calculation details of Volt's 230mpg city estimate

GM has hinted at 50mpg for some time. It seems that in this forum numbers as low as 25mpg and 38mpg have been bantered about by people who hate the Volt or GM.

Now GM has made back door announcements that they are meeting that number.

Now We Know: 2011 Chevrolet Volt Will Get 50 MPG In Gas Mode - Green Car Reports

Chevy Volt to Get 50-MPG Once Electric Charge Used-Up Says Top Engineer : Auto News

 

By my fuzzy math the 230mpg claim seems to be from driving the car 50 miles on a fresh charge, then recharging. This would give 250mpg which is close to the 230, so I would assume they are accounting for heat/ac, cold weather, and the whole 80/20 charge cycle.

This is roughly the daily commute of myself and my wife combined. We would use .2-.3 gal of gas. With the Prius we now use 1.1 gal of gas. The plug-in Prius would use about .6 gal of gas.

Love it or hate it, by that math the Volt would be the most efficient car for my family to use (other than the Leaf). Now the decision comes down to quality, which is why I am giving it 2 years after the first cars are sold before I start seriously thinking about buying one.


I do not consider the Leaf due to no option for a range extender. If for some reason I need to drive over 100 miles, I want any car I own to be able to do that.

 

No where has the Volt engine been specified as Otto. The only thing we know is the engine size and the fact that there is no turbo. It is almost certainly a modified cycle of some sort. With a narrower RPM range then an engine connected directly to the drive train the engine can be optimized in ways other engines can not be.

Ok. That makes no sense. They are capitalizing on it, with the Volt.

 

Come on. It is going to be the first plug in hybrid sold to the public as a complete vehicle. It is going to be the first production serial hybrid.

You seriously don't see GM capitalizing on the Volt?

 

The first year sales of the Prius were 18,000 in Japan, not that far off from the 10,000 Volts being produced first year and 50,000 the second. I could not find 2nd year in Japan sales, but first year in the US less than 6,000 were sold.

You test the water before you jump in with the sharks.

 

So Nissan (with Leaf) is jumping in the water with the sharks then?

 

When putting out a new car it is extremely relevant. It would be foolish to produce 2 million cars the first year if the demand is not that large. Please find me one model of any brand of car that produced 1 mil+ units the first production year, or 500,000 for that matter.

Give the car some time to prove itself worthy of buying or not before building new plants and hiring new people to pump them out massively.

Also GM will have 2 months to produce the 10,000 cars as they start in November as the 2011 model, and 60,000 in 2011 for the 2012 model. Any good business model would evaluate the demand and scale up or down production plans between those two times for the third years production numbers.

Is it just me or does this all just seem to make good business sense?

 

Hints and back-door "announcements." Why not provide a car magazine with one of these alleged production prototypes to test?

Americans think that EVERY car they own MUST be capable of unlimited range. That's one reason the oil-exporting countries have us by the short hairs. Every gallon of gasoline you buy includes a terrorism tax from al Qaeda. Isn't it time we re-think our "needs"?

I'm reminded of my sister who told me she "needed" (and the word "need" was spoken with a vehemence my sister rarely uses) a 40-inch television, at a time when she lived in an apartment which did not have a room large enough to sit far enough back to actually see the stupid thing.

If the only thing we know is the size and lack of turbo, then how can you use the term "almost certainly"?

See, the problem with talking about the Volt is that we don't actually KNOW anything except GM's execrable history.

I WANT GM to build a really good car under the Volt name plate, and I want such a car to succeed. I just don't trust GM and I don't believe anything they say.

 

They have. There are many test drives on online, on TV and in magazines.

Common sense. It is not hard or expensive to do Atkinson cycle. It fits the needs of the Volt's range extender. An Otto cycle would make it very hard to achieve 50mpg.

 

As John points out above, those "tests" provide no real, independent data. WHY do they put restraints on the testers????????? My guess: Because the numbers are so disappointing they don't want us to know them.

 

P.S. I would LOVE for GM to prove me wrong. I really would!!! I WANT to see more electric or partly-electric cars on the road. I will be as happy as anyone, if the Volt does what it's boosters claim it will, and is a commercial success. I will have a party.

But they're going to have to show me. Given their history, just telling me isn't good enough. I still expect them to sell 500 of these cars, which will turn out to be such a disappointment that they'll scrap the project. Then, about the time that the Leaf goes into full production and is selling like hotcakes, GM will announce, as it kills the Volt, that battery technology has not yet advanced far enough to make the car viable.

 

Actually if you buy from Conoco 100% of the oil is from the US. There are a few other stations like BP, but I would prefer my $$ to stay within the US when possible.

On the "needs" issue. When I have to go pick up my son the drive is 120 mi one way. If for some reason my wife is working that day should I rent a hotel room to charge the car up just to make my needs fit the vehicle?? Or should I buy a car that will meet my needs 100% of the time, while eliminating my use of oil 90% of the time.

I wish I could blink my eyes and have Hydrogen Fuel-cell cars on the road and pumps in the stations. With a healthy dose of solar and wind power running them this would be the closest thing you can find to zero pollution/zero oil long range travel for the next 20 years.

/rant off

 

Oil is fungible. Saying taht purchase of Cononco oil is domestic is nonsensical.