How will the Chevrolet Volt be better than a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid?

You don't remember the $30k? Where were you? You can't find the 3 years old info now doesn't mean it wasn't stated. I'll search for it when I have some free time.

 

The same exact arguments could be made of the plugin Prius? We don't even know what the pricing is because there's no official price. It's easy to compare a selling product to something that hasn't gone on sale yet and say the upcoming one is better.

 

The real question is, after turning on the preconditioning feature do you have to press the power button before driving it off?

If the precondition feature is indeed combined with the remote start, it is a design issue. They should be separated.

If I recall my experience with the PHV Prius, it's preconditioning feature does not put the car into READY state. Therefore, there is no chance the gas engine would start.

Just to be clear, I did not mean to suggest Volt's gas engine come on when you plug it in. I was pointing out that even if you have it plugged in, the gas engine can come on. The same is true even if the battery was fully charged.

I am aware the battery coolant is a different loop so ICE heated coolant cannot heat the battery. However, the energy from the ICE (through generator) is used to power the electric battery heater. Why doesn't Volt use the power from a fully charged battery instead? This is an example of Volt behaving like a hybrid rather than a EREV.

PHV Prius has been testing since 2006, one year before the Volt concept was announced. It is still collecting data in government and some private firm such as ZipCars.

 

Just because it's been testing does not mean that you are not a beta tester by buying one.

 

^^ that is true, but I must say you are missing the point. Contrast and compare:

Toyota: Hundreds of almost-production cars running around for a couple of years before a car is sold to a consumer.

GM: A couple of mules running around for a few months before a car is sold to a consumer.

Even if you grant GM the same industrial expertise as Toyota (hah!) and ignore the decade of experience that Toyota has with the Prius, the difference is stark.

 

The car has a full warenty and we can have every expectation that the warenty is true Given new technology and the residual value the lease seems like a great option. All of the leases have buy out clauses if you lease the car and decide to own it. All cars including my gen III prius have risks in resale value. My resale value dropped greatly since I bought my prius and have been heavily discounted. Toyota was hiding information about their fleet of cars when I bought it. Your beta test language just seems like puffery about how much you hate the idea of GM having a PHEV.

This is true. If you read the wired article I posted above, you can see both companies were commited to produce commercial phevs in 2010. Toyota after their testing decided that they had questions about the reliability of the batteries, the pricing and the range. They decided to post pone the release of the car for further testing until 2012. In december, I can only assume because of their testing, they announced they will not do a full roll out in 2012, but a partial roll out. Most states will not have phv prius until at least 2013. On the other hand the volt is shipping to limitied cities with a full roll out this year. Since toyota is still testing their cars there is always the possibility of improvement or delays.

You can not buy a phv prius so you can't be beta testing it. I would call the demonstration program an alpha and toyota has carefully selected their testers. GM on the other hand used employees for their beta testing. I assume toyota like gm will stand behind their cars when they sell them, and both will have risks since they are new. We will not know for many years how good the batteries are. I can only assume that some will say the phv priuses batteries will fail just as they said it about prius. I expect both cars to have minor problems and think the slow roll outs are justified.

 

Mannn fk the Volt forum. What do they talk about there anyway? Who's mileage is better?

He should take his sht to the UAW.

 

Beta testing only happens prior to availabilty. So that doesn't make any sense. Enough with the arguing semantics already and get back to the actual purpose of designs... What the heck does "better" actually mean?

The PHV has potential to reach an extremely wide market very shortly following rollout. That most definitely isn't the case with Volt, hence the talk about figuring out how to drop the cost by $10,000.
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That's a bad statement, because:

 

You may not been in the hybrid scene long enough to remember but it was the same critism Prius went through and it passed with flying colors. I am holding Volt the same standard to it.

Regarding the resale value, you are talking about completely different things. How would you feel if the CEO of Toyota announced that they will cut the price of gen4 Prius by $10k?

Well, check engine lights due to the charging port is not acceptable for a "production" car. Those issues should have been nailed out during testing for the Volt.

They have popularity contests there and no room for a real constructive discussion. The voting process forces people to say the most politically correct statement. That is the game they play every single day.

I am against Volt Hoax -- report only the gasoline consumption and intentionally hide the electricity consumption. The miles driven were counted twice when Volt reports both MPG and kWh / 100 miles . The total miles driven (gas and electric) were divided by gas consumption to get the bloated MPG. The same was done to get very low electricity usage per mile. How is that honest?

Volt is also the most electricity hungry car. It consume more per mile than Mini E, Tesla Roadster or the midsize Leaf or PHV Prius. Therefore it makes more sense to discuss about electricity consumption with the Volt. Another concern that I have with the Volt is, it does not display electricity consumption on the car (dash). It is a critical instrument missing (or intentionally left out).

 

Umm. That was your buddy arguing beta testing. I was saying the phv prius was not yet in beta. It makes perfect sense if you understand English. The post was not about design or pro phv prius or volt. It was correcting misunderstandings put forth about the two cars and testing. Please get with the program. The OP wanted to know advantages of the phv prius versus the volt. I think the beta testing comment does not add to content whether talking about the phv prius or volt.

This does contradict both toyota and gm public statements. Toyota is currently saying they expect to roll out 20,000 cars in north america the first year. GM says they expect to sell 50,000-120,000 in the same time period. Of course toyota could be pessimistic and gm optimistic, but would not actual shipments be more appropriate to speculation than price or cost. I would also like to know your reasons to think sales will be much higher than toyota is talking about. Do you know something about their costs and supply chains we do not? Nissan expects to sell more leaves than phv prii and volts combined. We do not know the content or price of the phv prius. We do not know when GM will implement its cost reduction, how much it will drop the price, and what it will change in terms of content.

None of this speculation is about the OPs question. You could stay on track and say you expect the phv prius to cost less than the volt. That would be a constructive comment. What I see you saying is you go to volt fan sites and see hype. Then you feel good about spreading negative information even if it seems false to counter this hype. Let me tell you this is a prius site. Please don't pretend we are hyping the volt here. I don't think all the negative posts, especially the false ones, make sense to most of the posters here that want to discuss the technology of these great cars.

Given the price of the lease, if you want a phev today the volt is a good deal. If the phv prius turns out great, you can buy one when the lease is over in 3 years. Your opinion may very.

 

...which puts it even further behind than Two-Mode was at rollout. It worked fine, but missed the efficiency, emissions, and price goals... resulting in little demand beyond enthusiasts.

How can something be "better" with so many updates still pending?

And that's without even bringing up the topic of EV efficiency!

It's really sad that the hype made it to market like this. Hopefully, the fallout (when consumers figure out that reality doesn't match) won't harm other rollouts. Ford, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota... and whomever else will face challenges caused by all the vague & misleading information we're seeing now.
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First year production of Volt started at 10,000 and is now expected to go to 25,000. First year production of the PHV is expected to be 20,000. How you can even attempt to spin that to a time period is weak, at best. And what about the second year?

Adding 3.6 kWh capacity and a plug to an existing high-volume already well-proven hybrid is going to be way the heck less expensive to produce and easier to fill orders for than a unique vehicle with a 16 kWh capacity and a much more complex "transmission".
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NISSAN LEAF >> VOLT. Nuff sed.

 

No spin intended. I though that was what you were saying. We all expect sales of phev vehicles to increase over time. I thought you were saying the phv prius would outsell the volt in the same time period soon after roll out. Hey its your quote, what time period are you speculating about. I am assuming you are saying something about the phv prius will negate the first mover advantages of the volt and leaf. Tell me what callender time period you are speculating on, not that I think this answers the OPs question, and I will be able to evaluate it. The way I heard your statement it just on the face of it sounded false. If you state it more clearly, I promise to give it a fair hearing.

I also commented that I thought the slow roll outs of the volt and phv prius were appropriate given the new technology. Do you have a problem with that also?

I'm not quite sure what you think is so complicated about making modern clutches, but I assure you the additional "complexity" of the transmission does not make it hard to build in 2011. Adding batteries to the prius should be quite easy. As I stated in many threads, I like the phv prius. I think it can be improved, but my biggest problem with it is it is not for sale. I also like the volt and leaf, and both of those can be improved also, but are available.

Sometimes the thing that costs more is better

 

The fact that Volt reverts down to the same emission & efficiency level as other traditional vehicles after depletion means being "better" is limited exclusively to the EV range.

Automaker brands like Toyota, Ford, and Chevy are in the business of selling lots of vehicles for a profit. Consumers are well aware that if you pay more, you'll get a nicer vehicle. That's what the luxury-market has been all about for decades, selling far fewer vehicles.

Prius targets middle-market instead, where high-volume sales come from. Adding capacity and a plug to Prius package-3 makes a model within the usual spending range for them. It's affordable. It offers an undeniable boost to MPG. It doesn't require anything beyond a 110-volt outlet. It still delivers emissions & efficiency much higher than traditional vehicles after depletion. That makes it good business.

What are the specific points which make Volt a "better" plug-in hybrid?
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^^ lots more baseless hype ?

In winter driving, driving a Volt uses about 500 wh a mile from wall to wheels. For all those owners charging with average US grid efficiency, this is 1500 wh/mile of energy use from plant to wheels, even before well to plant energy costs are considered. I compare that to my Prius that has a plant to wheels winter efficiency of 627 wh/mile, and can only conclude that the Volt is GM's attempt to produce a car even more environmentally destructive than their run of the mill SUV horde. In a compact. For ~$US 45,000.

And to think that $50 Billion (or was it more?) was "loaned" to GM in part based on the Volt promise. Horrifying, really.

 

I hope you don't mind, but I cut out the stuff above, as it sounded like the same arguments why Lutz claimed the prius would never be successful.

So summarizing the points from this and the reviews, in my order of importance -

Volt Advantages
EV range (35 EV EPA versus 13 blended)
Availability
Handling
uses less gasoline
Acceleration
Front seat comfort (subjective)
Better stereo and cabin electronics
higher quality materials (ymmv)

Phv prius advantages
Price
CS fuel economy
rear seat (leg room 3 versus 2 passenger)
Storage space

There are of course preferences that change from person to person, but here are the major ones mentioned and where I stand

Styling (volt), Manufacturing Company(prius), Place of Manufacture(volt), Faith in reliability (prius).

 

Here is the inconvenient truth for you. It is less than a year and it paraphrases Lutz's statement back in 2007. This was before the tax credit.

GM Exec: Chevy Volt Effective Price Easily Less Than $30,000

 

^^ Hehe. However, if you think facts are going to bother AG, you have not been reading his posts.

 

What a load of lies.

The Chevy volt goes uses 360 wh a mile after the EPA's 30 percent fudge factor. Its quite fair to quote this number even though some people will be able to drive in the summer using less then 300 wh a mile.

Then you go on about the grid being 30% efficient from the plant? You need a lie times a lie to make the Volt more destructive then a "run of the mill SUV".

Why lie?

We all know Volt mules have been running around FOR YEARS.
In 2008:
Let Lutz Drive a Chevy Volt Mule to Capitol Hill – Motor Trend Blog
2009:
GM-Volt.com Chevy Volt Mule Test Drive w/ Video