2010 Prius Plug-In - 60 MPH EV, 13 Mile Range, 1.5 Hour Recharge

PHV is perfect for me: I drive city streets to get to the highway, then I drive over 60mph (gasoline only in PHV, which is what I want on the highway), and then when I exit and drive to my job, it's city driving. Perfect for my commute. (although I have to say, I'm jealous of the Tesla's 200 mile range, which would allow me to drive EV the whole way).

GM intended the Volt to be "an EV with a back up generator;" not a "plug in hybrid" like the Prius PHV. Why does everyone on this thread keep categorizing it that way? (oh, I guess because if they are quoting "mpg" for the series hybrid mode, then they're really marketing it as an plug-in hybrid, regardless of what they try to label it as)

It was 72 degrees F (~25C) here today. I had my windows down.

 

Not exactly, it is speculating that GM is putting a clutch between the motor and the ice to drive the wheel directly like in a hybrid to improve charge sustain mode mpg under certain speed condition like at highway speed. This is to eliminated the generator and motor efficiency lost, up to 20%. This effectively made the Volt into a two mode hybrid. But GM is not going to admit it.


QUOTE=Rybold;1023395]PHV is perfect for me: I drive city streets t
GM intended the Volt to be "an EV with a back up generator;" not a "plug in hybrid" like the Prius PHV. Why does everyone on this thread keep categorizing it that way? (oh, I guess because if they are quoting "mpg" for the series hybrid mode, then they're really marketing it as an plug-in hybrid, regardless of what they try to label it as)


[/QUOTE]

 

Ok, so I have a 2010 now, and I don't count on Toyota providing a way to upgrade.. So what I want to know is a123 working on a hymotion for the 2010 model? I am very interested, especially since they add that onto the preexisting battery, and that should give me more range than Toyota is planning. !

 

A gallon of gasoline weights ~2.78kg. 160kg/(2.78kg/gal)=57.5gal.
And...............................................409kg/(2.78kg/gal)=147gal.

Hmmm. This might not be a huge problem for someone who drives a constant speed with few or no stop lights. But, for those that do a lot of stop-and-go city driving, that's one HEAVY load to haul around !

(next time you are at the gas station with your sports car, load it up with 147 gallons and see how it handles )

 

You might want to check total figures. A tesla is hundreds of kilos lighter than a prius plug in. The motor in a tesla is less than 70 kg.

At first I thought given the teslas pack that the battery part of the prius plug in could be less than 50kg. Extra cooling, mounting, montitoring, charging hardware would add to this gain but the prius has gained much more weight. I'm hoping competition and battery advances get to a point that a 2015 prius plug in has a 150hp motor and a 10kwh pack.

 

That may have been what GM originally intended, but it's not what they've built. There's a story today on Autoblog Green that it will have a 1.4L Otto-cycle engine. The 2010 Prius may have a 1.8L displacement but the late valve close of the Atkinson cycle effectively reduces the displacement to 1.4-1.5L.

Allegedly the intent was to run a smaller generator at maximum efficiency, and recharge the battery if road load was lower than this efficient output, but that would have entailed running it at probably 2,500rpm constantly, something very disconcerting to the average driver if cruising at 30-40mph. So they went with varying the engine speed according to road demand, using an off-the-shelf powerplant.

What GM are left with is a simple series hybrid, with no physical connection from engine to wheels, and therefore always incurring power conversion losses when using the ICE. In contrast, the plug-in Prius will have a small amount of loss through spinning the PSD gears and MG1's rotor, when driving electrically, but I'd guess that Toyota's third-generation electrics are going to be better than GM's second try.

The suggestion of a lockup clutch, to convert from series to parallel hybrid architecture, doesn't make sense to me. I think it would be hard to match the engine speed and torque appropriately without having to add an extra gearbox. Even when doing so, the engine will have to vary all over the speed/load map to match the engine speed to the road speed. The Prius can run the engine at minimum possible revs and high loads, when cruising between 30 and 60mph, precisely because it's continuously variable - the engine speed can be varied by adjusting the speed of MG1.

 

The Volt is a hybrid because it has two energy storage systems, as defined by SAE.

GM tried to change the definition of the hybrid from energy storage to propulsion. They are claiming that the Volt is an electric car because it is driven only by electric motor. It doesn't matter because it can use the battery or the gas engine (two different fuel storage systems).

Prius uses both the battery and gasoline as well. The Prius switches between the two a lot more often than the Volt. That's the only difference.

 

^^
Err.. the ICE is not an energy storage, it is an energy converter. 'E' for engine ;-)
Nitpicking aside, the GM marketing trying to position the vapor volt as something other than a series hybrid is laughable.

I still don't understand why the early information of Volt CS mode mpg is a pathetic < 40 mpg, but I'll probably have to wait for the Volt to actually (if ever) hit the roads in the hands of people not driving under NDA to find out for sure.

 

Fixed. I mean ICE using the gas tank.

 

Continuums:

Urban------------->Highway
BEV-->Volt-->Prius-->IMA
<------Prius PHV--------->

PHV Prius seems to meet the most needs, especially if/when AER expands.

Question is, at quoted prices, is the Volt space so constricted that it must fail, economically. I fear so.

 

The 38mpg is a guess, but think about it, and it is not that important. The volt is an electric with a gasoline generator for extra power when it is low on electricity. The design characteristics value reliability (it might not run for months), low cost and weight, sound, then finally efficiency.

The prius on the other hand is in its 4 generation, with toyota improving fe every time. The ice runs all the time. Even with the prius plug in, the ice will end up running to drive on the highway, accelerate fast, and likely to provide heat. Its a different animal. Toyota is likely really evaluating. If they want to play in the pure ev end of the pool they will need to increase motor hp so it can run in pure ev at 75 mph and increase the pack size. I think they are smart to go slowly and see how the volt, leaf, and new volvo announced ev c30 work out. The plug in is likely there to dip their feet in the water and kill the ev upgrade kits.

The volt as designed looks more elegant for ev than the prius. But I don't trust gm to do it well. Toyota has done some marvels of engineering to build a complicated system in the prius and over the years make it work well.

 

In the cold weather, the Volt will run the ICE to warm up the battery pack. If your goal is to never use a drop of gasoline, get a real EV.

GM needs to avoid people from seeing the Volt as neither a good EV nor a good HV (38 MPG for long distance). On top of this, it is only a 4 seater.

 

Perhaps earlier posters have nailed the problem: if the ICE is run in an inefficient power band, and then another 10 - 15% is taken off for conversion losses, and put in a heavy car, maybe one ends up with 38 mpg.

Man, that would be a sorry state of affairs.

 

Simple explanation, assuming the ICE FE in the Volt is good for 50 mpg alone, when it is connected as a series hybrid, the loses of the generator and the motor and the electronic drive system is 20%, the net efficiency will be 50 mpg X 80% = 40 mpg.

This is why it is less than 40 mpg.
Series hybrid is the most inefficient mode of drive system compare tp parallel hybrid

 

The Volt will be based on the same platform as Chevy Cruze. The Cruze has the interior volume of 110 cu. ft. The Volt will be a hatchback sedan so there should be more interior space but it's battery pack takes up the middle row. Therefore expect it to have around 110 cu.ft. as well.

EPA classifies as follow:

Compact: 100 to 109 cu. ft.
Midsize: 110 to 119 cu. ft.

The Cruze just made it to the mid-size class. We will have to see about the Volt. For comparison, the Insight has interior volume of 101 cu. ft. and the Prius has 115.3 cu. ft. -- on the larger end of Midsize. The Prius PHV should have the same interior volume since all the PHV components are either in the spare tire compartment or under the passenger floor.

 

Thanks. I learn something new every day.

Knowing GM, they will probably try and spin the volt as a "hybrid of an ev and a hybrid; so it's like a hybrid hybrid, or a hybrid squared. Our engineers refer to it as a SUPER hybrid."

Good point! I actually like the 60mph limit on the Prius PHV because when I'm on the highway, traveling above 60mph, it would deplete my battery pack very quickly. I would rather save the electricity for when I am back in the city. Some might argue that the hybrid aspect accels in the city; so EV is best saved for highway (Prius mpg is 51city/48highway; so use EV on the highway, BUT is the EV more efficient in the city or on the highway? Perhaps, the high RPMs of the highway quickly drain the EV battery compared to lower RPM city driving(no transmission))). I think with different customers having different commutes, Toyota should add a regulator inside the car and allow the driver to set the "cap" they want depending on the commute.

Who knows, after Toyota's test fleet, they may come to the conclusion that speeds above 65 mph drain the battery extremely quickly, and Toyota may conclude the EV will never operate above 65mph. Toyota's test fleet should reveal some very good data to answer this.

 

You make that seem to be bad feature! That is a great feature. If it was a pure EV with no ICE to heat the batteries the cold would leave you with less range. Using a little gas to heat the batteries AND get electric out of it to run the car for a bit is smart thinking!

No, the Volt is not a great HV if it only gets 38mpg but it is a great electric car.
Volt: 25 kwh/100 miles
Leaf: 24 kwh/100 miles
Tesla: 21 kwh/100 miles

Considering that the Volt is the biggest of the 3 its rating is pretty good. Its also the only one lugging around an ICE and can fill up at any normal gas station in a pinch. Four seats are enough.

 

um, you know that ICE in Volt will not charge batteries, right?

 

i wonder how fast will Volts batteries deplete during fast highway driving... I am thinking it will be fast. And then you are left with sub 40 mpg... probably... maybe even worse at 70mph.

I guess Volt will work great if you drive 20 miles per day... if you want to go futher, you get subpar vehicle for 40k. That does not make much sense to me personally.

I am not so sure that Volts ICE has less complexity than Priuses, or that it is significantly lesser weight.

 

I thought the prelim spec of the Volt was for 40 miles of EV range on an easy drive cycle.