Does GM REALLY want to phase out the Volt?

Nothing you presented showed that it was more efficient. Your statment was that more torque to the wheels implies it is more efficient. If so then you shoudl work for CNW and write a new report that shows the Hummer is more efficient than a Prius because more of its torque is directly applied to the wheels.

I said you lacked understanding because you said more troque-> more efficient. Torque is not, nor has it ever been, a measure of efficiency.

If there is a hold button then in EPA testing it will be used as its the worst case. Not a problem for a prius to have an EV button because it already uses a blended strategy and that is its worst case. The Volt does not have a blended mode, so if it had a Hold button, it would never use its plug-in capacity and would maintain SOC like a hybrid.

 

Except that the European Volt already does implement HOLD. So much for that theory....

Does the HV button in the PiP actually "hold" the SOC of the battery or does it just spend less time in "EV"-oriented mode and continue to run down the battery SOC like the the older Prius PHEV conversions.

 

(65 mph x 17 mins) / 60 mins = 18.4 miles

You are right, those numbers are from the 120v / 10 hours charger that comes standard with the Volt.

BEVs are okay to use electricity however it wants because that's the only on-board power source available. It won't be lugging around additional gas powertrain.

I agree that it is a good thing we can displace gasoline with electricity. I was disagreeing with the notion that using more electricity is okay regardless of the purpose.

However, there is a line when you are wasting electricity and someone thinks it is okay because the wind turbines would be shut down anyway. It may be fine for him but the design is not fine for majority of others that would power Volt with mostly fossil fuel electricity.

In addition, Volt owners view Prius PHV's blended strategy being inferior for the smaller battery and electric motor capacity. The correct view is, it is the smartest design that reflects the current state of battery technology and grid cleanliness that strikes a balance between affordability and practicality.

 

This is what I wrote and you quoted it as well in post #162:

1) Torque: ICE torque to the wheels is greater in the power-split (Prius) setup. More torque means more mechanical power at the wheels without the conversion.

I am not going to press on with it because it is not constructive. We'll get used to your character.

 

Measure time to first gas.. that is how many miles you went before the first use of gas. That is how many miles without gas. I've had many days

Personally, I think any PHEV's should NOT be allowed to use free or tax-supported public stations, but if they want to pay, then its their choice how much and how long. That is for the Volt as well Prius PHV.

Renewable is currently 14% and will be increasing. Almost everyone has access to renewable wind energy. Most utilities provide for a choice (it costs more but you can choose it). And 29 states have mandated that renewable be a fraction of their energy portfolio.

 

Thanks. Do you have the breakdown for the other 4 remaining tests (FTP, SC03, UDDS, LA92)?

US06 is mostly highway so I would expect 58% with the gas engine clutched in, to have the highest percentage.

 

On the other hand, the 2012 Lexus CT 200h is the same size as the Volt, uses the 1.8L engine and HSD system from the Prius and weighs 550 pounds less than the Volt yet both get the same 40 mpg EPA highway estimate. The 200h gets 43 mpg city versus 35 for Volt.

Clearly, the Volt transmission has a design bias towards allowing full EV operation to eliminate all gas consumption during typical daily commute patterns for its owners while retaining good highway mileage for extended driving. The "balanced" design of the PiP (really forced by limited battery capability tradeoffs) would burn gas during the commutes of many drivers who would be all battery in a Volt.

This is all good because we live in a world where different drivers with different commute patterns and electricity sources can choose the car that best fits their needs. It is silly to pretend that Prius or PiP are superior in best matching the needs of all drivers or that you have gotta gotta gotta burn some gas during your drive in order to keep your engine clean and fresh.

 

No, that actually supports the theory well. We're all aware of how much anti-hybrid pro-EV marketing there has been for Volt. The effort to promote EREV would totally fall apart if the driver had the ability to override it with the simple push of a button.

Remember the huge upset from discovering Volt didn't take the series approach everyone had been led to believe it would? And even after the mention about direct-drive slipped, we didn't get confirmation about it for quite awhile.

Remember the big "Freedom Drive" event? That didn't even make any sense. GM was promoting the advantage of having a system that didn't always have to be plugged in, yet absolutely refused to reveal the efficiency data from that 1,776 mile drive. In fact, GM dodged all questions related to MPG until the EPA estimates were revealed several months later.

Having a HOLD button would be an endorsement for blending, rather than always depleting EV first. GM is clearly avoiding that.
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You claimed the HSD was more efficient and I asked why..

So clearly your, answer to question about efficiency was about torque.

And of course people are always making judgements about what both you and I say...

 

The pip will blend grid charge with station gas to get very high mileage for a short time, then when the grid charge is depleted will revert to normal hybrid operation.

A Volt with a "Hold" button would stop using the grid charge when held and revert to the normal hybrid operation it always uses in CS mode anyway. It would just preserve some grid charge for when you would like to use it later.

Now I understand manually forcing the use of the ICE is a concession that at times it would be more efficient to do so, and it certainly is. The difference is that a Volt equipped that way would give you the choice to use all EV or hybrid, which could best be determined by the driver knowing the route he has yet to travel. If I am going 30 miles, I don't want the ICE on for any reason if I can help it. If I am going 300 miles I'd prefer the charge to be blended in over most of the length of the trip as a boost to normal hybrid operation.

The American Pips will let you choose between blending and normal hybrid, nothing will let you choose to stay in EV under high demand or speed, and that is by design as it would be inefficient to do so. The Euro Pips have an overide to hamstring the system and force the ICE to remain off, it is unclear to me how that would effect performance.

 

So, GM is promoting EREV in the U.S. but not Europe? I don't recall anti-hybrid Volt marketing. I do recall marketing that could be construed as anti-BEV.

Most of the upset was due to people who got emotionally invested in GM's "always electrically driven" marketing story. They got surprised and upset.

This marketing event made sense to me. They were demonstrating that road trips were possible unlike present generation BEVs. The large majority of that driving would have been highway where the Volt operates in a power-split mode and gets the same mileage as a compact Lexus CT 200h HSD using the 1.8L 3rd generation Prius engine.

I don't know why they didn't release their mileage results. Maybe the cars they drove were not using the final engine and transmission control software. Perhaps they didn't want to distract from their marketing message and to put off arguments about highway mpg.

Not really. I want a HOLD button so I can optimize my use of battery for urban driving on those occasions when I'm driving further than my battery range. I do not want gasoline blended into that urban driving and I already have non-plug Prius type blending (power-split) at highway speed.

 

I'm sure the subroutine is there in the ECM. Some GM truck owners, with some help for Holden techs, have unlocked the lean burn routines for their engines. I wouldn't be surprised if it as simple as putting the EV button into the gen2 Prius, which is just plugging a wire into the right slot on one of those multi wire plugs.
Probably just need access to the technical manuals of both models.

 

Good point.. and for all my defense of EREV.. I would actually agree that there are times, if I'm going to use the ICE anyhow, I'd be happy with blending if that improves efficiency. I'm not a purist in that sense, just in sense that on most days I wan 0 gas.. As soon as I have to use gas, making it as efficient as possible is good thing. A design with EREV power as default and a "blend" button, and a Hold button, would be nice then I can choose what to use based on my knowledge of my further needs.

 

I'm trying to convince someone with an ampera to let me provide them some CAN-buss snooping software and then compare it to what I measure. I'm pretty sure its just a software command that could be injected via OBD2..

 

Running in EV mode, the system switches to full hybrid mode under full acceleration, which splits engine power between the drive wheels and the generator, keeping the battery charged – just as in the standard Prius model.

Even when not running in the driver-selectable EV mode, the Prius Plug-in Hybrid will rely more on its electric-only capability in situations where it is more efficient than running the gasoline engine, especially in urban and suburban driving and during shorter trips when drivers will enjoy the smoothness and quiet of EV operation.​

Notice, there is no mention of blending. It is either electric-only or hybrid operation (charge sustain).

It doesn't mean you cannot use the battery energy on the highway. You can let go the accelerator and push it back to glide or maintain speed with the available 40kW battery power.

Source

 

:focus:

Interesting post at gm-volt.com today.. releven to the original topic.


If GM wanted to phase out the Volt, would they pay to step into the lions den and advertise on Fox?

GM stays the course with Volt and complementary initiatives


And a nice article at brandchannel about the Volt ready to Recharge..

http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2012/01/31/Chevy-Volt-Image-013112.aspx


Here is a link to the commercial video

 

They don't need to say its blended for them to be blending. If I use 1mile to get on the highway, drive 30miles on the highway and get off, that it will still have 14miles of EV range left? If not its blending.

THere are some here that drove the prototypes.. is that how the acted?

 

Some of us do, which makes their current stance easy to understand. Regardless, it should be overwhelming clear that there's a "not the same" effort now.

Keep in mind how different things look when viewed upon afterward. Read the blogs posted that weekend. 50 MPG in CS-mode was the expectation of the majority back then. 37 would have been a major upset... just like the price was a few weeks later.

The disenchanted vanish following such revelations. That changes the online mentality dramatically in a very short span of time. Sensible is relative. There's group think.
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No, the prototype blended and after ~14 miles, it went into HV CS mode. However, the prototype didn't have EV/HV button. It starts in EV mode by default.

We don't know how the production version will actually operate. Will EV mode operate like the prototype EV and blended on the highway? Will HV mode operate like the liftback, holding the charge on the highway?

 

Leaving aside the question of whether all Volt owners share a common view of the PiP (I suspect they don't), The PiP makes the best use of its teeny-tiny battery and efficient ICE, and the Volt makes the best use of its larger but still small battery and dirtier, less efficient ICE.

The PiP will deplete its charge rapidly, so places more emphasis on blended operation, as it should.

The Volt, which is mediocre on gas, prefers to operate as an EV when possible, as it should.

Different strategies for different designs. But I prefer simplicity. The 2004 Prius is elegantly simple. Xebras, Teslas, and Leafs are simpler still.