Volt Sales Figures

My statement was that one must be careful when using averages to reach conclusions. The average GHG of the average US electrical energy mix does not impact how clean my (or many other volt uses are), as we can choose to buy green power. Just as a car owner is not really concerned with the total US driving fleet MPG, because they chose a particular model.

Averages over a particular model, as in the above link, do have usefull meaning, if you are looking at comparing that model with another.

 

To sum up:

1. According to the EPA the Volt is the most fuel efficient gasoline powered car, ever.

2. GM has sold more Plug-in hybrids than any other manufacturer, ever.

3. GM will likely sell more Plug-ins in the U.S. than any other manufacturer in 2012.

4. The first year prius was available in the U.S. (2000), Toyota sold less than 6,000 of them here, ergo GM sold more Volts in the U.S. in the first year than Toyota sold prii in the U.S. in its first year.

5. GM sold more than 3x the entire production run of Tesla roadsters in the Volt's first year (and roadsters cost 3x as much [and are way cooler]).

 

So, will you agree that on average, the Prius is 'greener' than the Volt (emitting less GHG)?
Based on Volt average 67% EV miles, US average electricity generation mix, and including gasoline upstream emissions.

 

Nobody cares about production goals. I can make five thousand cupcakes but if I only sell 50 that's the only number that matters. You don't make money until you get paid.

As I mentioned yesterday, every article online and even the VP of sales for GM North America acknowledge that sales goals were not met for the Volt in 2011.

We know the sales numbers were not met, so putting that behind us and looking forward the question is how many will they sell in 2012? I'll buy a Chevy Volt, strip it down with a metal saw, and eat every ounce of it on youtube in one sitting if they come even close to the 45,000 North America sales goal they are now pretending is realistic.

You know as well as I that such title is meaningless without qualification. For a person driving a substantial amount the Prius will use less energy than the Volt because it gets far more miles per gallon on gas.

Let me say this: When we first heard that GM wasn't bothering with a second, let alone a third shift to produce these, I realized that demand is not high for the vehicle after all. I have yet to hear any reason why GM is not running second shift on the factory if they are able to sell all they can make. Why not make more? There are only three reasons they are not producing more of these vehicles now:

1) The demand isn't there to sell more
2) There is a problem with supply line getting materials and they cannot supply materials for a second shift
3) They don't want to sell more; e.g. taking a hit on the car and are deliberately suppressing sales

So, which is it?

 

Your 85 MPGe is excellent but the average is 61 MPGe (per voltstats.net). That doesn't include the upstream efficiency loss for both gas and electric.

For the upstream, DOE said electricity generation efficiency is 32.8% and power transmission efficiency is 92.4%. Total production and transmission (well-to-plug) efficiency is 30.3%.

DOE also said petroleum refining and distribution (well-to-pump) efficiency is 83%.

If you include those upstream energy losses for the total energy usage, Prius is hard to beat.

PiP was designed for Japan, Europe and US. The initial 20km is the "low hanging fruit" so PiP is going after that.

Not all PHEVs are created equal. Volt has substandard 37 MPG in hybrid mode. It also uses more electricity than a midsize full EV (Leaf). Volt is also the heaviest, even more than a SUV (Equinox). To me, Volt is the worst of both worlds.

PiP is lighter than the Leaf. Its electricity consumption is lower than the Leaf (per JC08 cycle). 49 MPG on regular gas is also PHEV class leading with the cleanest gas engine in the world. PiP defines the best of both worlds.

 

If you take account of 69.7% energy loss to generate and transmit electricity, 93 MPGe becomes 28 MPGe.

If we also take account of 17% energy loss to refine and transport gasoline, Prius 50 MPG becomes 42 MPG.

Sue me, I left out a comma before "without a plug". =D

 

Why do we keep forgetting to include the cost of energy/electricity to refine it? How about close to 5 trillion USD Iraq war cost and 4482 troops lives to secure one of the crude source?

 

That is absolutely false and that article is badly written with improper source. A better explanation is given here.

In a 2008 report, Argonne National Lab estimated that the efficiency for producing gasoline of an “average” U.S. petroleum refinery is between 84% and 88% (Wang, 2008), and Oak Ridge National Lab reports that the net energy content of oil is approximately 132,000 Btu per gallon (Davis, 2009). It is commonly known that a barrel of crude oil generate approximately 45 gallons of refined product (refer to NAS, 2009, Table 3-4 for a publication stating so). Thus, using an 85% refinery efficiency and the aforementioned conversion factors, it can be estimated that about 21,000 Btu—the equivalent of 6 kWh—of energy are used per gallon of gasoline refined.​

6 kWh of electricity was not used to refine a gallon of gasoline. The energy loss (15%) is equivalent to 6 kWh of electricity.

There is 69.7% loss to generate electricity. Going by that misguided logic, it'll take about 2 kWh to generate every kWh of electricity.

Argonne National Laboratory updated that 2008 report. It now says "With the new 2008 data Argonne has updated the overall petroleum refining efficiency to be 90.6% vs. 90.1% using 2006 data."

I am sure the electricity generation efficiency has improved as well but I have not look it up yet.

 

I have not done that analysis in detail, so I cannot fully agree or disagree. What I recall from the EPRI study
EPRI | Products > Products

The best answer I can give now is, the US average mix, is based on that study which concludes that a PHEV20 should be better, and PHEV60 is even better, but I'll need to reread and so an analysis based on adjusting for the actual vehicles. Since the Volt should be between PHEV20 and PHEV60 I would expect their analysis to show its better.

I will note that every wheels-to-well study I read did NOT really fit the Volt and/or the Prius. (E.g. the well cited Argonne study presumed 62mpg for the HEV0 fuel efficiency and 42mpg_CS for the PHEV40 and they did their emissions modeling using the utility factor, not on actual engine start modeling). I don't have time to dig into this for a better answer this week ( finishing up a proposal on EV efficiency control) but its a reasonable overall question and I'll dig into that one deeper when I get a chance.

 

Please tell me they aren't saying getting 45 gallons of gas from a 50 gallon barrel of oil means its a 90% efficient process?

I don't want to know how much of the oil's energy was lost in the refining process. I want to know how much energy from other sources was used in the process including: energy used by the drilling and pumping equipment, diesel used by the super tankers, energy used to keep the lights on at the docks and refinery, energy used in the actual refining process, diesel used by the trucks to deliver it to gas stations, electricity used by the gas station pumps themselves, etc...

 

Valid point but FUD, nonetheless. It is also irrelevant to the total energy efficiency comparison. We need separation between politic and science.

2/3 of the petroleum are domestic or are from friendly countries. Volt does little to cut the consumption of the already efficient compact non-hybrid cars, especially with the sales numbers. In comparison, Hybrids (no-plug) are cutting much more petroleum consumption through out various classes/sizes.

This is not to discourage or discount the importance of the plugins. Leaf is doing great displacing a lot of petroleum for a midsize non-hybrid.

I just think you are using FUD and placing the blame unfairly on the hybrids. The political cost of the petroleum was mainly caused by the SUVs and the Trucks. Hybrids are part of the solution.

 

Yep, if the majority of the passenger fleet was efficient petroleum cars the US would not import oil from OPEC, and would have money to invest in a clean infrastructure.

 

"Buying" green power is far from the same as PRODUCING additional green power.

In fact, it is green-washing

 

Fair questions. Would you also like to know the same for coal strip mining ?

Not according to any reputable science reference. You should read the national lab reports. Arguing that the higher MPG(e) "proves" the point only shows you do not understand how the MPG(e) is calculated.

 

Absolutely not. 42 gallon barrel of oil produces many different by-products, gasoline being one. According to this, 19.5 gallon of gasoline come out from a barrel. The overall efficiency is 90%. You can't attribute all the energy loss into a single by-product (gasoline). It should be equally divided so it is simpler to say every by-product is 90% efficient.

I think the highlighted part belongs to the refinery process and covered by the 10% energy loss. The refineries do draw electricity from the grid but very little.

As for drilling and exploration, I don't think it is included in the well-to-wheel since it precedes the well. The same goes for coal and uranium mining and exploration. The natural gas used to generate electricity is a petroleum by-product.

 

yes where appropriate, or the uranium processing, or the solar cell manufacturing. For a complete analysis a whole system approach needs to be reviewed.

My PV panels went in last week so I'm not too concerned with the coal I'm using anymore.

 

I love PV stories

If you had PV and a Prius, you would be even greener than PV + Volt. No matter, you are way ahead of the curve.

 

That's greenwashing.

The first year for Prius was only 4.5 months long. Purchases didn't begin until mid-August.
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Before you start digging deep, how about the chart below?

It is based on EPA sticker data:
Conventional Car: 30 mpg
Prius HEV: 50 mpg
Volt: 37 mpg CS mode, 0.36 kWh/mile CD mode

Data for gasoline is taken from various researches (CMU as an example:
Combustion: 8554 gCO2/gal plus upstream 2536 gCO2/gal (about 30% of combustion emissions.

At US average grid mix (taken as 650 gCO2/kWh produced including upstream emissions) the 70% EV Volt emits 14% more GHG than the Prius HEV (254 vs. 222).
Note that even the 90% EV Volt (probably fitting more to your personal driving patterns) emits more than the Prius.

 

gw for some reason also ignores Prius sales outside of the US. He might as well spin the sales comparo for Delaware only