2011 Chevrolet Volt gets an EPA certified rating of 93 MPGe and 37 mpg in gasoline mode

Another Volt review / test drive on youtube. Interesting because it talks about some other aspects of the volt not too often discussed.

 

This is mainly the case. Above 70 mph the engine will be connected to drive the wheels and this may happen as low as 30mph. The prius also does this conversion process generating mg1 and powering mg2. The prius just does it better but it is gen III or gen IV.

The battery acts as a buffer so it is not dead weight. At low speeds the engine will be off. Think of it as an automatic pulse glide automatic enabler.

YMMV and some have gotten over 50mpg. Epa is 40mpg highway. If you hypermile and have the appropriate route it should easily get 400 miles. If you drive like I do you will never get close.

Again YMMV I get about 42 on my prius, and would drive all but about 3000miles per year on electric in the volt. Magazines like exaggerating, but yes it is important to have a PHEV. Toyota should have gotten there first, but I'm sure they were worried about cannibalizing the prius.

Its about 75% of the American public. I don't think that was the gamble part. They should have paid someone to do better interior design. The gas mileage in CS is considered very good for non prius drivers ;-) Do you think toyota made a big mistake bringing out the camry hybrid, it can't even get the mpg of a volt GM's mistake was not bringing out the volt 5 years ago.

 

No, Prius has always been able to kick in/out ICE whenever needed. MG1 and MG2 are normally there to make a correct ratio to the wheels (E-CVT), making a electric path which is only partial to the total power delivered by ICE. If SOC is below 6 bars, there is opportunity to charge batt.
Since Gen 1 works that way.

PHEV has been over a Prius platform. Prius cannibalized by itself? I'm pretty sure it is not the reason, but Li-ion battery issues are.

Camry and Volt, very similar like twin brothers...
GM's mistake is the Volt how it is. Period.

 

If you see the comparison, it says that the Volt ICE stays on even if coasting, which is something amazing for a hybrid the way we see it.
http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-h...-chevrolet-volt-vs-2010-toyota-prius-phv.html

Also look at the thirst of this Frankenstein...EV mode and CHG sustain mode...

Again, it obvious that GM should have honestly brake down a Prius to learn something.

 

I'm sure GM did tear apart a Prius to see how it works. It's just that not everyone is willing to pay a competitor royalties. If Atkinson had, we wouldn't have the ICE cycle with his name.

 

If GM did it, sure they would soon realize it was not possible to get ever near without paying those royalties. Ford did it.

Still does not explain why it consumes so much in electric mode...

 

So, what is this?

At 3:00 in the video, the display reads ~ 19 miles driven and ....

31 MPG average

Did I miss something? Gage also showed 0 miles battery range.

How is this a game changer? Because it 'drives well' and is efficient?

When he floored the pedal, gas engine came on at about 20 mph.

 

Um, hello? One of the major advantages of a bench seat is that you can put a child's carseat in the middle where it is safest. I would never have bought a Prius nor would my wife have bought hers if there was no middle seat. In fact, at the 2008 auto show, we carried around a baby seat and tried fitting it in various cars. The Prius was the only sedan which allowed me to sit in the driver's seat and have a baby seat in the back. (I'm 6'2"). (sculpted back of seat had alot to do with it). We were ready to buy a Passat or Jetta diesel but I wouldn't have been able to drive it with the kid in the back!

That said, I think the Volt is an OK compromise. If you were smart about it, you could almost never start the ICE. That's true of something like 80% of the US. Sure coal is dirty but oil is worse in my book. No one is waging war over coal (AFAIK). So for most americans, it's a good car for reducing consumption of foreign oil.

Oh, and let's remember, the Prius gets about 20mpg on short trips, sometimes worse. There is no excuse for Toyota putting such a wimpy battery in. When we drive to my mom's house in the 2010 Prius, we are lucky to get 10mpg in the winter. It's too close and too cold. In my plug in 2008, we burn no gas at all for the same trip. (it's about one mile each way) Driving to the grocery store is two miles and it's down hill. I usually get 18-25mpg in the Gen III. Infinite in the plug in.

Our next new car (when the Gen III lease is up in two years) will be a Leaf or equivalent. Let's hope Ford gives something better in the low $20Ks.

 

An example of Volt (plug-in) operating costs -

After 1 year of ownership, I have driven x miles in my Volt and have pumped in y gallons of gas and have spent z dollars on electricity (dedicated meter for the car).

So, I get x/y miles per gallon with my Volt and it costs me z / 12 dollars per month average to charge up.

 

You did good on the 'can't put baby seat in middle in Volt'.

How do you get 20 MPG short trips in a Prius? I just can't do it.

In fact, I had a rare bout of very short, 2 mile trips strung together recently, only 60 miles in about a week.

I could only get the MFD average down to 43.5 MPG ... and that's a gen2 Prius. Leadfoot, no, hypermiler, no, I just drive.

btw, it's back up to 47.x now.

 

I totally agree. Prius is a serious mid-size family car. Volt is a compact commuter car.

Short trips are MPG killer. This is what PHV Prius will address by providing the initial 14 miles in EV. You already have a taste with your plugin conversion.

 

Edmunds reports 31.4 MPG mixed driving in Volt after battery depleted.

2011 Chevrolet Volt

 

Originally Posted by Ted in Olympia
Electric cars use electricity — lots of it. In fact, the Edison Electric Institute estimates that driving 10,000 miles in an electric car will use about 2,500 kilowatt-hours, 20 percent more than the average home uses in a year. ..

You are pretty funny with basic math. 2,500 is 20% more of what? Well if you take 12,500 times .2 you get 2,500 so it says that the average household uses about 12,500 kwh a year.

If you take 960 * 12 you get 11,520

I do not consider 12,500 way off from 11,520; the fact is correct.

TED

 

You can get this much from a V-6 2011 Mustang with 300hp and have a lot more fun.

Even Pinto Girl can have more fun in her Pinto and get this for mileage.

TED

 

You are pretty funny with basic math.

If 2500 is 20% more than X, then X is 2083, not 12500.

Fahey was trying to portray adding an electric car as roughly equivalent to adding another house. For annual energy consumption, it is closer to one-fifth of a house, if the driver is using the entire Volt AER every workday. For the foreseeable future, the average EV driver will use much less than this.

For peak momentary load, Fahey is closer to correct -- but only if drivers, utilities, and the auto manufacturers treat recharging with maximum stupidity.

 

Let's go over some basic math again.
10,000 miles = 2,500 kwh. Fine. But that is in a *year*.
So the electric car is using ~ 200 kwh a MONTH.
Check your home monthly electric bill and get back to us.

 

10,000 miles using 2,500 kWh is very conservative. That's 250 Wh/mi. EPA rating for both the Volt and the Leaf is 340 Wh/mi.

I believe the current average annual mile is 15,000 miles. If that's the case, both the Volt or the Leaf can consume 5,100 kWh per year.

 

Thankfully, no one is forced to drive the average
Your arithmetic is of course correct, unlike the earlier post (not from you) I was correcting.

Btw, what do you think of the EPA estimate of charging losses ?

 

Not having kids, I didn't consider the car seat angle. Then there are cars with rear bench seats that only usable for a car seat. No normal sized adult could fit in the back of a Jaguar I looked at. It's one of many reasons why car choice comes down to the individual.

How many genIII owners have tried out the power mode for an extended time? A friend test drove one, in nice weather, and got 21mpg.

I have to contest this, since it makes it sound like Ford just licensed Toyota's system. They did not. They developed their own, and discovered that they might infringe on Toyota's patents. 21 to be exact, which is 25% at most of their patents on the Synergy drive. To avoid legal fees Ford and Toyota performed a patent swap. Ford got the rights to those 21 and Toyota got some Ford's diesel and emission control patents. AFAIK, there has been no confirmed reports on Ford actually paying Toyota actual cash in the deal. Presumably, the second gen system in the Fusion has no infringement on Toyota patents.

GM may have been trying to avoid them both any fees.

 

I don't think you understood what I wrote. cycledrum was acting as if the change from gas to mechanical to electrical to mechanical energy was something bad. This is what the prius does except for rare special cases all the time. It along with buffering energy and regenerative braking is responsible for most of the improvements in city mileage. When accelerating from low speeds there is a large percentage of power going through this mode. As mentioned the prius has had lots of generations to get it right.

I doubt anyone wanting a volt will think of it this way. You get no electrical range and worse highway milage in a camry even after the batteries gone. In fact on the highway the volt although weighing more than a TCH gets in between the prius's and camry's mileage, and acelerates in between the two cars also.

Ofcourse GM took a prius apart. The volt will manage its battery load much differently and likely was recharging the batteries. The big obvious difference in fe is the engines. GM is using a much less efficient engine, and seems to have grabbed parts from the two mode part bin for generator and gearing. Correct these things and the volt boosts CS mileage, but really is it that important? GM needed to get the car out there. They will sell as many as they can build in the first couple of years and put the things they learned into the Gen II.

btw: I'm not a fan of a tiny middle bench seat. I also have been in 2+2 cars with 7 people in them