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

Sorry perhaps you misunderstood. 30 MPGs was just lower example of that it would not even matter. Many Volt owners are getting 40+ MPGs which is certainly well above avg of most cars. Right?!?! The Volt is sporty and fun as well as efficient. One of the factors many buy a vehicle ... lot of people do not just want a utilitarian type of vehicle.

What people tend to forget is people like and associate themselves with cars and spend a lot time in them. We all talk to many people that want to drive a comfortable, sharp looking, fun, and reasonably economical car. There are millions of these people out there. These forums are but a microcosmic set of eco-minded/sacrificing folks.

I was out getting my emissions tested on my other vehicle and drove by my neighbor who is also a Volt owner. Reminded me that they actually have 4 kids and own a Volt. They have another vehicle to hall everyone around on those occasions BUT they put a lot of of miles on their Volt because they run 1, 2 or 3 kids (+ 1 adult) around to the kids many activities. The 4 seats is still working out excellent for them.

 

For the typical consumer off the street, which do you think is more important?

I once rented a Mirage. It was probably the most stripped car I have ever driven, with visible body metal inside. Little unneeded plastic and carpet, and it was noisy. I wouldn't mind owning such a car. You can't buy such a car now though. The people willing to put money down on a new car don't want noisy, spartan interiors.

There was no way GM could get around the cost of the battery, and a certain level of ride comfort is expected of a vehicle of the Volt's price. Heck, it's expected of vehicles half the price now. It doesn't matter how efficient a car is if people don't want to drive it.

 

My Zap Xebra after 4 years, never burned a drop of gas. And when I sell it, its new owner will never burn a drop of gas in it. My Roadster, though admittedly not a "practical" car for families, has not burned a drop of gas in the 4 months since I bought it and is incapable of burning gas even if I wanted it to, yet it has a range of 245 miles. (Less if I run the heater to keep the cabin toasty warm and drive it fun style, both of which I can afford to do because it has about three times the range I'm ever likely to need, and I can always drive it gently if I want to push the limits of its range.)

Gasoline is obsolete. And the sooner we realize that, the more petroleum we'll have left for plastics and pharmaceuticals and fertilizer, things that will be much harder to replace than gasoline.

I applaud Volt drivers for using less gasoline than SUV drivers. But shame on GM for not making the Volt as efficient as it could have been. GM wants it both ways: It claims that most people will hardly ever use gas, but then claims it "had to" minimize engine noise rather than gas consumption.

 

Didn't you abandon an electric Porsche for Tesla Roadster, Daniel? IIRC, it just needed a new battery. Instead, you consumed an entire new car that you didn't need. If GM could have sold a Volt with an intrusive, noisy engine, you could have put up with an out of balance motor on an EV.

I am not faulting your choices here. I'm calling you out for faulting GM for what is really the public's preference. Again, it doesn't matter how efficient or clean a car is if no one will buy and drive it.

 

No. I did not abandon the Porsche for the Tesla. After three years of waiting for the Porche conversion, first to be completed originally, and then to be repaired (it was a death trap when I got it back from the original shop) I gave up on its ever being completed. When it appeared that the Porsche would never be finished, and Nissan was never going to either sell me a leaf or give me any honest information about where it was and when it would be delivered, I gave up on both and bought the Tesla.

Several months later I got the Porsche back, but still not complete, and it's uncertain how much time and how much money it would take to complete it. My best guess right now is that another $15,000 to $20,000 and another 4 to 6 months (mostly waiting for batteries to be shipped from China) could turn it into a workable car. But even that is uncertain. I got sick of waiting and sick of pouring money into a project that seemed less and less hopeful and more and more frustrating as time went on. I wanted a freeway-capable electric car before I died of old age.

The Porsche is now drivable, but the motor is out of balance and the battery pack is shot, having been damaged in a charging accident on the bench of the original conversion shop (as I found out from the battery importer only recently). Its range is unknown now, but the new BMS starts buzzing after 15 miles and goes solid at about 20 miles.

The guy who did the repairs (actually a complete re-build) has now told me it will always be a "project" car and will never be reliable. As a non-mechanic, I need a reliable car.

I tried hard to get that project to work, and put a bucketload of money into it, but there comes a time when you accept failure and move on.

 

I know where Daniel is coming from. We tried to work with two different companies to provide us with an EV conversion. One a RAV4ev and one a full conversion of Chevy Equinox.
In our case, we would have been very happy with either, or a EV3 (if GM hadn't deep sixed the EV1 project), Leaf (if it had been available) or any other highway capable EV. Tesla was the first one, so we bought it (after the conversions fell through).

However, I believe Trollbait has a point as well. He is right in that more people will adobt EVs if EVs are more comfortable.
While the early adopters will be happy to accept 'bare bones' solutions, to get the most people adopting the technology the cars need to have the right number of cup holders, the comforts of automatic windows and mirrors, etc etc.

And then you will have everyone in between. People that are willing to take some 'sacrifices' but still want/need other aspects (seats 4 instead of 2, more storage, etc).
But these are all coming. Different companies are developing different EVs for different parts of the market. This is one of the reasons I am so excited about EVs this time around. Last time, all the EVs were the same (the RAV4ev being the most different). Similar range, charging time, etc. This time, we have 2 seaters, 5 seaters, 7 seaters, little storage, lots of storage, 100k, 500k, 40k and 30k prices. The next few years look very promising, imho.

 

Precisely.

Toyota could have released a first gen Prius that got much better fuel economy. If they relaxed their emission goals, used an all aluminum body, and gave it just two seats. It would have been the most fuel efficient cars ever sold to the few people who bought one, and we likely wouldn't be looking at a line of Prii today.

The Volt has compromises. All car designs do. In the arena of engine pleasantness versus efficiency, the pleasantness won out. Not because GM wants to burn as much gas as possible, but because the people won't spend the money for a car with an intrusive and annoying sounding engine.

 

The engine in the Volt is loud. Dont care how you dice it but that is a fact. Spent 10 hours listening to it drone along at 4000rpm last Friday. Granted on the highway it is less noticable, but still far louder than our Prius... Efficiency is not to bad. I averaged 42mpg in the Volt after 638 miles while the wife managed 51 in the Prius. Is a good car for what they made it for. So far our Prius is doing phenominal though here in Norfolk showing about 65mpg displayed.... Am loving the lower speed limits, so the Volt has not been driven mucht his week. Will change when I go back to work though. Volt is certaintly funner to drive however.

 

Not sure at what speeds/elevations you were driving. That is different from my test.

My sons and I went out on a pretty flat road last spring one Sunday afternoon and tested out 4 different speeds: 60, 65, 70, & 75. It was 50-60 degrees out. We let the car run probably 10 minutes until the engine water temp (WT) on the scan gauge settled into about 165-170 degrees.

The RPM was pretty steady on the flat drive. We did not see it rev up and the go into "CD mode". We drove about 5 minutes at each speed.

60 mph: 1600-1800 rpm
65 mph: 1700-1900 rpm
70 mph: 1800-2000 rpm
75 mph: 1900-2100 rpm

 

A better design has less compromises and Volt has too many. If you look at the entire package, PiP is superior than the Volt.

For a green car, efficiency should be one of the top priority. The RPM it choose to operate makes very little difference in term of fuel economy. It is the SUV weight in a compact Volt is killing it's MPG.

Maybe you are telling us that Volt is not a green car?

 

No car is green!
'Green' is a matter of degrees.
The Prius is a 'greener' car than the Volt for certain driving patterns. The Volt is 'greener' than the Prius for other driving patterns.
Both are cleaner than a Hummer.
A Prius driven on gasoline refined from light sweet crude is 'greener' than a Prius driven on gasoline refined from tar sands.

 

I agree with that. When using average electricity and average gasoline, Prius is greener than the Volt. PiP should have the best balance.

 

Both cars make compromises (like all cars). Some compromises suit some drivers better than others. The PiP does not make superior compromises for all drivers. I fall into the group where the Volt choices work better for me.

Lexus CT 200h compact using the Prius 1.8L synergy drive.

It weighs 500 pounds less than the Volt (~3240 versus ~3750).

It is a full second slower 0-60 mph (~10 versus ~9).

It gets the same highway EPA gas mileage (40 mpg).

Volt battery is large enough for city use so most gas driving is on the highway.

 

Green was not a color choice (I am not counting that Viridian Joule), mine's black but I would have preferred a nice shade of green.

I have not seen any data showing green cars have better emissions than black ones. I suppose my AC works slightly harder in the summer, but my cabin temp warms up quite nicely sitting in the sun in winter and the heater is much less efficient than the AC anyway.

I have heard anecdotes that the red ones are faster.

Perhaps you should say something about the prius being a mid-sized car.

 

The weight wouldn't impact highway MPG much. 43 vs. 35 City MPG reveals the impact of the weight.

You are comparing a Lexus to Chevy as well. CT200h has rear independent suspension with lateral dampers. Volt has torsion beam setup like the Prius. In fact, Prius c should make a better comparison.

What about the missing one rear seat which is the safest location for an infant? $10k difference and emission was ignored as well.

You got the idea. That's why the midsize PiP with 15 EV city miles with 48 highway MPG is superior. Is your typical trip in the city longer than 15 miles?

Lighten up and don't take it literally. Yes, Prius is a midsize and Volt is a compact car that happens to weight more than an Equinox SUV. Prius c will be a compact car as well but it will be lighter than the midsize Prius. A smaller car should be lighter and more fuel efficient. Volt obviously isn't the case.

Is driving a coal (mostly) powered SUV weight compact car your definition of being "green"?

 

Note, that I'm not making the claim that the CT 200h is a mediocre car.

I'm saying that the corollary of my comparison between it and the Volt is really that the Prius makes an excellent set of compromises which maximize gas mileage. It blows away the competition on gas mileage even when compared to other Toyota products using the same powertrain design.

The PiP capitalizes on this Prius advantage by adding a smallish rechargeable battery which, due to its size, inherently requires the blended powertrain design of the synergy drive. I have no doubt that this will be an excellent choice for a substantial set of potential customers.

Another sizable group of people will find more benefit from a larger battery range and pack size which does not require a blended design. Based on this trade-off, the Volt enables gas-free daily driving under a larger number of common driving patterns while still matching the useful range characteristics of gasoline cars along with good mileage under typical use.

And then there are a bunch of losers who would rather buy the other 100+ mid-size and smaller cars on the market.....

 

Nicely stated.

 

The Volt scored 44 for safety which puts it in the top 7% of all the cars, SUVs and trucks rated by informedforlife.org. The CT 200h scored 65 which places it at "medium risk" (Prius was slighly better at 61). An infant seat is ideally located in the middle of the back seat but it is also ideally placed in the safest car.

http://www.informedforlife.org/demos/FCKeditor/UserFiles/File/MasterSCORE2011alphaOct92011.pdf

The Volt gas engine won't even be started on many days for typical customers and the emissions difference is modest. The Volt will meet the enhanced AT-PZEV standard by next Summer and just narrowly misses the SULEV standard on current cars.

After the federal battery tax credit, the MSRP purchase price difference between a CT 200h and a Volt is around $3,000.

My typical weekday drive averages 28 miles on city streets and expressways (45-50 mph speed limit with occasional cross traffic). I currently have no convenient daytime charging opportunities.

On weekends I sometimes drive to San Francisco on the highway which I can do on battery with 3-6 miles left over for local city driving. I can sometimes charge at my destination and then do the entire trip in EV mode. Otherwise, I use Mountain Mode on the drive there to hold 15 miles for battery driving in town and then almost all of my gasoline use is on the highway at 40-44 gas-only mpg or 75-85 total trip mpg (0.8-1.0 gallons).

I'm only 5 weeks away from my 1st full year of driving my Volt. My annualized gas-only mileage will be about 42 mpg. My annualized electric-only efficiency will be about 30 kWh per 100 miles (I charge at 120V, at 240V it would be 5-7% better in my climate). My overall gasoline for distance traveled will work out to about 110 mpg this year but that includes more long road-trip driving (~4,000 miles) than usual.

 

That hits the nail on the head.

Very Orange is the fastest, or at least the quickest color.

Prius makes some compromises that reduce fuel efficiency. Toyota made low emissions the #1 priority, which resulted in significantly lower mpg for short trips. The car is "mid-size." A sub-compact could have gotten much better efficiency. The Prius c will still be a bigger car than I need. All these compromises were made for reasons. They wanted the SULEV rating, and they felt the big size would sell better.

Ideal would be a Xebra for the city (or a Leaf if you really must go on the freeway or need more than 40 miles of range) and a non-plug-in Prius for longer trips.

And I gather that while the PiP can go electric at slower speeds, it is designed to blend gas and electric. This is more efficient than using pure electric followed by pure gas, but is less efficient than the Volt IF AND ONLY IF the Volt is seldom driven beyond its EV range.

As Zythryn said, no car is green. You want green? Ride a bicycle, or walk. If you "need" a car it's because you've placed a lower priority on being green than on lifestyle, home location, work location choices etc.

Disclosure: I'm not green. I drive electric because I hate gas. The difference between me and some Prius drivers is merely that I admit that driving a relatively efficient car does not constitute being green. I do vote green, however.

 

Except it has you as a booster.

Did you cheer for GM when they crushed the EV1? Your anti-EV responses says yes.