly about Volt fuel economy, when they can say, “in the triple digits,” which is nothing but misleading BS involving a particular length of driving cycle that mostly uses the battery.
Can I charge the car, put 5 gallons of fuel in it and go over 540 miles? No. “Triple digits” is 100% crap.
They’ll give out a crap answer but they won’t tell the truth about their own car. The New GM is clearly a lineal descendant of The Old GM.
This is what happens when you don’t empower your PR people. The correct answer is “We don’t know the exact figure yet because the car is still in development.”. People are more forgiving about honesty than they are of mistruths, lowered expectations or doublespeak.
If you want to be helpful, you could add “…but we estimate somewhere between X and Y in normal driving, although this depends greatly on use and conditions, just like a normal car.”
I apologize for the misquotation. I didn’t have time, today, to run down the exact quote in the original article.
However, to put this in perspective, frank, I represented, accurately, what they are doing with respect to a question that they have been asked many, many times; they have repeatedly given out evasive answers.
Further, while many questions remain about how to evaluate the fuel economy of an RE-EV, GM has lobbied, hard, to get the EPA rating done their way. To get an accurate idea of how far the car can go on a gallon of gas, they can put a sticker on it that breaks out the EV-charge-range separately from the post-depletion fuel economy. That gives a consumer with anything more than a brain stem all the info he needs to figure out what the car will likely cost to operate.
But, for their marketing purposes, GM wants the EPA sticker on their $40K car to say something dramatic, like 100mpg.
The history GM new car introductions is filled with promise. Too often it’s a disapointment that takes them a few years to get right. Then they cancel the model. I don’t expect the new GM to be any different with the Volt.
@frank rizzo:
Overall economy and the new EPA formulation for the Volt isn’t the question. The question regards the economy after Mile 40, when it is driven just like any other car.
I suspect the answer will be in the mid-30s:
1. It’s a heavy car.
2. Translating engine shaft power through a generator-motor system is not as efficient as driving the wheels directly.
3. Some power is diverted to recharging.
The only EPA formulation to achieve triple digit MPG will necessarily weigh heavily toward battery-only operation. What a farce. Lots of people will run the car out of battery, and then see how poorly their $40k econobox performs, both in MPG and road manners.
Based on this link: http://cars.about.com/od/fueleconomyinfo/a/epa_mpg_testing.htm
The EPA cycle tests are only 11 and 10 miles long, city and highway, respectively. Without some special test for PHEVs, the Volt will show infinite miles per gallon. The interesting part, and what really changes your overall mpg, is the true range of the vehicle in all electric. I did some math, and really, they have to show city and highway range and then the “generator” mode mpg to give someone a real idea of what kind of mpg to expect. If the volt does 40 miles on a charge(unlikely, IMO), and the test only goes 45 miles at a 35mpg (in gen mode), it will be rated around 315mpg. If that test is 100 miles long, it would be rated at 58mpg. The MPG slope is a very steep downward curve very early on as you start adding miles in “gen mode”. How can GM even speculate what the MPG will be rated at considering the current test pattern? It would be infinity.
Again, people who focus on the MPG of a single mode of operation miss the point of this car.
That is like taking your car as asking what the MPG is idling at a stop light, or why you get better mileage going downhill than up.
Again, people who focus on the MPG of a single mode of operation miss the point of this car.
I kind of agree. I think it’s an interesting question, and one worth knowing the answer to if you’re going to buy the car, but it’s not really all that important…
…kind of like asking about the skidpad grip of a Corolla, or the cargo carrying limits of a Corvette.
You’re forgetting that EV’s are rated via an equivalent-energy consumption. So, the MPG rating would not be infinity under any test pattern.
FWIW, there seem to be some estimates floating around regarding efficient and inefficient operation cycles of the Volt:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10037173-48.html
In ICE assist mode, 48MPG seems to be a working estimate, at least on EPA mixed test cycles requiring that the battery must always remain at full charge. By construction, under these requirements the battery does nothing other than transfer energy from the generator to the motor. So, there is your lower bound, which isn’t bad since the test cycle requires suboptimal operation. Also not surprising even with the mechanical-electric conversion, since the engine is likely tuned to maximum efficiency.
All in all, the EPA does a crappy job estimating fuel economy, or at least reporting what the numbers mean. Totally agree with more information being made available to the consumer. User costs should be the standard for different styles of driving, although this would point out that buying HEVs and PHEVs is still too costly relative to the user cost savings.
Further, while many questions remain about how to evaluate the fuel economy of an RE-EV, GM has lobbied, hard, to get the EPA rating done their way.
What should they do? Lobby hard for some kind of test method that makes them look bad? Is that what you would do if it was your company?
To get an accurate idea of how far the car can go on a gallon of gas, they can put a sticker on it that breaks out the EV-charge-range separately from the post-depletion fuel economy.
They can, but they’re not allowed to. The EPA makes the rules on what the sticker can say.
This thing is somewhere between a year (if you believe GM) and never (if you believe the cynics) of making it into production. What car company has their EPA labeling finalized and quote exact FE numbers when they’re that far from production?
I don’t see why everyone wants to reduce a complex question to some kind of oversimplified magic number. I know everyone wants that tool for easy side-by-side comparison, but the large-battery HEV scenario is just a more complicated reality.
The real “New-GM = Transparency” answer is to have a little java or flash web application where you plug in a few basic bits of information about some particular trip you might make, and the website tells you how much gas it would take.
Like this:
Q1. I drive 10 miles each way to work through the city.
A1. Yay! The battery you fully-charged the night before should be more than enough to get you to work and back without needing a drop of gasoline. Lots of idling on hot days with all your electronics on, however, will probably require some ICE recharging on occasion.
Q2. I drive 60 miles each way, some city, mostly highway.
A2. Even fully charged, you’ll probably need around 2 to 3 gallons for each round trip. That might save you from 1 to 2 gallons per day (up to $8!) more than a comparable sedan.
Q3. I’m driving from Chicago to Denver to visit my family for vacation.
A3. The Volt’s battery probably won’t help you all that much for a trip like this, however, you probably don’t make a trip like that often, and besides – the Volt’s ICE still gets great, competitive gas mileage for such a sweet, sweet ride.
Tagline: “You always win with a Volt!”
Or something like that…
Arguments about Volt MPG are academic, really. What matters is value to the customer, not bragging rights (unless you’re a ‘greenie’).
If the Volt uses NO fuel (gasoline or electric), then its unsubsidized 10-year cost is $40,000 (estimated).
A similar-sized econocar might cost $22,000 new today. Ten years’ of gasoline @ 12k miles/year @ $2.50/gallon @ 25 MPG will cost another $12,000, yielding a total cost of $34000 over 10 years.
The Volt – even if it uses no fuel – has no payback.
And it won’t drive as nicely as the refined econocars it will compete with.
all this discussion about a car that doesn’t exist so I’ll say the Volt will get 262 3/4 miles per gallon with fully charged batteries and 18 mpg when the batteries are depleted – yeah I’m blowing smoke out my kester but then again who really knows what the Volt can or can’t do? It’s all smoke and mirrors with a strange man behind the new GM curtain.
MichaelJ: “What should they do? Lobby hard for some kind of test method that makes them look bad? Is that what you would do if it was your company?”
Does “triple digit fuel economy” tell me anything useful about what the car can do? No.
MichaelJ: “The EPA makes the rules on what the sticker can say.”
So, let the EPA make a rule. There’s a better chance their rule will be meaningful to the consumer than the BS GM is giving out.
I generally find the CR overall mpg to closely match my experience, regardless of calendar year. So I just use the CR number and forget EPA mpg. This means the Voltage has to finish a 150 mile loop and then report how much fuel it used before I will consider the answer to be data.
The EPA is going to need a separate rating for electric vehicles as mpg makes no sense. It would have to be a mpkwh (miles per kilowatt hour).
The mpkwh could be done 2 ways.
1) a mpkwh rating and a charge efficiency rating also included (ie. 70% or whatever amount of battery charge one gets per kwh).
2) mpkwh rating that takes into consideration the charge efficiency of the battery system.
The mpg rating has to be a separate rating where the starting charge of the battery is maintained. This is the only way to give a realistic assessment of the efficiency of the vehicle using gas, and a true mpg rating.
Let’s run some theoretical user cost numbers to run the Volt.
I’ve read that the Volt will use half of its 16 kwh battery, which is 8 kwh and that supposedly = 40 miles. Let’s say the charge efficiency rating is ~ 70%, so to get 8 kwh in the battery you’re going to need ~ 11.5 kwh.
Let’s say the price of a kwh is $0.15 (it’s as high a 20 cents a kwh in some places). So it costs $1.72 to run 40 miles. Let’s say the air conditioning reduces that by 20%. We’re now at 32 miles for a cost of $1.72 driving in comfort.
Let’s say gas costs $2.50 gallon (average US price as of July 22,2009). If a Prius runs 46 mpg with the air conditioning running under the same conditions, running 32 miles will cost $1.74.
The Volt will save you 2 cents over that 32 mile distance, which basically means there is a good chance the Volt will not produce any cost savings over driving a hybrid that gets in the range of 45-50 mpg. This of course will vary quite a bit depending on the costs of electricity and gas, but a $15k premium for the Volt may not get you much, and could even cost more to run per mile. And since there is a good chance your electricity will be produced by coal, driving the Volt has the potential to produce significantly more pollution than a vehicle run with an ICE.
gslippy- well put. After almost 3 years of hype, hairsplitting, and armchair quarterbacking, you hit the nail on the head. GM cant make this work, so getting answers from them is like talking to a US Fidelis rep on the phone. It costs almost twice the competition, Wont be as reliable, (Prius seems to have a very good track record, headlamps excluded) and may not have a company to back it up by the time it launches in 2010. Not to mention everyone else has been out of the starting blocks for almost a decade and GM is still in the locker room.
gslippy, most cars don’t have a payback.
Buying a cheap, small car and rentng a truck for those times you want to tow the boat is cheaper too.
With regard to paypack, the VOLT i hardly alone in this criticism. The same is true for most alternative energy solutions – as they exist today. But the so called payback schedules continually get modfied to reflect changing energy costs, rebates, incentives etc.
I have many customers who install solar PV farms, and even though they are ALL corporations whose only bottom line is the bottom line, many purchase these solutions for a variety of reasons. Truth is, in most cases, the ROI on solar PV is 20 years or more, and there are very few corporations that engage in 20 yr cap-ex anything. Many of them are trailblazing and making certain statements with regard to their commitment to future energy solutions. Sure, they could wait for the panels to drop another 50% (which they will), and the inverters to be available at Home Depot (which they will), but they’re doing it now. And you have to admire and respect that.
First people bitch that GM killed the electric car, and then they bitch if if they actualy try to MASS PRODUCE a mostly electric car. Am I the only one that hopes it works reasonably well, and wishes the company well in that effort?
The comparison to a PRIUS or some car you own for 10 years is totally unfair. When you can compare it to at least ONE other similar vehicle from at least one other major auto manufacturer, then we’ve got a fair test. Until then, it is uniquelly unique. And good for them for making the effort.
Lastly, trying to “imagine” the driving situations and typical use is useless. Like many emerging technologies, what you will see in the future is how a vehicle like this will be used in ways that weren’t imagined, or the run of the mill typical applications.
I’m not nearly as pessimistic as most of the others that this is some sort of futile lost cause, and doomed to fail. But I’ll be happy to borrow that crystal ball since I have a few future decisions to make.
I for one don’t mind a little happy talk, even from a GM. The mood of the blogs and the country in is generally pesimistic and melancholy. I think a little more can-do and optimism is in high demand these days.
You know what this carping about the Volt reminds me of? The whole media buildup to “Waterworld” a few years back – the first movie that was sunk NOT by its own virtues or vices, but by media coverage of its cost. And it was sunk before it was even released, before anyone had seen it.
You remember that movie, don’t you? It’s the one with Kevin Costner that kept costing more and more. And as its cost climbed, the media harped more and more on the escalating cost. Floating sets! Fired directors! Ballooning costs!
Impending doom!
So, when the movie came out, what happened? Well, as it turns out, it wasn’t Citizen Kane, but it wasn’t half bad either. It was actually pretty easy to see where all the money the media carped on was spent. But the movie didn’t do well – not because it was bad (the Transformers movies, with a combined IQ of 6, topped $300 million), but because the media convinced the moviegoing public that it sucked simply because it was over budget.
And now we have the same people doing the same thing with this poor car, the Volt. No one’s driven it, not one has been produced, yet people are upset because GM can’t predict its exact fuel economy…even though it’s not fully developed!
And why are the naysayers doing this? Far as I can tell, it’s the same reason why the entertainment media trashed “Waterworld” before a frame of it was shown on a screen – they want to show people how fucking smart they are. That way, when the movie – or, in this case, the Volt – bombed, they can pat themselves on the back and say “we told you so.”
Of course, these are mainly the same people who said that GM should have declared bankruptcy years ago, then trashed it for declaring bankruptcy, but I digress.
How about this as a alternative approach: let’s see how good this car is in the real world, and THEN trash it if it deserves it. With tens of billions of dollars of OUR money at stake here, withholding judgment until the product hits the street isn’t cheerleading – it’s the intelligent thing to do.
Or do we WANT our money to go down the toilet? You tell me, folks.