GM offers to buy back VOLT !

Some FUD here.
EV range is not lost if ICE turns on for heat.
Besides, ICE and EV work together for propelling the vehicle, which seems to be a little foggy when Volt is related to blending "features".

 

That's additional complexity and the gas fired heater would consume oxygen in the cabin.

PiP warm up cycle is 34% faster (42 secs instead of 64 secs) than a normal Prius while maintaining SULEV emission.

Remember, PiP has the exhaust heat recovery system. The engine is not going to run all the time just because the heater is on. There is engine coolant temp thresholds that stops and starts the gas engine.

PiP will switch between blended and EV mode, that's all. It'll get the most out of the existing hardware and keep it simple.

 

My 2004 Prius takes a long time to provide cabin heat because the ICE is so efficient. In really cold weather (e.g. North Dakota, where I lived when I bought it) this is a big issue. Further, the car would never go into Stage 4 operation (where the ICE sometimes turns off) on my 3-mile, 10-minute commute.

The Tesla, by contrast, is pumping out heat less than a minute after I start the car, and by the one-minute mark, it's putting out furnace-level heat if I turn it up that high. The big battery pack means I'm not concerned about range.

 

Yea, with the battery capacity that size, you don't need the ICE.

For plugin hybrids, ICE is there so you might as well use it instead of lugging it around.

PiP has heated seats as a standard feature, even the $32k standard trim. That'll relieve the need for really hot cabin temp.

$40k base Volt doesn't come with heated seats, ouch. Volt will also use the gas engine for heat when the temp gets really low.

 

I've never seen the advantage of heated seats. It's never my bum that gets cold. It's my hands and feet. What I really wanted on my Prius when I lived in N.D. was a heated steering wheel!!!

 

There is no reason a gas fired heater needs to burn inside air. The diesel fired heater on my boat pulls in outside air, as well as the two natural gas furnaces in my house. Most new combustion devices use outside air.

Tom

 

While I think that is true, Toyota is doing an amazing job with the Prius. True the regular is a little small such that many won't consider it, but the Prius v, I think, will catch on and sell well.

I don't want to buy another conventional car. Learned my lesson this year. I don't like automatic transmissions with their nauseating shifting in city. Don't like new cars whose engines run constantly. 30 MPG to me is junk fuel economy. I have an old pickup, but since it's a 1988, I expect it to run like an old fashioned car.

Anything not an advanced tech car seems like an old fashioned car.

Highlander Hybrid can tow up to 3500 lbs

 

Most diesel heaters for trucks likely do too.

I was merely stating a fairly major difference in reply to post comparing them. While anecdotal, some posters have stated having second thoughts about the P-PHV when they learned it wont have a pre-heating feature. So, in some areas of the country it might be a big factor in sales.

 

I too had always thought the seats seemed a waste, that's not the part that seems cold. Now that I have them I get it -- they can efficiently deliver heat there. And if my core, is warm my hands/feat are less of an issue. I would like a heated steering wheel as well, as that could be pretty efficient, but heated seats in the volt are like 45watts and they alone are enough to keep me warm on days down to 0F. (Unless I have to brush off snow then I'll turn on the heater).

 

I'm impressed -- even GM realizes their sales targets are BS. Last one out -- turn out the lights.

Although I would like to hear the exact terms and conditions of a Volt return. I'll eat my shoe if the tax credit is not forfeited, in which case this is just another case of GM PR grandstanding or a highly manipulative use of its ever shrinking Volt fan base. Will GM cancel a lease -- today ? No questions asked, no early termination fees applied ?

 

Yes, this works because when the body is very cold it begins to protect itself by limiting blood flow to the extremities and concentrating it around the core organs. If you can keep these warm, then blood flow will return back to the hands, feet, etc.

Motorcyclists use electric vests for the same reasons.

 

It is not GM that would be cancelling the lease as the leasing company is the one that owns the cars. Ultimately it would be up to the leasing company, and I doubt they would waive any early termination fee's..

I don't understand why they did not put a kerosene fired heater on the Volt like I have heard they had on the EV1. I too think it is a waste to run the 4 cylinder just to keep the cabin/battery warm. Granted that ultimately may have been the reason they did have the engine come on to heat the coolant loop for the battery. People will still need to plug in however so the battery can run the thermal management system when the car is off.

 

I bet the charger debacle for Volt owners turns out to be multi-factorial.

My leading suspects:
Poor QA -- Not exactly unheard of in GM land
Poor customer adherence to safety instructions
High fraction of Volt owners using high amp charging routines

I feel sorry for the Volt crowd

Electricity is so deceptively simple when done right, and a nightmare when done wrong. Daniel's attempts to electrify his Porsche should be required reading for all. I will say this though: If I feel a warm, let alone hot cord -- I unplug it. The apparent acceptance of EVSE standards that allow hot cords has never sat well with me, foremost because of the waste, and second because of safety concerns.

 

The high beltline on the Volt makes me feel like I'm sitting in a bucket. That alone is nearly a dealbreaker for me.

Heated seats are great, though, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't like them. Heated and cooled seats are that much better.

 

It's worth noting that all the problems with the Porsche come down to a formerly good conversion shop gone bad, and doing the job in a negligent manner, and severely damaging the batteries on top of it all.

Maybe it's because I dress for the weather. So my core stays warm. If heated seats do anything for me, they'd just overheat my core and make me sweat. I've been snowshoeing at 8 degrees below zero Celsius, when my hands and feet hurt from the cold, and in ND I've been out in thirty below zero Fahrenheit. My bum has never felt cold. It's easy to keep my core warm, and easy to keep my bum warm. But when driving there's a limit to the thickness of gloves I can wear and still operate the car. In Spokane it's not a problem. And the Roadster is blasting out full heat within sixty seconds of turning on the key. But in North Dakota in the Prius, it was a big problem. Heated seats would have done me no good. A heated steering wheel would have helped a lot.

The cold was why I finally left North Dakota. Other than that, I liked it there.

 

It's not the belt line that is too high, but the windows are not so 'tall'. It's like what they used to do to 'hot rods' (called chopped).

I have heated seats in my Prius, but here in Florida they don't really get used.

 

I am used to cars with high belt lines as you say. Dodge made it particularly high in the LX cars (Charger, Magnum, 300).. So when driving the Magnum I always felt like I was driving a hot rod. Driving the Volt I feel it has good visibility, and while the window line is higher than normal it is not obscenly high.

As far as dressing for the weather I definately need to get a good jacket. Granted in the colder weather (I know Daniel will laugh as the 30's is probably nothing) I have been playing with the heater and it seems to get better with more use.. It is not pumping in 60 seconds by an stretch. A rough guess in my mind is about 2-5 minutes it is what I would consider "acceptable," and a few more minutes after that it actually gets hot. Either way I am going to be looking in to a nice jacket and gloves. The 240V charger helps though by allowing me to start it twice in the morning to give it 20 minutes to heat the heater loop. That takes about 0.8-1.5kwh of electric. At least in the afternoon when I leave work the large windows act like heat traps and even if it is cold outside I have a very nice interior for the drive home.

 

My wife likes the heated seats too...hmm maybe guys don't like heated seats. I need a punch line, but I am not going there...

 

...this was the premise of Who Killed the Elec Car "documentary".
But in my opinion GM doesn't have inherent loyalty to big oil. The opposite (conflict) may be closer to the truth. If GM thought EV had a chance to win, they would keep trying at a loss. The roots of this conflict goes back to auto industry hard-feelings that US gov't CAFE/other regs etc. have hurt auto industry disproportionately.

I take the Volt fire issue at face value, GM has to manage that properly, and it seems like they are. I do not expect GM to exit EV market. GM is inherently pro-EV, if it can be made to work for them.

 

GM is pro-GM -- hard to say more than that.

As for 'big-oil' being anti-EV, it is just not that simple. Look at all the R&D big oil spent through the years on PV. Big-oil knows it sits on a limited resource; from its vantage point it tries to manage the transition to another energy source in time and type for its own interests.