GM: Volt reaches 2 million miles, 1.3 million of them gas-free

Now imagine what could be done had they made the car affordable. The amount of fuel saved would be much higher in a more affordable gasoline hybrid due to the larger number of vehicles sold.

 

While true that they could have done better, I certainly won't dismiss 'good' because it isn't 'perfect'.
If it is easy for others to make better cars, then GM will once again loose market share.
I applaud them for creating a car that uses that little amount of fuel. And hope it spurs competition with other auto makers to improve on the Volt.

 

With the rate at which Cruze is selling, Volt faces quite a challenge within GM's own product line. The price difference is way too much.
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IIRC petrol economy is 37 mpg, so ..

(2/.7)37 = 105 MPG, or on average about half the petrol consumption of a Prius. Toyota sells about 40,000 Prius a month worldwide; when GM is selling 20,000 Volts a month it will be having similar impact in reducing oil consumption, but will pollute more in terms of CO2, NOx, Sox and CO.

Currently GM sells about 500 Volts a month.

<<<<< yawn >>>>

 

Yet a Prius + PHEV Conversion kit costs less and is more efficient all the way round... Once the official PHEV comes out, game over.

 

I hope so too. Not just because so much tax payer money was spent on it but because the Volt is a cool car and is an alternative type of plug in hybrid. I may bad mouth them sometimes but it is directed at the company more than the vehicle. GM is just a terrible company.

 

Not at all clear. 2 million miles on 2500 Volts for an average of 3 months (?), is around 9 miles per day. A 13 mile EV range Prius plug-in might well do the same. More data needed, please.

 

The Volts are averaging 100 MPG. I expect Prius PHV to average 70 - 80 MPG. Few people are going to pay $5k more to go from 80 to 100 MPG. It would be equivalent to paying $5k to go from a 25 mpg car to a 26.67 mpg car*. Didn't GM already try that with the Malibu hybrid ?



-------
Volt 0.01 gallons per mile
Prius phv 0.0125 gallons per mile
Savings: 0.0025 gallons per mile

25 mpg = .04 gallons per mile
25 mpg car improved by the Prius-Volt-delta: .04 - 0.0025 = 0.0375 GPM = 26.67 mpg

 

They may use very little gasoline but they sure used a lot of electricity. Don't you consider electricity as fuel?

Notice the lack of data on how many kWh of electricity they used. Primary fuel (electrons) was ignored but the secondary fuel (gas) was mentioned. There is no information about emission. How many ton of CO2 was saved. Did Greenhouse gas emission actually increased?

We need those information to assess the greeness. Without them, it simply sound like a political statement (ability to run on domestic vs. foreign fuel).

 

We are talking averages here, so according to this thread Greenhouse gas emission actually increased (by about 14%) as compared to those miles if were driven by Gen3 Prius!
Based on US average grid GHG emission of 630 gCO2eq/kWh including fuels upstream emission.

 

Wow, I forgot about that thread. Thanks for linking to that discussion. If I may post the graph that SageBush converted to picture format...

 

The promotion of Volt conveniently leaves out vital information.

Emissions (greenhouse & smog) along with electricity used are a big deal.
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Measured at the wall, how many miles does the Volt get per kWh when running electric? I presume some Volt owner has a kill-a-watt meter.

(Both my Xebra and my Tesla get about 3 miles per kWh. The Tesla is much heavier and uses some energy to cool the batteries, but its motor is more efficient, so the two about balance each other out.)

The Volt has the advantage of being both a low-range EV and a gas car usable for road trips. But its usefulness as an EV is severely limited by its low range. The Leaf goes 2 1/2 times as far and the Tesla goes 6 times as far. And for road trips, the Volt fails on every measure compared to the Prius, which is larger, uses less gas, and pollutes much less. It remains to be seen if production numbers on the Volt will ever compare with production numbers for either the Prius or the Leaf. Nissan has committed to large scale production of the Leaf by building the plant in Smyrna. For the Volt, we only have GM's word of future production plans, and GM's word is worth less than a wooden nickel.

 

USB - thanks for posting the picture. Increase compared to Prius is even more, 14% and not 9% (corrected already). I was in a hurry when posting so estimated by the look on the graph. Now, going back to the formulae it is 252 g/mile for the 66% EV Volt versus 222 g/mile for the Prius.

 

Just as Toyota conveniently leaves out vital information - like how many people were killed trying to "secure" the oil it needs.

 

hey - that's usually my line . It'd be interesting to see the data on the percentage of Volt owners who have grid tied PV solar systems at home. It may be a high per centage by the mear fact that (like the Leaf) since the Volt costs more than most people can afford ... and solar costs more than most can afford ... ya never know.

It's re-assuring that there are still folks that can afford that high (as others mentioned) a price during our economic crisis times.

And if the lion's share ARE using renewables to recharge ... then the data REALLY is good news. The 1.3 million miles made me realize, "HEY ... since the Leaf is outselling Volts about 3 to 1 ... calculate out the number of months in production ... average the low volume 1st months with the thousands sold over the last months ... multiply by an average 1,000 pure EV miles a month ...

Wow !! Leafs have likely put out somewhere between 9 million - 10 milion gas free miles! But of course I wouldn't want to take away from the Volt's shining spotlight here ... so, yes- good job GM.