GM wants a 230MPG rating from the EPA

Nice!.. I just got 59mpg on my new Prius this morning on my one hour commute in to work!....
My Air was set to 78, and outside ambient air temp was about 83 F.

Not bad for a "non-plugin" car that only has 100 miles on the engine!

That was "true" gas mileage, not confused with added plugin shorepower!

Lets see the Volt to do that! :rockon:

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: a responsible Prius owner is one who ensures his Prius is "fixed"

Otherwise, the things breed like bunny rabbits

 

Hope you don't mind if I borrow steal a little bit of your genius... I may become famous you know!

------------ Edit.. I just did.. note my name above my avatar!....

 

Probably been said before, but these specs needed for a PHEV, EREV ...

1) Electric range on charged battery

2) City/Hwy fuel economy after all-electric range.

 

Like this one?

 

Thats just wrong!

Modern Day Woodstock!

 

Well, they have to "hump responsibly".

 

I naturally had to check out the website featured on the Prius. I'm thinking the Personal Touch Massager would make an excellent xmas gift

Just don't get the mailing labels mixed up

Grandma: What's a Personal Touch Massager?
Girlfriend: Why did you give me this Extra Large bottle of Metamucil?

 

I have to disagree with your premise that there is ONLY one way to provide a true comparison. Miles per gallon, or miles per unit of fuel consumption, is a rate measurement. For example, you could be measuring vehicle speed (i.e. mph) or computing speed and what number you get depends on a lot of factors. I think we could all agree that a car that can max out at 75 mph, but for only a few minutes, isn't of much use. So there needs to be a "fair" test that includes some time duration. And with computers there are many, many benchmarks for different computing tasks.

For mpg (or mpg equivalent) the question is what is a fair duration for the test, in terms of miles traveled. There is not one answer. Some might say that it is how far they go in a day. Or the maximum distance they ever go in a day. What about how far you and another driver can go continuously for a week? Just like with computing benchmarks what is a "fair" test depends on your application. But I highly doubt that using only 1 gallon or that you must travel 230 miles fits everyone's criteria.

For example, what if you owned a pizza delivery service and you know that your drivers typically go 45 miles per day, but sometimes as low as 30 and sometimes as high as 60. If you wanted to be accurate, you'd probably collect data into a histogram, then calculate your MPGe for each column and average it.

The problem in doing this for the EPA and the Volt is that consumers all have histograms of miles-per-day with different shapes. Thus you are going to get "answers" that vary from close to gasoline-only numbers to electric-only (in MPGe).

3PriusMike

 

Nevertheless, claiming 230 MPG is asinine! Remember all the hoopla about the Prius not delivering on MPG. Can you imagine the outcry when someone gets 50 MPG when Chevy is claiming 230?

 

Why would you call motorcycles unsafe? At least they can get out of the way! And there is no way you can compare the pre-90s cars to a tin can!

 

Completely agreed.

I think that the 230 mpg number is based on gasoline used for a given distance when a full battery charge was used plus some small amount of gasoline. Obvisouly this makes no sense.

From all I've read, the Volt probably gets about 50 mpg when on gasoline only (after the battery is down to 30% or so) and it gets about 100 MPGe when considering only electric usage, where the 100 is based on an equivalency of about 33.7 kw-hrs per gallon of gasoline (1 gal gas = 115,000 BTUs and 33.7 kw-hr = 115,000 BTUs).

IMO, the window sticker should provide both these numbers for city and highway and leave it at that. Because trying to construct a usage per day on each will need to assume to many details about an individual's driving.

3PriusMike

 

By definition.... plugin ratings are all deceptive unless you start using MPGE.

MPG... simply means Miles per Gallon... if a horse is pulling you, or 5 of your friends are pushing you, or an electric motor that is running off a battery thats charged all night and is propelling you, that has nothing to do with, and is a completely different issue than "how many miles you got from each gallon of gas".

Any company that exploits deceptive verbiage cannot be trusted for anything else either. Especially when its exploited to the 10th degree.

To make it simple:
The Volt is merely an electric car.. no more no less, and when the electricity runs out, it uses gas to recharge the battery so it can again run off of the electricity.

All electric cars and motors use electricity made from fuel, wind or some other source... so do we rate them based on that wind, fuel, or the other source that charges back the electricity or do we rate them on how many KW it uses per mile, regardless of where the electricity came from?

There are no standards of measurement yet.. so like everything else from wattage ratings of cheap car amplifiers to candlepower of searchlights, it gets exploited, hyped and exaggerated because there no one to say "your wrong".

 

From what I understand, the Volt does not use the on-board generator to recharge the battery. It only produces current for the electric motor.

 

Humm.... If thats true, the burst amperage the motor can draw will be dependent upon what the generator can produce at a given instance once the battery is depleted?

Is the Gas engine going to rev up and down to meet demand?

Once the battery is dead.. your running off the ICE completely?

That would be an extremely poor design and the battery would "never" get charged unless you plugged it in or the occasional regen of braking and coasting...

Surely you must either be mistaken or they have it rigged so it supplies amperage in a parallel circuit "with" the battery.. so the gas ICE combined amperage with the battery together gives total juice to the electric motor and also charges the battery at the same time its supplying power to the wheels. Even then, your still up up a creek when the battery dies.

There almost "has" to be the battery inline somehow to act as a buffer to give full power in moments when needed, but yet only a trickle when needed... like sitting at a light or coasting.

If what you say is true, they really do have a stone-age hybrid with haughty claims of grandeur.

But beware... if the ICE supplies power directly to the wheels.. its not an "electric" car and becomes a "hybrid".. the same class the prius is in and so would not qualify for the government rebate that only electric cars get.

 

No. The battery will act as a buffer.

Most likely.

No. The battery will act as a buffer.

That's essentially what happens once you go into charge sustaining mode.

No.

Yes, the battery is inline with the generator. Hence the term "series hybrid".

I believe you are very confused. Per's misleading statement doesn't help, either.

A correct statement would be "The generator is used to maintain charge levels of the battery once the battery has been 'depleted' and the car is running in charge-sustaining mode. Depleted meaning that the charge level has fallen below some minimum level."

 

Exactly.. meaning the car runs off the battery and the ICE maintains charge on that battery.

The previous poster implied the ICE was directly tied to the electric motor bypassing the battery.. "unless I misunderstood".

The term "series hybrid" is misleading unless both the ICE and the battery run the car as the term "hybrid" means two into one "which by the way would disqualify it for being an electric car and receiving government tax credits if that were true.

Otherwise, its an electric car, with battery being maintained by a generator once the plugin power is gone.

ICE, or a bag of monkeys turning wheels generating power to the battery... in either case, it runs off of electricity.... not gas.

 

Well, the thing is is that it probably will be able to direct electricity directly from the generator to the drive motor in order to bypass charge/discharge losses through the battery.

The ICE-generator will probably be more-or less wired in parallel with the battery and the power electronics.

Once in charge sustaining mode:

In steady state cruising, most of the power will be shunted straight from the generator to the drive motor.

If the power demand goes above the capabilities of the generator, the battery will be used to supply additional power.

If the battery charge gets too low, the electronics will direct power to re-charge the batteries above some point to store energy for future high-power demands.

I imagine that the ICE-generator will be programmed so that it's response time lags throttle input by a significant degree to improve NVH.

From what I understand, I don't think it really matters in the end the exact configuration of the drivetrain to qualify for the "electric" car rebate. What matters is that the car uses an external electricity power source to charge the onboard batteries which store energy used to later power an electric motor to propel the car.

 

Does anyone really think that Toyota will sit back and let GM take the lead in the plug-in market?
That is, assuming that GM actually markets this.
After what GM did with the EV1...well, fool me once, shame on me...

 

nope and that is not really what is happening. despite all the noise from GM, the "Leaf" is looking to be at the forefront of the mid-priced EV (which is still a plug in right?) race for now.

and it still all boils down to execution. remember, GM had it all way before anyone else, but did not believe in it. was unwilling to sacrifice their quarterly profits for long term "better good" of the company, etc.

facts are, because of previous mis-steps, GM will have to have a much better product than anyone else to get ahead. most (including I) have lost faith and it will take a lot to earn it back. i think it goes without saying that there will be much less early adopters of new GM tech than Ford, Nissan or Toyota