Volt 2.0: Ruess "It will leap-frog... the competition"

Congratulation your engagement.

Average Annual Miles per Driver by Age Group
Average male driver is 16550, female driver 10,142

I had expected male phev drivers to skew lower, but the male volt drivers don't appear to do that skew. We learned about that in the first year. More recently we learned that many charge more than once per day. Male leaf drivers do skew leaf driving much lower than average, but we don't know if they are driving other cars, or simply drive fewer miles. I drive my prius about 12,000 miles a year, but fly for work, and probably put at least 3000 miles on other vehicles.

This is the best detailed recent data, but vmt per driver has decreased slightly since that was done.
http://nhts.ornl.gov/2009/pub/stt.pdf

I think its more important that the car is the appropriate one for the driver, and the prius phv seems to be the appropriate one for you.

 

<<shrug>>I'm a simple guy.
If I have a choice of fuels and I choose electricity, I chalk that up to marginal use.

If I conserve a kWh the drop is at the margin. Whether I am reducing wind/NG/PV/Coal etc depends on the TOU and my region.
Large numbers of any new device or negawatts will be subsumed into baseload in the current utility structure -- that is simply current economics of grid power in the US today. It is also, incidentally, why I plan to leave the grid as soon as off-grid reaches grid price parity.

If the Volt fleet matched your figures we would not be having this discussion.

Jeff,
I decided to recheck my memory of the US national fossil fuel grid efficiency average. This link has 2012 data, and reports 'net' electricity generation*.

NG: 39.4%
Coal:31.6%

Coal still predominates over NG about 6:5 in 2012, but if we say the fuels are used in equal amounts (since the trend is certainly that way), the fossil fuel average plant efficiency for these two fuels is (39.4+31.6)/2 = 35.5%. Take off 7% for transmission losses to the home and the thermal efficiency to the wall is 33.01%

*
Here are the calcs, using the table data:
NG efficiency calc
1,225,894 thousand MWh
= 1.225 * 10^12 kWh

Using
10,370,812 1000 mcf
10,370,812 10,000 ccf
1 ccf = 1 therm = 30 kWh
So, 10.370 * 10^6 * 10^4 therms
= 3.11 *10^12 kWh
Eff = 1.225/3.11 = 0.394

Coal
Use 845,066 1000 tons
E =1,514,043 * 10^6 kWh

5666.82 kWh per ton,
So use is 8.45 *10^5 *10^3 * 5.666 * 10^3 kWh
= 4.78777 * 10^12 kWh
Eff = 1.514/4.787 = 0.316

 

Efficiency measure a moot issue anyway. GM cannot sell a vehicle not making a profit and dependent on tax-credits forever, hence this discussion about Gen-2. Toyota is in a far better position to compete with the true competition: traditional vehicles. Whether or not GM will be able to substantially narrow that gap is the question. Getting crushed by their own production isn't a good situation. We see how Cruze, Malibu, and Impala sales dominate. Then when you look at the popularity of Equinox sales, reality sets in. Volt is just a tiny player on that very large game field.

Sadly, GM considers the "competition" other plug-in offerings from other automakers. The recent confirmation of that in the article published at the start of this thread should serve as a red-flag for people, a warning that the executives are heading down a wrong path, again. They are about to repeat mistakes if they continue to ignore their own production.

Ironically, GM is its own worst enemy. They keep spinning an "every is fine" message. How is that helpful? A teacher certainly wouldn't say that to a student when there is an opportunity for improvement.

 

^^ To recap:

1. Marginal electricity use is from fossil fuels -- coal and NG
2. Average thermo efficiency across the US for these two fuels in equal measure is 33% to the wall
3. Fuel mix varies from pure NG to pure Coal. If the carbon intensity of coal is 1x, then NG is 0.47x and oil is (IIRC) 0.84x

So now let's calculate the Volt carbon intensity per 100 miles Vs the
Prius' 2 gallons of petrol = 2*0.84 + 1.68 gallons(carbon)


Volt on-star: 100 miles consumes one gallon petrol and 22 kWh electricity from the wall, equal to 66 kwh at the plant.

If the grid supply is pure NG,
Gallons(carbon) = 0.84 + (66/34)*0.47 = 0.84 + 0.91 = 1.75

If the grid supply is 50/50 coal/NG,
Carbon intensity of the electricity is 1.47/2 = 0.735x
Gallons(carbon) = 0.84 +(66/34)*.735 = 2.27

If the grid supply is pure coal
Gallons(carbon) = 0.84 + (66/34) = 2.78

And if we were interested in Volt efficiency, we could imagine oil use at the power plant:
Gallons(carbon) = 0.84 + (66/34)*0.84 = 2.47

So when we say the efficiency of the Volt stinks, it is based on energy consumption of 2.47x vs 1.68x for the Prius. That works out to 47% more energy use per mile. If the Prius is 50 MPG(energy), the Volt is 34 MPG(energy). It is not coincidence that the Volt drivetrain has ~ similar (lousy) efficiency whether running on electrons or hydrocarbons.

I understand your point, but GM is not making the Volt to take away Equinox sales (their preference, not mine.) They want to compete in the 'alternative fuel' market, and in the 'advanced technology company' market. If they want to compete at all, that is. Personally I think the Volt is a lame duck that gets killed three moments Obama leaves the Oval office.*

GM collected it's bail-out. Now the Volt death-watch is on.

*Why three moments and not immediately ? GM is the king of far-fetched deniability. Get your arguments ready, folks: Did GM kill the Volt because they could (no more Obama) or because the nation was not ready for it ? All two dozen people who will still care will never agree ...

 

With gas currently $2.89 per gallon here and nothing pointing to higher prices in the next few years due to increasing supply, expectations of a vehicle like Volt to compete in the mainstream without state & federal assistance is totally unrealistic. How some continue to evade acknowledgement of the situation is remarkable, but not as much as GM still not having a plan "B" to fall back on.

Toyota has a popular profitable platform to leverage from. Offering the plug as a package choice is a great business move... so much so, we see other automakers following similar paths. It reduces risk significantly and provides the opportunity to exploit as the market shifts, by just adjusting production levels.

What in the world will GM do? At some point, something will fall apart that won't be repaired with a clever press release. Think about how much the 30 million recalls will affect the bottom line. How much will they have to invest in keeping their vehicles competitive?

The reveal of Gen-2 in January will certainly be interesting.

 

Obvious: GM will abandon electrification unless carbon taxation makes it a marketable car.
And so will every other manufacturer except *maybe* Tesla, but as you know they are not playing in the mainstream. Toyota rather bluntly pointed out recently that *EVs cannot compete on car lot price anytime in the for seeable future. What's new ?

 

The car called "Volt" revealed in early 2007 never even made it to market. What got rolled out in late 2010 was significantly different.

It's better to focus on goals/milestones for this reason instead.

What are they?

 

and use 8 kWh. And of course GM never bothered to correct the fanbois certain that the 8 kWh was from the wall.

Sorry if it looks like a mess. The calc is simple division of data taken from the table, once the units are the same.

I don't see why. The heat released from a kg of natural gas is not that much more than the heat released from a kg of petrol or a kg of the carbon fraction of coal. This pretty much follows from their similar chemistry.

Energy density - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

One of the problems with GM has been the vagueness of the information they provide. It contributes heavily to the hype.

The "40 mile" promise was construed to be an all-condition goal. When some of us questioned that, pointing out heater consumption during the winter, we were met with hostile responses and labeled as Prius trolls, anti-GM, and Volt haters.

They went to great lengths to dismiss real-world data too. It was ugly and grew worse over time.

The biggest point of issue though was meeting the "nicely under $30,000" promise. It was a goal none of us with any sense could take seriously, especially with it having been made prior to any tax-credit. Then when the price was finally revealed, things hit the fan.

What should GM be aiming for now?

 

I used to read the big GM Volt forum. The majority were sure they paid for 8 kWh and drove 40 miles.

To stay on topic of distance from concept to actual car, the on-star fleet data also lets us estimate miles/Kwh: I'll presume that the Volt petrol use approximates the EPA of 37 MPG, which then leaves 63 miles on 22 kWh which gives 2.86 miles/Kwh. GM over-hyped by 75%

That result is 350 Wh/mile, which incidentally is darn close to EPA. The only caveat here worth mentioning is that the majority (I think) of Volt miles are in temperate California. Put a fleet of Volts in a 4 season climate and I bet that Wh/mile number climbs. Not quite what GM promised.

 

Give it 5 seats and reduce the price and they'll have a cracking car.

As it is it's just an expensive curio passed over by people who'll buy the Outland PHEV or the i3.

 

Jeff,
I used the Google 'memory machine' to check my assertion, and found this blog post from Lyle in 2010:
Chevrolet Volt Uses More than 8 kwh of Stored Battery Energy to Achieve EV Range

So I retract my earlier statement of 8 kWh from the wall being common consensus.

But to the point of just how far off GM was from reality, enjoy this tidbit in the same post

This is just a couple months from launch IIRC. Now, you might say the statement is correct for the day, when GM only intended to put 8 kWh (or 8.8 kWh) into the battery for use, and if we calculate based on 13% charging losses, we get 8.8/0.87 = 10.1 kWh. Fair enough if we ignore the "upper bound" nonsense, until we remember the context: kwh to drive 40 miles on average. Using the on-star data of 350 Wh/mile, the 10.1 kWh gives 28.9 EV miles.

Bottom line, executive summary:
Real world, fleet average EV miles/kWh is 72% of GM marketing promises.

Somewhat off-tangent, I have been curious for a while about the efficiency of centralized NG power plants operating in California.
This link
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2013publications/CEC-200-2013-002/CEC-200-2013-002.pdf
shows an average of 44%, about 10% better than the US average.

And to add to the California picture,
Total Electricity System Power
has a nice table showing the source grid mix in 2013. About a third CA energy is still imported.

 

I'll respond to the Toyota charge once; if you want to pursue the discussion a new thread would be appropriate.
I remember that period pretty well; it ended with a poll (!) asking PC members to guess what the eventual EV range for the PiP would be. To my long-standing chagrin the only person who nailed it was AustinGreen (AG) of AGW denialist infamy. So, the first difference was that we all knew we were confused. Toyota had not published nominal battery capacity or usable SOC range. All that had been said was something along the lines of "14 miles in EV."

In retrospect, Toyota was saying "14 miles in CD mode." Since the PiP uses petrol in CD mode in the EPA tests, the ALL electric range is less. AG was the only person who correctly surmised that 'EV mode' for the PiP included ICE use.

• Did Toyota confuse the picture ? I say yes
• Did Toyota try to clear up the confusion ? I say no
• Did Toyota pull a GM, in the sense of promising 230 Wh/mile electric efficiency (back calculated from the battery statements) and delivering 350 Wh/mile ? Hell no

 

In your neck of the woods, maybe.
The i3 here is $10 grand more, and the Outlander has yet to arrive.