GM: Yes, the Volt's gas engine can power the wheels

i test drove the Volt. was in charge sustaining mode the whole way and even with brisk acceleration merging on to freeway, it did not seem to change the SOC but only slightly. guessing that only in extreme conditions like hill climbing would we see any motor contribution.

hard to make a real judgement though as the test drive was painfully short and the option to just look around even shorter.

they did not have a car that we could look over, so my only chance was to look at the car in brief glimpses

they had a line of people for the test drive out on the highway, but also had 2 cars that you could take out in the parking lot thru a cone field. this was a much more informal setup so had a chance to look at the cars for a bit between driver changes.

on my impressions; car drove very solid attributed to the low center of gravity, but the inside, displays, etc. reminded me of a over zealous decorator at Halloween. the overly busy full color displays were a bit to behold.

another thing that i "had" a pic of was the center console. the amount of buttons was amazing. unfortunately, i did not have much time to study what they did other than the basics for climate control, stereo, etc. but so many of the buttons were down low on the center between the front seats which seemed to eliminate the area where storage would be.

other than that; was umm, to put it bluntly, shocked at the size of the car. its much smaller than the Prius, the backseat would be a tight fit for an adult. the trunk space is not bad, but the under floor setup was strange. the jumper access to the 12 volt battery instead of being off to the side like the Prius, it was in the middle which only allowed smaller storage areas on both sides instead of a large on like the Prius had.

it also had cubby holes on the side like the Prius above the floor that were empty and a large part of the under storage that had the extension cord which means that if you were packed for a trip and left the cord there, you would have to unpack the entire back to access the cord.

 

I am not sure. Series hybrids are good for big trucks and buses but not for cars.

 

It has 3 additional clutches, not shown in that pic. Car and Driver said the acceleration between 50-60 mph lags due to shifting gears (clutch engage/disengage).

 

The similarities are probably that thing that drove the lawyers to get PR to continuously claim that the volt software wouldn't have the ice driving the wheels. Lawyers must have changed their minds. The GM approach seems superior for a PHEV drive train. I wonder if Toyota and/or Ford will use it on their PHEV's. The rumor is the focus phev will have a 30 mile EV range, and that toyota might increase the EV capacity of the PHV prius to compete with the volt and phev focus. Here is motor trends take.

Drop in a more efficient and more powerful engine and mpgs increase and acceleration times decrease. It is promising for the gen II volt. It could also go simpler and get the main motor to provide better acceleration at high speed allowing designers to build a true series PHEV.

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It should be interesting to see exactly what appears in dealer showrooms. I wonder if GM will continue to change it even after they start selling them . The first 53 could be series hybrids, the next 47 could have some direct engine connect. The next 23 could have ____ . The next 167 could implement a ........

Not sure if you saw this, but I asked a GM employee at the autoshow a few days ago when the Volt will be in dealers and here's the response I got: http://priuschat.com/forums/chevrol...lt-its-october-1st-no-sign-4.html#post1195328

 

Rybold the difference is all in software, so you could buy a direct engine connect, then the dealer changes the software on the car and the engine doesn't drive the wheels. I assume it has more to do with the lawyers then the engineers right now.

 

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Despite the media calling what GM did a "bait and switch" and the fact that GM has been lying to us, I think GM may actually be onto something here. At speeds over 70mph, an electric motor consumes A LOT of energy. An engine can operate at low rpm and high torque at speeds over 70mph. I think GM might be onto something here. The cars of the future could be fully electric under 70mph, and gas engines above 70mph.

 

Yeah, DaveinOlyWA was assigned the Tacoma, WA location and according to the reps, they obviously had a different course than the Lynnwood venue, the next due. We also didn't have any cars to look over (which is part of why I rode along twice, after driving once).

There were 4 cars, all being sent out. Occasionally (and at the end of the event), they'd pop the hood and trunk for people to look.

Since there was a line and they were behind schedule, I didn't want to hold things up my taking my time to look around when it was my turn.

My rep commented that the Lynnwood course was much better. It was pretty long... I'm guessing 5-10 mins, I should've kept track. There was no highway driving nor closed cone parking lot course but there was some opportunity to punch it. IIRC, it I got up to to 52 mph, at one point.

 

Car and Driver got 35mpg average in charge sustaining mode and Popular Mechanics got 31mpg in the city and 36mpg on the highway...

According to Car and Driver, if you dont plan right, in charge sustain mode car will become significantly slower and enter "limp" mode where speed is significantly reduced and you cant go up the hill more than 40mph...

... Prius PHEV anyone? )).

Only GM can fail this hard. $41k.

 

Maybe thats why Prius PHEV uses gas engine over 65mph? While Volt has to pretend it is EV so no gas engine until all electricity is spent.

 

If what C&D (?) discovered is true (not turning on mountain mode ahead of time), it's not terribly surprising given its underpowered ICE + high curb weight (have seen figures of somewhere between 3200 to 3900 lbs., not sure who is right).

http://media.gm.com/content/dam/Med...t_launch/10_Chevrolet_Volt_Specifications.doc says TBD yet an old release at A New GM Kicks Into High Gear at Product and Technology Event says 3798 lbs.

I put a ? after C & D since 2011 Chevrolet Volt Performance - Motor Trend is the one that says

One thing that's funny about this whole revelation is that, intentionally or not, it's got people talking. Maybe that's what they wanted.
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Er... Prius PHEV top EV speed is 65 MPH
vs Volt's PHEV top EV speed is 70 MPH. But you have to pay $15,000 extra for the Volt. I think GM has doomed the Volt unless they drop the price by ~$10,000.

 

Volt's top EV speed is 101 mph. Using the engine to mechanically assist the wheels apparently only occurs in charge sustaining mode (ie after the EV mode is up). I was as misled about this as everyone else.

 

Lots of gears & clutches . . . so the ol' GM philosophy remains in tact, that if you got a lot of junk to fix ... you got a lot of money comming in to keep it running. Gotta think about the service bay ya know.

 

so what did you think of the car?

i actually got up to 60 mph. we did do a merge onto hiway 18 (not much speed there; too much traffic. but then back to I-5 and then off at the 38th St exit which is only a half mile away so i took that opportunity to check acceleration and cornering )

as for me it simply does not fit. its really the antithesis of what i need. i use the Leaf for in town stuff and it seats 5 so i am fine there. no luggage requirements. i use the Prius for out of town. the Volt is smaller and after that Disney trip. the one thing i learned was i cannot go smaller for my "out of town" car. The Prius was barely adequate and my son is only 3. granted as he gets older, a smaller car seat would save some space, but he will be bigger so it will pretty much eliminate that advantage.

 

Guess I'm different from the other posters, but I don't give a tinker's d*** about what turns what in the Volt's drive train.

First, I'm glad to see GM go down a more energy-efficient path that it has before. One can split hairs, but it's my understanding that GM couldn't have gotten the combined mpg ratings and driving range of the Volt from any feasible conventional drive train.

Second, GM's investment in the Volt's platform and drive mechanisms will almost certainly spawn other vehicles which are more energy efficient than they'd be otherwise.

Third, I doubt GM is the first auto-company to give pre-introduction hype or claims which the car upon release doesn't match.

Fourth, the car is likely to bring energy-efficiency to people who wouldn't drive a car without a luxury division/company's badge, even though the car itself has deficiencies in rear seat room etc. They
will be people who can afford a Volt --- and who wouldn't drive a Prius, Insight, Leaf, etc. [Yes, the Prius was a status symbol for a while, with Hollywood stars & others driving them. Wonder how many of them still are driving the Prius etc.]

The heck with GM's PR people. The heck with the auto magazines. Etc. I don't care what turns what in the Volt's drive train. It's some kind of step in the right direction -- putting a lot more engineering into a vehicle's mpg than they ever did before for the up-scale market. And those buyers won't instead be buying the luxury-badged car with 22 combined mpg or whatever.

 

Didn't GM accept millions of dollars in government grants to assist in developing a long range electric car??? If so, they would have had to initially tell everybody that the Volt was an "electric car". People in the government have such short memory, that I'm guessing that GM will not have to give the money back.

Keith

 

It is good that other auto makers are going the efficient route. It only took them a decade of failure hoping people will love giant SUVs again to realize the times were changing. The efficiency of the Volt is less than it could be. Easiest solution, change the engine to an Atkinson like the Prius. Why not? Because then they would need to have a whole new assembly line to make efficient engines, whereas now they can just take a generic "off the shelf" engine they already use in other vehicles. It costs less, is less of a commitment, and is a gas hog. Something tells me if you gave any Japanese or German or even dare I say French automaker a drive-train-less Volt with all the fixin's and said "make it go" they would all come up with solutions more advanced and more efficient then what was slapped together.

Did the Honda Insight I, and Prius in general not do this? The Volt is a spawn. And when something that is evolving mutates into a lesser species, it dies off. The Prius is the fish that grew legs, whereas the Volt is the child of that same leg-fish-thing that the legs dont quite work correctly. It can sort of swim, it can sort of walk, but really it just lies in the sand and waits for the tide to sweep it out to death.

True. But the initial figures were just blatent lies. I can just imagine the engineers cringing behind the scenes as the PR people misunderstood the test data and published it to an awaiting crowd. It is like saying my Hummer uses no gas. Well yeah it is true if you don't drive it, but do you really want a giant yellow lawn ornament?

This is the main problem I have... In what fantasy world is GM a luxury auto brand? Nobody in their right minds buys a base GM for luxury. Cadillac, sure but that is only because they haven driven true luxury from our German, Japanese, and Italian friends. It is like saying luxury shoppers will enjoy going to Target instead of Walmart, because Target is true luxury. I suppose if you have never been inside a Sax or a slightly clean public restroom, both of those stores will sound luxurious. But those with money will not buy a Volt except for the reasons why Hollywood bought the prius. However, now with the Lexus hybrids, Mercedes Hybrids, Porsche hybrids, GM has missed that opportunity.

 

When you read the motor trend article, that is exactly what the volt does. It is only after the battery is bellow a certain level that the engine kicks in. Porsche in their PHV has a sport mode where the car uses both sources, and an EV mode like the volt.

Top speed for the volt in ev is over 100, you just can't drive all that far at 100 before the battery depletes. 3 year lease price for the volt and leaf are both around $350/month. The phv prius won't be available for a couple of years so we won't know how much payments will be on that. I wouldn't buy either of these cars outright since something better and/or cheaper can definitely come along fairly soon and cause rapid depreciation.

From how I'm reading the drive train, it appears that the traction motor (MG2) needs assist at higher speeds. Two clutches are used to either lock it at normal speeds (<70 possibly), or use it in a psd configuration with the generator (MG1) which lowers traction motor speed. Tesla originally had a two speed transmission then put a motor in that could drive it with a 1 speed. I wonder if the Leaf has a better motor choice, or if it's performance takes a hit at some normal highway speed.

With the generator needed to drive the wheels, a third clutch is needed to disconect the engine so the motors don't need to lug it in ev mode. The question is will the Gen II specify a better motor and more appropriate engine and remove the clutches? Or will it try to refine the system and improve the blended modes?