calculation details of Volt's 230mpg city estimate

From what I've always been told it was the luxury market that provides the most margin and profit.

take a toyota prius (or camry) and a Lexus HS250h.

Same HSD (with the camry ice and with prius hsd enhancements). Base Prius 23k and base 34k HS. Prius with leather is 27k which gives a 7k different. I highly doubt that the HS has more than 2k (whole sale price) of equipment. the more options you add the larger the gap gets larger.

Gm and other manufacturers have new cars that are going to come out. The two mode chevy equinox, the Sonata hybrid and subaru hybrid. The arena is becoming tighter for paralell hybrids even with increased market share. The volt will have the er-ev market to itself.

So if gas becomes so expensive like you say it will be: WHAT WILL PEOPLE BUY? a hybrid or a car that uses (depending on usage)97% less fuel than a hybrid? heck you've made a case for EV's like the leaf than hybrids! the higher the price of gas the cheaper ev's will be to run. Where is toyota's EV aspirations?

 

I agree with you 100% on that front. The only other option that gm has is it's two mode, which is too big to fit into cars. BMW nor MB can fit it in to their cars either. chevy will have it's two mode equinox which will compete directly with the rav4 hybrid. I feel like gm is not the worse off in the next round.

Take a look at honda. the IMA is barely cutting it now and can only be used in small cars. it has no ev plans or phev plans. Ford sold almost 3 times more hybrids than Honda even though there is no ford hybrid cheaper than 27k.Now look back a GM. GM might not be the best, but its far from the worse (look at chrysler). the volt will have a market and as the gas of price of gas increases it makes the case for er-ev and evs a lot easier.

The hybrid market will expand to 15% but then you have a lot of companies fighting for that 15% while the ev/er-ev market will be 2-3 percent and have 3 companies.

 

I know you are being facetious. One CEO does not a corporate culture make. GM is a criminal organization. When you arrest a Mafia boss, another takes his place. Whether Lutz is there or not, will not change the criminal culture of GM, or the driving motive: screw the country, screw the buyer, screw the stockholder, even screw the company, but fill the pockets of the top executives.

Contrary to popular misconception, regenerative braking recovers only a tiny part of the energy used during acceleration, unless you are in very hilly country.

The gas engine will be inefficient. See below for why it's a really bad idea.

There is virtually no market for the Volt. See below.

The reason there is no market and the Volt is a poor idea is that a family that can afford only one car cannot afford a $40,000 car. For the cost of a Volt they could buy a Zap Xebra 4-door sedan for those 20-mile trips, AND a late-model used Civic or Corolla and have $20,000 left over. And if they had to finance the Volt they'd save even more money by buying the Xebra and the Civic instead!

Who in their right mind would pay $40,000 (plus how many thousands in interest if they have to finance!) if their basic commute is only 20 miles???

In a city like Spokane, a Xebra is all you need for in-town driving, and in a city like Los Angeles, the Volt will resort to gasoline often enough to eliminate any advantage over the Prius. The Volt makes no sense and its target market cannot afford it! And this is what GM is counting on, because it wants the Volt to fail just as it wanted the EV1 to fail. Its stake in petroleum is too high for it to provide a real alternative.

 

Yep. Spend $40,000 on a car you'll drive 20 miles a day so that you can save $7 a week, or $350 a year on gas! Real bright! The interest alone will be more than the lifetime gas saving.

If they want to save money, they'll buy a used Civic instead. And if they want to minimize gasoline usage they'll get a Prius and a Zap Xebra (or Nissan Leaf when it becomes available).

GM has cleverly designed a car that makes them look like they are doing something, but which does not fit any possible target market. Nobody will buy it and they'll have another excuse to scrap the project and keep selling gas guzzlers.

 

Accelerating in pure battery (especially uphill) takes away a lot of range. Their decision not to use ICE during such scenario will be the downfall. It is an example of anti-synergy between gas and electric.

 

You have to count the weight of higher power electric motor, inverter, very sensitive temp regulation system, stronger body to hold them and the suspension to handle all those. These are the known disadvantage of series hybrid architecture. The Volt made it worse by crippling half (ICE) of the drivetrain.

On the opposite end it is the parallel assist hybrid, Honda IMA (HCH-II). It uses smaller and lighter battery. Air cooled power electronics but with limited benefits. HSD on the other hand is a split hybrid. This means it has the advantages of both Volt and HCH-II. Prius weights about the same as HCH-II and greatly increase city MPG.

PHV Prius will allow a great range of plug-in battery pack sizes. Liquid active cooling system is already in place so the weight increase is minimal. Since the ICE can assist during when it does best, range will be higher for a smaller PHV pack.

 

It is a choice. If you pick whatever car you made a choice. no one is holding a gun to your head.

Gm has it's target market, if you are not part of it get over frankly. I'm not the target market for a leaf, but you don't hear me complain about it ad nauseum. It's the same as someone that harps on the prius for not being fast, or sporty or anything else.

The Volt is built to be used within in its parameters AND give you a little extra (a good commuter car that can be used for road trips). If I bought a Leaf (a great commuter car), I couldn't deal with the limited range because of the monthly trips between Boston and NYC. A 220 mile trip that would require me to stop 3 times (under ideal circumstances) that would add 1 1/2hrs onto the trip (with the half hour quick charge time). So I would have to rent a car or buy another car. I don't want to keep the two insurance premiums, plus maintenance. I have 2 cars now and I want to slim things down.

it reminds me of that test were they drove the prius hard against a BMW and the prius achieved worse gas mileage. Everyone screamed that's not the way it was design!!!! so why don't people apply that same logic to anything besides toyota.

Hence why i say the Tesla Model S is exactly what I need. If the Tesla Model S comes in at around 60k for the 300 mile range or 220 mile range (with the tax incentive) I would have to stop only once (which I do now). Its cost the price of 2 leafs but has double/triple the range. In the grand scheme of things The PHEV Prius is not for me. a 12 mile range will do nothing at all for me.

 

Excellent point! Of course, the same could be said of a pure EV, but an EV is not carrying the dead weight of a gasoline engine. Volt is burdened with this dead weight, and then cannot use it when it would be most efficient to do so. Even if the ICE came on at those times, it would still just be CS mode. If you are going to have a gasoline engine, HSD is the way to do it, where the most efficient use can be made of it.

Of course it will all be moot when the price of gasoline reaches $10 or $15 per gallon. Then you guys will wonder why you thought my little three-legged clown car was such a bad idea.

 

A tiny portion? Then why does regenerative braking give the Prius such good city mpg? The Volt will have similar gains when it is in the city.

It only needs to get 40mpg or more for it to work out for the target audience though I hope it does better. The target audience is going to be plugging in daily and running in electric mode most of the time.

The price has not been announced though I think $40,000 will reduce demand, it will not reduce it below the 10,000 for the first year. After then price reductions will be needed.

Lets stop comparing other ways of saving money vs a specific car. If we did that the only car we would be driving is a used Civic!

Oh and yes.... (as I have said before and paraphrased from others...)

I WOULD RATHER DRIVE A CARDBOARD BOX LOADED WITH SHARP GLASS AND ANGRY BEES THEN DRIVE A XEBRA.

There are thousands of sales of cars at greater then $40,000 that do not run on electricity for short commutes. Get out of your head this zero demand stuff. It will be in demand.

What? Plug it in at night, drive it less then 40 miles and its not using gas at all. Can the Prius do that? No.

Again.. Xebra... Bees.. Glass.. you get the idea.

It does not take long to see the hatred of GM show through.

 

The Prius's great city mpg does not come principally from regen braking. That's a very small part of it. Mainly it comes from the fact that it does not require a large inefficient engine to deliver good acceleration. It gets great mpg because it uses a small, very efficient gas engine. And it is able to use that engine because torque for acceleration is provided by the electric motor.

What target audience? People who can only afford one car but can pay $40,000 for that car, and will accept a 4-passenger car that is too small to tow anything? The whole selling point of the Volt is that one car is both electric (for commuting) and gasoline (for longer trips). It's for one-car households that need an efficient commuter and a road-trip car. But those one-car households cannot afford $40,000.

Ah, price reductions will be needed. But since GM does not want to actually sell these cars, they'll keep the price high.

The Xebra is the most fun car I've ever driven. Okay, I get my fun from factors other than hard acceleration. But you'll change your tune when gasoline hits $10 or $15 a gallon.

But they are not bought by one-car households that want to reduce gas usage. They are gas-guzzlers bought by people who want big vehicles and do not care how much gas they burn.

Again, spend $40,000 for a car you are going to drive 100 miles a week? (I don't believe the 40-mile range any more than I believe 230 mpg.)

I hate GM for what it has done to this country. It dismantled an excellent (electric!) mass transportation system, forcing everyone who could afford it to buy a car, and leaving those who could not afford a car to depend on a crappy mass transportation system in its place. It has fought every safety and efficiency initiative, holding this country back for decades. It has paid its top execs obscene salaries and benefits while scrimping on quality.

Yes, I hate GM. I hate them for their criminal past and present. Note that they could have built the Volt ten years ago, and I would have bought one then. They could have sold the EV1 nation-wide instead of crushing them, and I would have bought one. But they didn't. Why? Because they make more money selling gasoline than selling cars. And because they are criminals who do not give a damn about you or me. They are worse than Al Capone. At least Al Capone sold something people wanted to buy.

 

It is an improvement on the Prius if you drive it the EV range per day and no further.
However, it is not competing for my dollar vs the Prius. It is competing vs any other EVs that are out there when it comes out.
At the very least, that is looking like the Nissan Leaf.
And for my money and desires in a car, the Volt looses.

 

Daniel, why do you keep saying that GM sells gasoline? I thought it was an automobile company.

 

And the Volt shares the same advantage. It also gets to use a small efficient gas engine instead of a larger one. It gets brake regen just like the Prius as well. The batteries and electric motor are not dead weight once in CS mode.

 

Then don't buy one! The Volt is an improvement on the Prius even if you drive it past its EV range. How far is yet to be determined. If the range EV was 35 miles and it got only 30mpg you could still drive 50 miles before the Volt was worse then a Prius for gas usage. I think those are pretty pessimistic numbers as it will probably get the 40 mile range for city as advertised.

Everyone HERE is talking about the Volt getting so much less MPG in CS mode then the Prius that it would be ludicrous to drive it more then the EV range. I do not think that will be true. What if it gets 50mpg in CS mode?

 

All inclusive terms like that just make your position look foolish.
Not everyone here is talking about that. Technically, since YOU aren't that precludes 'everyone' from doing so.
You raise a good point, up to a point past the EV range the Volt will still come out ahead.
But again you compare it to a Prius, when that is not it's competition.
The leaf will have a 110 mile range, so up to 110 miles, I can use NO gasoline. For longer trips I will use our plug in prius which will get a minimum of 48mpg.
So if the Volt gets 48mpg in CS mode, and has keyless entry and start, and can carry what I need it to it will replace my Prius when the Prius is ready to be turned in for a new car.
I don't believe it can, but I will be happy to be proven wrong