Another example of why Chevy will never really make it

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Fuel Economy and Payback of Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid
I found this which talks about 4 year pay back.

But this is with the tax credit and a very well equipped truck. Rework the numbers of a silverado hybrid versus a less well equipped ecoboost F150, and you realize why the silverado hybrid was a dog in sales.f

People that wanted to save gas and didn't need a truck did find a much better value proposition in the prius Volt owners seem to really like their cars, but the value proposition is not yet there for the masses. Gen II may change that. A second generation of silverado hybrid at a lower price point may also make sense, but $39K is a lot more than a F150. Put it in a regular cab with a long bed and they might have a winner.

 

Unfortunetly, the hybrid Silverado isn't available in a lower equipped configuration. People that need a truck for work might need a larger bed over 4 full doors.

The FWD 2-mode will be going into a Cruze hybrid.

 

The thing is you can get any number you want by tweaking inputs and discount rates. The link you used said 50/50 highway and city, but honestly that is unlikely for average vehicles. Maybe it is more likely for trucks though. I agree on the cost, but you have to compare to the f150 in 2009 as well. The thing is GM sold a lot of sierras and silverados. They sold more than f150 when you combine them. But the trim level is too high.

The interesting thing that Toyota has just barely done is to bring the trim level and base price of the prius family down. They are attempting to do this a tad with the volt (but it is only a small amount).

 

Plain and simple GM built the Volt because the were expected and had to respond to other companies offerings and it shows. When one has to play catch up and do something because of market pressure it is a tough and dangerous position, but i applaud what they tried to do , changing the culture at GM is one hell of a task.

 

When they say "octane" they do not say if its RON, MON, or R+M/2.
Regular is 91 RON (87 R+M/2) so 93 (if RON) is not necessarily premium?

 

Does it seem like PiP is a catchup. I've heard many opinions it is. I wonder what many of the PriusChat folks now think of the Volt now that the PiP is out with the given criteria it has for EV (i.e. If heater=on, then ICE=on) and price. I'm glad the PiP was built and what it does. Large sales of it will validate the Volt even more and demonstrate how difficult of task it was for GM to do and excell at (BEV for 40 miles up to 100 MPH even).

 

I know little about the PiP at this point, but I agree with you here. My perception previously that the plug in prius was "clearly a superior buy" to the Volt is gone. I suspect that many, certainly me, would be inclined to buy a plug in prius if we knew we had a more or less guaranteed EV range. Understanding some caveats like if it's going too fast or under heavy acceleration it turns off, but I live in a cold climate. To watch the ICE kick in constantly on a full charge I'd start to strongly question why I paid so much of a premium. The Volt has shortcomings--the main one price, but except in a very strange circumstance on the highway its EV is 100%, no qualifications.

 

I think this is a silly statement. "Economic sense" is far more than just total cost of ownership per mile. If it were, no new car would make economic sense! Only a used car would ever make "economic sense."

The 2004 Prius made economic sense because it delivered desirable features at a reasonable price.

Maybe the difference in price between the Silverado and the Silverado hybrid was small enough that gas savings would pay for the difference in four years; but that really doesn't mean much. It only means that if you were going to buy a Silverado anyway, you'd be better off buying the hybrid trim line.

There is no non-hybrid Prius, so that sort of comparison is meaningless. The Prius is an excellent car for the money, and in that sense it makes economic sense in the only sense that the term "economic sense" has any real meaning. Any car makes economic sense if it delivers the features you want or need at a price that is both reasonable and competitive. In the mid-2000's, the Prius was the ONLY car that did what it did, AND the price was reasonable.

It made economic sense for anybody that could afford it and wanted those features.

 

What strange circumstance? As long as you have battery, it is 100% EV up to 101mph, even up monster hills (personally tested!).

Are you referring to the hybrid mode? Once you are out of battery it becomes a parallel-series similar to prius HSD, or a series (high power demand or very low speed) hybrid. Some purists complain about the parallel-series nature saying its no longer an EV, but I'm happy to get better efficiency -- I say if the ICE has to run as much as you can reasonably get from it. To me a series hybrid no more-or-less an EV than a parallel-series hybrid.

 

Yep, lost my trust.

 

I wasn't saying you don't get payback if you want that trim of truck, you certainly do. I was saying gen I was not a good selling feature, because it was only available on certain trims. Let's face it many upgrade to ecoboost on the lowest trim levels. MB and BMW dropped out of 2 mode citing costs, and perhaps it is high cost that made GM only put hybrid on these expensive truck, since they could make money on the rest of the truck. People buying a 40K extended cab, may also not like the driving feel of the two mode - but those in lower trims may want it for the fuel savings.

A new generation may drop cost so that they do put it in lower trims. Higher gas prices and cafe standards may make them not bury the extra price on low selling models. I can see a second generation greatly boosting mileage, it did on the TCH and FFH. But maybe gm should follow the lead of its dropped out partners. BMW's activehybrid 5 might be a better arctitecture. A DI turbocharged 6cyl, flywheel electric motor, lithium battery, conventional but tuned for the application transmission. That may be less expensive and an easier sell. Tune the engine and transmission for the truck application and its a big step up in drivability and low end grunt from the silverado's V8 that people might be more willing to pay.

They have been increasing the trim without raising the price much with the prius. The gen III is a big step up from the gen I, but adjusted for inflation much less expensive. This shrinks the hybrid premium. The prius c two does shrink the premium trim a bit and lowers the cost. That higher trim is a bigger part of the percieved hybrid premium.

 

Maybe he is more referring to the other posting where the Euros changed up how the Ampera works in regards to the Volt, where they had the ICE running at demand versus when the car decides. The guy specifically states where they know they are going to be driving free and clear on the freeway, using the 37-38 MPG, then flipping to battery mode in the city where they know they are going to encounter stop and go traffic, therefore reserving the battery for the times they will need it versus having the ICE kick in because they are low on power and need it.

A slightly understandable view for longer range travel, although in some cases, not really an 'efficient' way to do it at times, as one could forget to take advantage of the electrical battery power unless one consciously remembers to flip it.

Or it could be the confusion with the Prius Plugin stuff with the Volt. do not know.

 

Let's just rename the car the Cruze Plug-In parallel hybrid, lower the price to the mid-$20's, and have done with it. There, GM, I fixed it for you.

 

For me it was not just the EV1. It's GM's entire history as a robber-baron company. Their insistance that "What's good for GM is good for the country." Fighting safety and efficiency at every step. Dismantling public transit. Fighting tooth and nail for the "right" to build unsafe, polluting, inefficient cars. Using dishonest advertising to convince Americans to switch to SUVs and finagling regulations to exempt those SUVs from various controls or allow the H2 to qualify for tax exemptions. The list just goes on and on.

GM is a company that would strangle its grandmother for a buck. They are not reliable.

It's worse: They are not even responsible toward their workers or their stockholders. Only their executives benefit, and they make out like bandits. And, sadly, the U.S. Government is too much of a wimp to exercise its shares and make something decent out of the company, as Michael Moore suggested: using the company to build sustainable energy infrastructure and rebuild public transit.

 

You're opening yourself up for John or usbs to list the engine maintenance modes, unusually low temperature mode, etc...

 

Price is unknown, but that is supposedly coming seperate from the Volt.

 

Daniel GM does sell a lot of hybrid buses so there is your public transportation I don't know about the strangling their grandmother bit and all since they were pretty terrible at making profit lately.

 

Chevy Cruze Plug-in Hybrid in the Works? | PluginCars.com

I would say there is no certainty that a plug-in cruze will ever be produced. It could leverage off most of the voltec advances, and provide the first implementation of a gen II plug in hybrid drive train. But IMHO this is really a bad idea, spreading resources thin that could be working on a gen II in a very similar vehicle. Gen II could give a variety of pack sizes all by itself, the only thing a cruze plug in buys you is a lower trim level.

 

I'm sure that EVERY manufacture that has to meet CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards realizes that if you have even one car that gets almost 100mpg(e) - than that'll offset the land barges that only get 15mpg-17mpg. The trick would be to sell enough volume of the mileage champs, as I'm guessing CAFE doesn't let manufacturers get away with only selling a hand full of the mileage champs against a ton of the land barges. Or under CAFE standards, is it just that the manufacturer simply has to offer up a mileage champ ?

 

No CAFE is average fuel economy, so the mileage champs get averaged with the rest of the fleet. Plug-ins do get a bonus, as electricity is counted as 82kwh/gallon in calculating fuel equivalance. I think that puts the leaf at over 300 mpge for cafe purposes. Hyundai is in the best shape here, and gm needs to improve the most if you don't include european luxury vendors. That means they need to sell a lot of volts, cruzes, and sonics in 2015 when the new standards hit. I think hyundai expects to be at the 2015 levels this year.

CARB has more of a penalty for non-Plug-ins, which is why manufacturers are pushing so hard to sell these things in california.