How will the Chevrolet Volt be better than a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid?

Hmm? Money isn't always spent wisely. Look at the proposal of eletron use for fuel-cell vehicles. Converting from electricity to hydrogen to electricity wasn't an efficient choice. And of course, when it comes to churches & drugs, money isn't the only resource.

The point is, the situation cannot be simplified that easy. After all, I was initially confused if the dollars was for fighting against drug dealers or payment to them.

This is why measures like EV range alone aren't enough to deal with such a complex problem.

 

We have smart posters on this thread. Let's treat all of them that way. drinnovation was making a very good point that voting with the wallet is a very powerful way of influencing industry. I certainly did that with three Prius purchases. You have done even more. He did it with both his car buying and electricity purchasing. All of us are making good decisions, just not the same decisions.

It just struck me as unusual to claim that energy purchasing decisions do not influence the utility industry. They do and it makes sense to make that clear.

 

What I finding as a concern about the discussions is the intermixing of past, present, and future. It's extraordinarily difficult to follow when context alters like that... which leads to misunderstanding of intent & scale.

 

Then I recommend you stop bring up the past, as you appear to be, far and away, the dominate poster bring up what they believe was said in the past. A lot has change since 2007/2008 and its mostly water under the bridge.

My purchasing of renewable power is, and will be. Unfortunately, some people here don't consider buying green power as an real option; they seem to mistakenly think that all purchases of electric power is the same.

The Volt is, and will be. The PHV is, and will be. I'd rather focus on what the relative advantages are, for those that don't yet own either.

One of the advantages of both are their ability to displace gas usage with electricity. The Volt just has the ability, for many/most users, to dispace more gas with American generated, and ideally renewable generated, electricity.

 

That's exactly what I mean about intermixing.

 

You find a problem with comparing the cars as they are now? Why is that?

Also what is the problem with someone who buys green energy - either solar panels or wind - applying it to the car they are charging in their garage. Why would we use an old national average? Certainly if someone is building a coal plant to fuel new plug ins we should count that too

 

That's not what I said.

Goodbye.

 

Drug dealers will disappear. The analogy would not work because fossil fuel power plants cannot disappear as long as someone like Dr.I keep recharging at night. He is creating demand for coal electricity (due to time of charge) but also supporting clean electricity.

Voting with your wallet for green electricity works. You'll raise the clean electricity ratio in the grid. I just disagree that you can claim 100% clean.

 

I've provided links to scientific studies on the issue of green power and on the process of tracking it. Maybe in the 90's it was smoke and mirrors, but the new models are verifiable. You should provide citations supporting your view if you want to just disagree" -- you sound like a Oil-supporter.. spouting your opnion but disegarding facts.
Here are a few things to read..
Buy Green Power | Union of Concerned Scientists

Details about purchaing laws/rules in CO:
http://cees.colorado.edu/cep/cep_papers/wind_power_purchasing_in_co.pdf

One of the earlier "government" studies/guides I mentioned:
http://www.scdhec.gov/environment/baq/docs/ModelOrdinances/OtherExamples/EPA-GuideforBuyingandBenefitingFromGreenPower.pdf

Summary/overview that may be easier to follow/review
http://www.corecolorado.org/Resources/Documents/2011_6%20breakfast%20-%20Sumner.pdf



You can disagree all you want, that does not make it true nor does it provide any supporting evidence to convince anyone else. If you were a world's leading expert it might carry weight, but as far as I know you have no credentials in energy production or even in research.

I pay for 100% of my power to be generated by renewables sources (in 100kWh blocks) . I pay the premium to have it generated and it is generated and it is consumed. Of course I don't get the eletrons.. no-one really does, as the AC pluses, they don't go far, its not like water in a pipe. Unlike some providers, my electricity provider is a co-op that can buy power from multiple sources, so its easy to for them to buy renewable vs non-renewable to meet their customers requirements. They have no vested interested in using coal, they just provide what we choose to buy.

So if you disagree that I can claim I'm buying 100% renewable, then either you are saying I am lying (if so say so) or that the co-op from which I buy power is somehow cheating me and the system. If you want to say the power company is cheating, please provide citations showing how this is done, even if its at a different utility so I can help correct your misconceptions. (I won't be surprised if you can find internet sources claiming just about anything.. I'm talking about serious citations, not some oil-lobby propped up site.).

 

What is this topic about now, drug dealers? Are they all driving volts?

DBCassidy

 

Following up on the comment that charging at night I'm using Coal.. I though I'd add this figure
from a good NREL study on how to integrate wind into the grid.

Which shows wind generation (from an Xcell Wind farm) as a function of time of day. It also shows the hourly price.
This data is averaged over time, and as it shows there is MORE wind at night, not less which is why after studying it I decided to go with wind-power for charging. Solar would be more clearly mine, but I'd rather feed the investment in wind which is highly underutilized at night. In 2009 Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo) curtailed 19 MW of Wind-power, i.e. power they could have generated but did not have a sufficient market for it. In 2010 it was 81.5MW.. and that is just ONE wind supplier! Colorado has installed a lot of wind-power and during the day it is well used, but at night there is a lot of excess. Here is a plot of PSCo's wind as a percentage of demand


As you can see there is a lot of variability, as both production and demand vary. However, the fact that they curtailed 81.5Mw in 2010 combined comes from the fact that at certain point is more cost effective to pay the curtailment penalties because they cannot sell enough wind power. The more people that buy it, at in increased price, the more they can sell and hence use. in 2010 Xcell (colorado's largest power and wind provider) paid 3Million to "curtail" wind, that is to turn off and not produce they wind they could. But if customers have green power-requirements they will provide it -- they must meet those green blocks even if they have to buy it from someone else.. so they will want to use their own first wind power rather than pay penalties to turn it off and then buy green power elsewhere.

There are many studies how for wind-power to really be successful they need "storage" at night.. and that is exactly what my Car provides, it stores at night so I can use it during the day.

 

Me too!

 

I have been reading the Volt vs. Prius PHV and am a bit confused. One statement is that the Prius is not good in snow. I have a 2010 Prius IV. It goes fine in snow. Anyone finding differently? Another comment is that at 75 MPH the Prius PHV will only get 40 MPG. My Prius gets over 50 MPG at 75 MPH (fact is, it always gets over 50 MPG). Others tell me their Prii don't do this well. Another statement is that Volt Advantage disappears if electricity costs $0.19/KWh. Well that's what it costs where I live! Volt manual calls for premium fuel and Volt is rated at 37 MPG (after 27-36 miles) while Prius is 51. No contest except for people who never buy gas for the Volt (27 miles/day), never need heat or AC? What's the real story?

 

I'm not sure what is your questions/comment relative to Adaam's original post that started this thread.
But relative to this, I'll comment that the Volt's decision to use a parallel hybrid mode when its running on gas was, in my view, a good one. It allows the car to acheive 40mpg in EPA highway. The GM engineers have said that a pure serial mode would have had 15% lower efficency.

But real point of the Volt is not to be a hybrid, but to be an EV for most daily use. As you can see at voltstats.net, for over 1000 real-world users, covering 7.7 Million miles they are averaging 70.9% EV usage and the result is an overall MPG of 124.56. We don't report on their KWH usage, but using just EPA estimates the MPGe is still better than any hybrid.

 

The real-story is that it depends on the driver's usage. Me I'm oving my Volt! For me a 50mpg hybrid would use > 10 gallons more per month. From 10/29/11 to 4/29/12, I have gone 4119 mi on 8.3 Gallons of Premium + 1163kWh of wind power. With total fuel costs of $99.03 that translates to 491 MPG, 96.62 MPGe, 41.54 MPF$ or $.0240/mi.



Both cars do fine in the snow, if you have decent tiers on them. The stock tires are fair, but snow tires can help a lot.

You have some bad "data" mixed in there, so first let's provide better data.
The Volt is rates at 35miles per charge, not 27-36 and many users get far more than 35, if you want a range use [25-50].
The Volt, on gas, is rated at 40MPG highway and 35 City. The Prius is rated at 48 Highway, 51 City. If you are going more than 35 miles a day, its not too hard to ensure some of them are highway. Real world averages are 36.5 for the Volt on gas, and 124 overall. Real world data on Fuelly is 47.4 for the 2010 Prius. If you can get better than average in the Prius, you'll get better than average in the Volt.

The Volt has an excellent heater and AC. I can easily get 45miles a day in the summer using the AC. The heater does have more of an impact.

The Volt primary advanage is using less gas. If you are focused on lowest cost, keep your existing car. Even if the Volt saves a few cents per mile, it takes a long time to make up the difference if you already own a Prius. if you are buying a new car, there are many factors not just cost saving. What is the cost savings of leather seats? A better stereo? a NaV system?

If you do want to analyze costs, the Volt cost advantage/disadvantage would depend very much on your diving patterns. If you can describe them I can analyze them for you. There are definitely scenarios that a Prius or Plug-in prius, or Prius C, will be a more cost effective solution. Even more where a used 2008 Prius or Civic will be more cost effective. So decribe a normal week of usage, plus how many long distance trips and total miles and I'll see if I can analysze it for you.

 

A longer car means more Area in the aerodinamic drag force. Along with the height, I would presume Cd.A may be higher than Volt.
0-60 similar times is deceiving to this subject, because HSD cannot drive both ICE and MG1/MG2 to maximum power until some speed. Some may ask why the maximum speed (100mph) of the Volt is lower than HS max.speed.

The reasons for HS250 getting less MPG_CS may rely much on the ICE operating window. Even running Atkinson cycle, its operating BSFC (2.4 liter displacement) may be a bit low on a EPA highway roll test.

Prius hatchback give better MPG when compared to a Prius c. If compared to ANY Prius, Volt gives a ridiculous MPG_CS. Anyone can see that.

By the way, we have read that Mountain Mode gives a bit better FE, isn't that because or better BSFC area of operation? Atkinson gives THAT good BSFC area or better over a larger area. HSD gearing is similar (copied? LOL) by 4ET50, except for the 3 clutches.

Insisting Atkinson+HSD would not give better results is ridiculous.

 

Second source is outdated material. First an third source is not impressive at all. First source does not say any suppliers are at 100% renewable generating capacity - rather a fraction of %.

It is a power distribution grid with built in systems of redundancies. Heres a situation: when the wind dies down or no wind, what do you do for power?. A redundant system will always have a backup plan. To do otherwise is a foolish decision.

DBCassidy

 

No, a longer car impacts the Coefficient of Drag (the Cd term) (though longer can be better if it provides better curves). The area is the frontal area, of the vehicle, which is why I quoted height and width.

The volt is limited at 100mph because they chose to make that the limit. It can still be accelerating, even up hill, when it hits the electronic limit.

There are many reasons, and not operating at optimal BSFC is one of them. Then again the Volt is only using a 1.4L so its BSFC, even if using Atkinson, its not clear it would improve. The Gen I prius, with Atkison and HSD only got 41MPG on the highway.

Here is a BSFC for the Gen1 1.5L prius Atkinson


And for the 1.4L in the volt



As you can see the sweet spot is in a different location and smaller, but the BSFC difference is small. The Volt gets down to about 232, while the Gen1 Prius reached 228 with a slightly larger engine. So maybe with Atkinson and a 1.5L engine they could reach 228, a 1-2% improvement.

Yep the Volt gets less.. 40 MPG highway compared to 48MPG highway. 35MPG city vs 51MPG city. The big difference is the City, here the volts added mass means it has to work harder on each restart and since regen only partial, it looses more in the city than the prius.

Actually the design of an epicyclic gearbox is much older than the prius , going back to the 70's. Prius copied it from a TRW hybrid design. And there are many other differences beyond the clutches.. as what is attached where is also quite different.

I did not insist it would not, I said it was not clear it would yield enough gain to justify the costs. Since the Volt uses the ICE infrequently, any gain in the ICE is overall a small gain. Sticking with just enough ICE to get by, and using an existing proven deisgn, was a reasonable engineering decision. The only people to whom a 50mpg ICE would really be more efficient are those driving way too much every day (e.g. 200mile if using highway). There are a few for which that is a necessity, but GM was aiming at a particular market segment, and for them the efficiency is much better.

Given real-world usage volts are averaging an estimated 124MPG and 63.3MPGe (voltstats.net) (and recent more controlled study of real-world EV efficency have the Volt at 139MPG and 293wh/mile, for 63.3 MPGe). Comparing 63.3 MPGe to any Atkinson/HSD system, and I think GM's overall tradeoffs are well justified. To argue otherwise is ridiculous.