Does GM REALLY want to phase out the Volt?

They want a car (one car) that's cheap to run, fun to drive, has good power and refinement, is stylish, and—most of all—doesn't have operating restrictions that are seen as regressive, based upon what they're used to.

They don't care one bit what's under the hood, or what systems are helping achieve those goals.

I think y'all are way too close to this issue, and aren't seeing it from the perspective of the general public.

 

"Full performance" is a relative term, not a quantitative measure. Remember, the point was to be an EV. It has direct-drive, which makes it a hybrid.

Huh? Prius has modes. EV and HV are quite obvious. And of course, HV itself splits power among the engine and two motors.

How come comments about Volt sales are always contrived as Prius defending by Volt owners?

What happens in February if there is little sales growth? The need is for consumer sales to triple.
.

 

That's why I keep forcing our view back to GALLONS and KWH.

For over a decade, enthuasists have been arguing aspects of design. Consumers never cared, especially since many didn't have any idea how their own automatic transmission operated. Hybrids just somehow magically added an electric motor & battery to the equation. The end result was using fewer GALLONS.

Now with a plug-in hybrid, adding KWH will reduce GALLONS even more.
.

 

You do realize the outer blue block was "Electrified Vehicle" which contains PHEV..

There is no active patent for anything as generic s as blending gas and electric. The first blended hybrid goes back to 1925. when American engineer H. Piper filed a patent for a petrol-electric hybrid vehicle, to use an electric motor to assist an internal-combustion engine -- the first parallel hybrid.

The EREV vs BEV comparison depends on family travel needs. For many families they will use much less gas than a blended PHEV, and use their stored power more efficiently. If they can use clean renewable power, they are more efficient overall.

 

Volt drivers routinely going 85 mph will slow down to 55-65 mph after a few speeding tickets and then get a battery range of 30-45 miles in 30+ minutes which is enough for many daily commuters to drive gas-free. As you noted, PiP makes the sensible choice of continuing to use the Prius clutch-free blended design due to its limited battery capability.

Really? GM has been selling power-split serial/parallel full hybrid transmissions since 2003 and Toyota hasn't sued them yet for patent infringement. As for 50 mpg, I've pointed out a number of times that Toyota HSD powertrains have gotten worse EPA gas mileage estimates in cars of a similar size and weight as the Volt. Getting Prius-type gas-only mpg requires careful tuning of the entire design -- it's not simplistically due to the fact that the Volt can optionally unclutch the gas engine from the planetary gears.

 

Huh? Having direct-drive (having a mechanical path between the gas engine and the wheels) makes it a hybrid but if it had only an electrical path between the gas engine and the wheels (serial hybrid) then it wouldn't be a hybrid?

GM marketing aside, the Volt has always been a hybrid since the first day that the concept was described back in 2007. In addition to being a hybrid, it is also capable of operating electrically under the full range of driving capabilities that customers expect of a modern highway-capable car until the battery runs down. That ability is usefully described as EREV. It avoids unnecessary gas engine cold starts and the ensuing use of gasoline while battery charge is still available. This is useful for reducing gasoline consumption in the daily commutes of many millions of potential automobile customers who desire to reduce their petroleum dependence.

 

The point is just to reduce gasoline consumption? What about a reducing smog-related emissions? What about a replacing traditional vehicles?

That doesn't really address those who routinely drive beyond the EV range or have access to a plug either.

In other words, phase out or not, something else is still needed.
.

 

Price point is the major point to make or break and so much perception is involved. That is where marketing and having company wide strategy comes into play along with downrange and future plans. It is clear Toyota had a long range future for the Prius along with other vehicles. GM short sided today planning. I was told and the perception ,when Prius was launched ,Toyota was loosing money . Some even said Prius will be a short lived project. Toyota was all in and now where is the Prius and Toyota ? GM really needs to get their head out of their you know where. Oldsmobile, Pontiac ,Saturn, EV 1, Volt. Drop your ego boys and get back to work. If you make a good product and give bang for the buck they will come but realize reality vs perception.

 

Agreed the problem with the original definition was that "full performance" was itself not specified and hope that is part of what is being fixed in the standards. I've seen various suggestions such as the ability to drive EPA testing cycle US06 on electricity alone, (e.g. see http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/PDF/presentation-sm.pdf). Which is easy enough to quantify. There have been some other more recent and more realistic "cycles" that could also be used. US06 only captures 97% of the actual driving demands of the 2003 Cali regional traffic study so it does not capture "full performance" as measured in other traffic studies. In comparison, the speed and power limits of the PiP Prototype meant it would only be in EV mode for about 3% of the trips in the Cali study. An Argonne study (Green Car Congress: Argonne Study Highlights Impact of Real World Drive Cycles on PHEV Battery Sizing) used the Kansas City Traffic data and again found the need for high KW, with only 3.5% of the real world trips being completed in a PHEV10.

Sorry, my reply to sagebrush was imprecise.. I should have said

Nope.. the Volt has modes that the PiP does not.

Yes the PiP has modes.. but sagebrush said it had the same modes as the Volt and I explained 2 modes the Volt has which the PiP does not.

 

The speed limit depends on where one lives. Its 75mph where I live and most of the when doing that I must stay in the right lane so others can pass. 85 (Before the Volt I was mostly left lane, so the volt did make me more conservative) There are part of TX with 85mph.

I routinely get 35 (winter)-45 (summer) miles per charge, even with 10 miles of highway driving to work. My daily commute + errands are gas free. On days when I expect I don't have errands and will only drive 32miles (or am running late) I'll jump into the left lane and go with the flow -- driving with the wind while powered by the wind.

Now that its winter, if I know I have errands, I'll take some side streets for part of the trip so I can keep high 30's or low 40s in EV range.

 

Reality vs Perception

That point is what we'll be able to address quite soon, by providing real-world data.

When you read comments from Volt supporters, watch the EV priase. They avoid the topic of "blending" at all costs, pretending there's no such thing. That's a benefit they fear, since all of the marketing effort has focused on purity.

Driving a Volt depleted is just like a traditional vehicle, same emissions & efficiency. That's not true for Prius. When the PHV is depleted, it's still a Prius delivering cleaner engine operation and higher MPG... a major appeal factor Volt doesn't offer.

And as pointed out, the price of the standard model is a major one. They tend to avoid that too, attempting to draw focus to the advanced model instead... not acknowledging the reality that only enthusiasts care. The typical consumer perception is quite different.
.

 

No consumers want cars that are free, run on dreams, have no maintenance costs, have 3s 0-60 times, the interior space of a suburban, and look "cool." Unfortunately we live in reality where there are tradeoffs to be made. Consumers care about the price of a vehicle first and foremost. Then they worry about all the other stuff. I don't know why you think they want only 1 car either when households clearly show a propensity to have multiple vehicles, unless you mean individuals in the household want 1 car that does everything.

Your post makes no sense. A prius could be designed like the volt if Toyota would not get sued. It would drive using electricity until the battery was depleted it would still drive like a prius afterward. The volt does worse not b/c it has clutches, but b/c it has worse aerodynamics and weighs a lot more. The problem with designing the PiP to run like the volt is that toyota would have to splurge on much better batteries since expecting a 5kWh battery to match the output of a 16kWh battery is asking about 3x more from the battery. Toyota doesn't want to be forced to spend more on battery tech (pushing the price higher) so they prefer a more heavily blended mode design. There is nothing wrong or right about this.

In regards to sales, marketing and brand perception are driving the sales more than anything else. It takes quite some time to overcome such things one way or the other.

 

Prius PHV is eAt-PZEV even with cold starts. Volt is ULEV now and the performance of eAT-PZEV model coming soon have yet to be seen during cold starts.

Blended or purity, both Volt and Prius PHV will use a mixture of electricity and gasoline. In some trip, Volt will use no gas but Prius PHV will use a small amount of gas. Consider that engine maintenance under the right condition to create synergy. However, at the end of the trip, Prius PHV will recharge faster because less electricity was used.

There will be trips where Prius PHV will use less gas than Volt. Overall, both cars will use both fuel so it is silly to focus at trip level.

Non-hybrid gas only cars provide purity as well. Prius provides the best of gas and electric by creating synergy. In order to do that two power sources need to work together. This require interaction and communication between the two. The purpose of the teamwork is to achieve a greater goal otherwise unachievable if both were to work alone.

Volt has extreme electric bias. It prevents two engines to work together by alternating and singling out each power source and abolishing teamwork. To some, that's ok because they get blinded by the lure of EV driving experience. The lack of synergy increases cost, weight, emission, redundancy and complexity. It also reduces interior room, reliability and safety due to the added complexity.

 

Changing ratios and increasing both motor & battery size is a configuration issue, not design. And in the end, the same problem would still remains: COST

Of course, the "EV City" mode already does much of that, proving the design offers more than this particular market will get initially.
.

 

Asked Thursday if Volt sales have taken a hit in January, General Motors North America President Mark Reuss said, "Oh, yes."

Reuss, on the sidelines of the Washington Auto Show, said bad publicity from the government's investigation into fire risks is "definitely a component" of the Volt's sales decline.

GM had its best sales month for the Volt in December with about 1,530 sold. GM sold about 7,700 in 2011, but its sales target was 10,000.

Reuss said when GM restarts production in February at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant, it will build Volts in a "very reasonable" volume.​

Source

 

Cost is the biggest complaint about Volt. Yet, there are criticisms for cost saving features in Prius PHV.

1) Reduce redundancy to reduce weight, emission and complexity
2) Reuse existing hardware by creating more useful roles to ICE
3) Recycle exhaust heat and brake energy with regeneration

 

We all know it's just going to drag on until summer.

How's this any different from Two-Mode sales history?
.

 

The Prius PHV is not likely to recharge faster, its current draw will be the same and miles added per unit time will be similar. If the driver only when 12 miles in a Volt it would recharge just as fast. It is likely to finish charging faster only if the Volt used more of its battery, which means the Prius PHV used gas instead of the more efficient electricity.


The Argonne report looks at trips since number of trips where you use the ICE is a bound on the number of engine starts and directly related to gas usage.

Once running on gas, the Volt does let both power sources work together in a power-split mode. It does not abolish team work, it just saves the teamwork for when its more efficient, after its exhausted the available battery.

Your statements about what it reduces/increases are your opinion.
I'll agree on cost, weight and interior room.

But the EV bias in the Volt has allowed me to drive mostly on renewal energy and with much less gas than a Prius. But it all depends on the person's travel patterns and trip characteristics, which is, of course, why it is important for research to look at trips behaviors.

 

How much of that drain was do to the traction motor parasiticly spinning the ICE at those speeds?

The clutches in the Volt have been used in automatic transmissions for decades. Toyota could chosen to have improve EV efficiency by incorporating a clutch even if they still felt it best to use the ICE at higher speeds. They didn't because of cost. Nothing wrong with that, and that is probably the best compromise. Design decisions aren't simple. The Prius PHV could have had even better efficiency, but Toyota choose not too.

Just to nitpick. Don't these add complexity? Toyota already is making them so it isn't a cost issue, but regen brakes adds complexity and thus more points of possible failure. Their implementation on earlier gens did raise concerns among some consumers. But the homework was done, and they work fine despite being on road for less time and miles than the clutch. Maybe that wasn't a nitpick.