GM wants a 230MPG rating from the EPA

But it has a 1/6 gallon tank, right.

 

The EPA has previously given all-electric mileage using a kWh per 100 miles figure. If you look up a RAV4 EV you will see an original sticker of 27 kWh/100mi city, 34 kWh/100mi highway. These have been converted to 'miles per gallon gasoline equivalent' of 125 City, 100 Highway.

I don't see that the Volt, or any other plug-in hybrid, should be any different. Give the electric part in terms of miles per gallon gasoline equivalent, and the gas part in actual miles per gallon - and list them separately so there's no confusion.

 

Well, if they are simply taking into account the gas used and not the energy from electricity, the Tesla's, Leaf and other electrics get an infinite mpg rating, right?
Infinity/230 is zero, so the volt still fails when it comes to all vehicles, does great with 50 mile drives vs other gas using vehicles though

 

Just fantastic. 25KWh/100miles is great. 230mpg is certainly a headline grabber. I can't wait to buy one!

 

Chevy Volt - 230MPG EPA City?

Chevy Volt To Get 230 MPG City Fuel Economy Rating - chevy volt - Jalopnik

Call me a Prius fan, but I think even the most hardcore GM fan would question this EPA rating. Makes sense if you just do city driving, but it seems funny that assuming there's a 11 gallon tank (don't remember the size in the Volt) that you could go 2,530 miles.

 

Re: Chevy Volt - 230MPG EPA City?

How do you measure MPG on the Volt? Isn't your MPG infinity, or undefined, if you never drive beyond the range of the battery charge? I wonder how the EPA is rating it. If it can go 40 miles on a charge and the EPA test lasts for 41 miles, yes, it will have a very high mileage rating if you divide the 41 miles by the gas used for the 1 mile.

 

Re: Chevy Volt - 230MPG EPA City?

The formula they use has to be taking "typical user driving patterns" into account. Basically, they assume you drive X miles a day and charge every night. It will vary wildly based on you real driving patterns. If you drive 60 miles a day in the city instead of 30, you will get very different results.

But, all the plug-ins will have the same issue. However, the plug-in Prius will probably not vary as wildly, but only because it will have a much smaller electric range. Therefore the difference between traveling 35 miles and 55 miles won't make much difference on the Prius, because you were running on gasoline after the first 8 or so miles. However, the difference on the Volt will be huge because with 35 miles, you were using only electricity, but with 55 miles, you used gasoline for 15 miles.

 

Hmmmm.

So, Toyota Prius = bad

At least according to Bob Lutz and other fools at GM who ran the company up on the rocks.

Now that Government Motors Corporation is sucking on the taxpayer teat, the mythical Volt may become reality. And according to the GM fanboys, Volt = good

Whatever ....

 

Re: Chevy Volt - 230MPG EPA City?

The other fraud here is that the Volt will get about 30 (my estimate) MPG when running on gasoline (after the first 40 miles). In my driving I would be lucky to average 35 MPG with a Volt and I manage 46 in my Prius (lots of long highway trips).

JeffD

 

Actual fuel economy when gas engine is running: 22.3mpg.

Working: 230mpg is 0.00434 gallons per mile. That means 0.1926 gallons are consumed over the EPA test course of 44.3 miles. Divide that by the 4.3 miles that the gas engine is running to get 0.04479 gallons per mile. Take the reciprocal (1/x) to get miles per gallon: 22.325 mpg.

This isn't surprising given the inefficient engine chosen as the range extender and the inherent losses of the generator->motor transmission path.

 

Re: Chevy Volt - 230MPG EPA City?

Complete speculation and guessing follows.

I guess this is the standard city test, which would normally result in infinite MPG for the Volt (as described by GM). However the city test starts with a cold engine, and I would guess that the Volt has similar warm-up cycle that a Prius has. 230 mpg therefore is the 11 mile test run divided by the gas used during warm-up. If my guesses are correct, roughly 0.05 gallons were used during warm-up. As a sanity check, anyone know how that compares with the Prius?

 

Re: Chevy Volt - 230MPG EPA City?

The 230 mpg figure is an eye catcher but doesn't nearly tell the whole story. The EPA needs to come up with a calculation for total energy used to account for the electricity and/or fuel burned on the upcoming (and current) electric cars. You noticed that Nissan didn't announce that the Leaf would get infinite mileage because the car does use energy.

 

Re: Chevy Volt - 230MPG EPA City?

Saying the Volt will get in the triple digit range is probably more like it

 

buy one? WE (American taxpayers) OWN GM, now, don't we? We should be receiving our GM Volt any day now, free. Of course the billions we've already paid them wasn't free. hmm...who's getting screwed here? Oh and to add to the sarcasm...isn't a MPG rating on a non-existent car zero? wake me when there's one of these Volt thingies for sale...to me...the part owner of a delirious, marketing ploy car company. wow, this gets old...talk and press release after talk and press release. spin. repeat.

 

Re: Chevy Volt - 230MPG EPA City?

You mean "the other fraud" in the sense that GM doesn't even build the car that they've been talking about now for what ... two years? I wonder if this talk will go along as far as hydrogen cars have made talk ... some 35ish years or more. So build it already! The battery technology isn't quite ready? Oh ... so how do you explain the RAV-4EV's running around (the ones that escaped the crusher) that have over 100,000 miles



.

 

I don't think that figurin' is the right way of doing it. You're making certain assumptions. Also, what would the MPG of the Prius be on the EPA's course if the gasoline engine was on all the time? We can't know that.

Who said the Prius was bad? It's not a very involving or attractive vehicle, but it serves its purpose extremely well. Can't really fault it for that.

The Volt was well on its way to reality long before we gave GM any more.

So, should the Japanese, Californians, Mississippians, and Kentuckians all get free Priuses since all of those governments have either given direct aid (Japan) or massive tax breaks to Toyota at the expense of tax payers?

What are your views of the Nissan Leaf? That only exists in press releases. Is Nissan a delirious, marketing ploy car company, too?

 

Re: Chevy Volt - 230MPG EPA City?

My post on the other 230mpg thread:

Actual fuel economy when gas engine is running: 22.3mpg.

Working: 230mpg is 0.00434 gallons per mile. That means 0.1926 gallons are consumed over the EPA test course of 44.3 miles. Divide that by the 4.3 miles that the gas engine is running to get 0.04479 gallons per mile. Take the reciprocal (1/x) to get miles per gallon: 22.325 mpg.

This isn't surprising given the inefficient engine chosen as the range extender and the inherent losses of the generator->motor transmission path.

 

Re: Chevy Volt - 230MPG EPA City?

They've built/are building several dozen as we speak. They are already on the road for testing. There are photos and videos of the assembly process and of the test drives.

Jeez.

 

Well, until a vehicle materializes for me to purchase, it's only fun to follow the press releases. I'm an optimist for Nissan. Not so for GMs future. The showroom is where the real world product is needed. The waiting is the hard part...since I've been driving the "future" now for 5 years and counting. a bit of sarcasm. or not.