Hate the Volt?

Jeff N,
Do you really think that the much heavier Volt is going to have the same wh/mile as a PiP in city driving ? Based on what ??

The fat wheels ?
The copycat transmission ?

 

You should get a 240V charging station - will boost your EV efficiency a good amount and decrease charge times - could be useful especially if you often get home and need to charge up quickly before heading out again.

 

Depending on maximum regen of the Volt vs PiP it's quite possible.

Mitsubishi improved recent iMiEVs in the city by improving regen efficiency.

 

The PiP and the Volt are very different cars, with very different technologies and strategies. The PiP allows blending for extremely high mpg while still being mostly a gas-driven car. It's not simply 15 miles of EV followed by gen 3 Prius level hybrid efficiency. It is a hybrid car which is capable of using a small amount of grid power to greatly increase the gas mpg efficiency by blending in the most useful manner.

The Volt is a 35-mile EV, which sacrifices EV performance compared to the 85-mile Leaf in return for a range extender. For commutes under 85 miles, the Leaf is superior. For road trips the Prius (whether plug or not) is superior. The Volt's niche is people who drive under 35 miles most of the time, but want occasionally to be able to drive farther than the Leaf's 85 miles, without having to own two cars.

In a two-car family, the Volt really has no place, because a Leaf and a Prius would be a better choice. But if you have only one car, and want it to be electric for short trips while still being able to go farther than 85 miles, and you're willing to trust to GM unreliability (and possible warranty issues next time it goes bankrupt) and can afford the high price tag, then the Volt is your choice.

It's not so much about these arcane miles per kWh or blended mpg discussions, as it is about your transportation needs. For me, the Tesla and the Prius together are ideal. The leaf and the Prius would have been good also, if Nissan had not decided to brush me off as a customer. With a depreciated, used, but still excellent 2004 Prius, I'd have been better off buying the Leaf and keeping the Prius, than trading in the Prius to buy the more-expensive Volt.

 

I'm not sure how the Volt "sacrifices EV performance" since the Volt's torque, HP, weight-per-HP, and 0-80+ MPH acceleration are all empirically equivalent or substantially better.

And again, you cannot compare the Volt's EPA electric range of 35 miles with some non-EPA electric range for the Leaf. The EPA Leaf range is 73 miles. Both numbers represent driving until the battery is no longer capable of driving the car. A Volt switches to hybrid mode at that point but a Leaf would just stop in the middle of the road. Realistically a Leaf driver needs to keep a battery reserve of 5-10 miles.

A more realistic comparison of practical battery range based on EPA estimates would be 35 for the Volt and 65 (73-8) for the Leaf.

In favorable conditions both cars can do better than the EPA estimates but the Leaf, when charged 100%, will be about twice the range of the Volt minus a few reserve miles since the usable battery on the Volt is 10.4 kWh and the Leaf uses around 21 kWh. The Leaf is a bit more efficient in city driving versus a Volt in 'D' but with the increased regenerative braking in 'L' I get city driving efficiency as good as most Leaf drivers. The Volt is more efficient at highway and faster speeds.

Actually, a Volt plus our 8-year-old 2004 Prius is the best choice for my family. Others will have different needs. In the future, a new generation Leaf with more range and a built-up public charging infrastructure may be a better choice but I'm living in the world that exists today.

 

I've considered it but for my driving pattern 120V charging works just fine without the added expense and hassle of getting a 240V EVSE installed. If I'm still in the same house in a few years when the roof needs work then I will probably put one in along with solar panels in conjunction with the roofing work.

Charging at 120V seems to be around 5% less efficient than 240V where I live with a mild climate and an attached garage. I still get 28-29 kWh / 100 miles efficiency measured with a Watts Up meter during most of the year.

 

Why do you use EPA range for the Volt but not the Leaf? Leaf EPA range is 73 miles. If you want to use real-world figures fine, but do it for both. Just yesterday I drove a Volt 45 miles with 2 miles left on EV.

For commutes in the ~40-70 mile range, without at work charging, the Leaf is superior (considering fuel consumption only). Below that, the difference is negligible. A very large percentage of commuters are in that lower 0-40 mile range.

For very long road trips the Prius is better. For shorter trips, and trips where charging at the destination is available, with a fair amount of driving around the destination, the Volt can be better. You get to use it as an EV for part of the way there, reconvert to EV around the destination, and use EV for part of the way back. If this EV driving is significant compared to the gas portion of the trip, it can overcome the 10 mpg difference on the highway.

I'd argue that (Leaf + Volt) > (Leaf + Prius), if local driving of < 50 miles makes up the bulk of the mileage of the second car.

 

Why do Volt owners quote EV range of Prius as 14, even though the estimate in the press release was 15 and we've already seen video of one showing 15.9 plus had a report of another exceeding 16? Remember, that most Volt reports are from warm-weather driving. So that 45 will drop well below the estimated 35 during the winter.
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That requires explanation.

Charge availability at the destination would put Prius on similar footing. Heck, with errand running in the burbs, there is no difference. I can drive to buy groceries, get coffee, see a movie, do whatever around my area without ever firing up the engine in a plug-in Prius during the warm months. And during the cold months, I'll be taking advantage of warming via the engine rather than sacrificing electricity just for the sake of heat.

Note that at work we already have 2 charging-stations and a massive solar-array. So for people like me and those with shorter commutes, the label of "better" is rather vague.
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I inferred that he meant long trips were the prius would generally be more efficient (over 100 miles), that if there was charging at the destination or midpoint it would be a larger impact for the Volt than the prius expressed as the additional electric miles over the total length of the trip.

If we're talking 150 miles, 75 each way, charging there gets the PiP an additional 15 miles of 10% of the total,for the Volt its another 35 miles or 23% of the total.

Another way of thinking about it is each full charge for the Volt pushes out the time for the PiP to catch up to the Volt's efficiency about 100 more miles (assuming fully depleted before charging).

 

What about the reference: For shorter trips
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We are extrapolating a guess based on EPA testing of the other EVs, vs. previous results of those other cars on European test cycles. If you want to compare EPA numbers wait for the EPA test. If you want to use real world numbers then use real world for both cars being compared, not real world for one with EPA for the other. If you want manufacturer claimed max, then why not use 50 for the Volt & 100 for the Leaf? I'm just asking for consistency, not constantly cherry-picking numbers to try and make the Volt look worse in comparison.

Won't the plug-in Prius EV-only range also drop in the winter, or are you claiming it is immune? As will the Leaf? Also, it's not going to be true in my area, SF bay area, it just doesn't get that cold in the winter here. Really doubt I'll drop below 35 range.
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My post was in response to Daniel's, and was comparing vs. a regular Prius, not a plug-in.

As for a plug-in Prius doing suburban errand running, it really depends on how far the errand running takes you. If it's < 14-15 miles, sure it's roughly equal if you keep off the freeway. If it's more like 30 miles instead of 15 miles, it's still very difficult to find a charger within reasonable walking distance of your destination, even in EV early adopter areas. Even if chargers become substantially more common, it's still quite inconvenient to have to add 1.5 hrs of L2 charging in the middle of the errand running, if without the desire to charge you were only going to be spending 15-20 minutes at a store. You spend an extra hour-plus window-shopping, maybe that's desirable for some people but not everyone, and many places there may not be anything interesting to do to kill the time. I think a lot of people would not want to sit around twiddling their thumbs, and would just go ahead and burn some gas. Also, some of these chargers are going up asking for $3/hr charging. Are you going to pay $4 to save $1.05 of gas? I wouldn't. It's much easier to do all the errand running gas free in a Volt, without needing the charge in the middle.

 

It was "shorter trips, and where charging at the destination is available"

I believe the comma and the conjunction indicate he was referring to 2 different conditions, both of which the Volt would do well in. If he wanted to refer to "shorter trips where charging is available" there would be no need for the punctuation and conjunction.

 

Have you noticed how the comments (including your own) attempt to force Prius into an EV perspective? We need balance, not an extreme.

Prius is a hybrid. It doesn't sacrifice efficiency opportunity just for the sake of electric purity. Why is accepting that penalty regarded as a good thing?

There is no immunity, even with Volt. However, with Prius we have a system already well designed for engine heat conservation. Adding a plug & capacity enhances that. Eliminating that represents a loss. You'll see a big boost in MPG, less of an impact since EV-only isn't the goal.
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That's why I followed up with a seperate question.
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That far south in California doesn't have anything representative of real-world winter, so that's quite realistic for you. It's those living in the north who aren't forthcoming like you (thanks) that intentionally misrepresented Volt in the past, pretending a drop into the 20's wasn't ever going to happen.
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Nissan said the average trip length for Leaf owner is 7 miles. If you can recharge at every stop, 15 miles is more than enough.

With a 220v charger, it will only take 45 mins to refill 7 miles.

 

The only thing I don't like about the Volt is how it's been marketed.

 

550 were delivered to dealers for use as demo models and 2,870 sold through July.

2,395 were produced and 302 sold in August.

2,367 were produced and 723 sold in September.

The quantity sold in October was 1,108.

That brings the total sales for the year to 5,003... which makes the goal of 10,000 by year end a massive challenge at this point. Merit is measured by how the technology replaces traditional production. Volt is proving far from the game-changer it was hyped to be.
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That's disappointing because they were offering sweet leasing deal.

On the other hand, Volt outsold Leaf this month because of Leaf's 2011 to 2012 model year change.

 

Forgive me for not knowing, but do vehicle leases count as a car sold?

If so, supply must be short because the places I were at there are only 2-3 available to be "sold". I think the demos are kept on the lot and cannot be moved.

 

I would think so. Even dealers selling to each other was counted as "sales".

If GM doesn't sell 5,000 in the last two months, they would miss their final target.

They have already missed engineering, emission, warranty and pricing targets.

 

As far as I can tell, there is no national leasing deal. I thought it might be 2500 down + 399/mo (vs 349 last year) but I can't find a reference at chevrolet.com.

BlizzardJ's deal was a total (and awesome) outlier.

I'm sure they will be offering nice lease deals soon enough though.