Teardown Reveals the Remarkable Complexity of Chevrolet's Volt

Good pictures. I liked this reply in comments to someone skeptical of the volt.

 

So what will they say if I ask to buy one without the 'optional' gas engine?

 

Straw man argument.

He could have bought a Prius instead of a Volt:
He would save ~ 15,000 USD in purchase costs, and another $1575 in interest costs (4% apr, 5 year term) ;
Use 25% more petrol (117 gallons more a year, or $444 at $3.8 a gallon.)
Avoid the cost and pollution of electricity to drive 11,000 annual miles
Avoid the 20 cents a gallon premium fuel cost

In short, he polluted more; and paid *a lot* for every gallon of oil averted even before we consider the likely life of a Volt compared to a Prius. If he is going to set up fool comparisons I suggest Volt vs Sherman tank.

 

The Volt drivetrain is (a slightly rearranged) Toyota HSD with additional clutches. Time will tell if the clutches are reliable, and the cost to repair/replace them.

 

You certainly give a false argument here. He bought a volt to replace a malibu. If everyone made that decision the country would use far less oil. Perhaps given his other car choices, both gm, he likes gm cars. Many people do. They may never want to step into a toyota show room, and might not get caught dead in a prius. He certainly used less oil than he would in any Toyota. Can't you understand the bright side of somethings without lowering them all down to your level.

Also after taxes where can I get a new prius for $15,000 less than a volt? Do you think he financed his tax credit?

 

Yup, he would've used 542 gallons with 50 MPG Prius but instead used 425 gallons with the Volt plus 4,193 kWh of electricity.

Is the 4,193 kWh worth the trade with 117 gallon?

 

Scott, it is great to see you enthusiastic about the technology in the Volt. Yes, it is mechanically simpler than a non-hybrid with an automatic transmission. I wouldn't call it elegant, especially if you understand how a Prius works.

Voltec is more complex (with 3 additional clutches) than HSD in the Prius. Volt shifts gears with those clutches and there are lags/delays when it goes into overdrive gear. Prius HSD is pure electric CVT without any mechanical gear ratio changes.

It is sad to see GM still pushing Volt as an EV due to the mode of operation. Society of Automotive Engineers defines it as a hybrid due to the number of power sources. The realworld data shows Volt operates on ~40% of the miles with gas and 60% with electricity. That makes it a hybrid. Leaf is 100% electric.

 

Once again you incorrectly describing the modes of the volt. The Volt does NOT, EVER, "shift gears". The clutches determine what elements of the drivetrain are engaged. It can a clutch to switch from one motors mode to two motor mode, by allowing the outer ring of the planetary to rotate. By using a clutch, the same second "motor" to be a generator. The third clutch allows the ICE engine to be used in parallel (driving to generator) or parallel mode. All "ratios" changes are the same core technology as HSD.. its which elements of the epicyclic gear is engaged at what ratio. The efficiency and added benefit of the Volt is adding clutches so it could reuse elements and could get the benefits of epicyclic gearing without needing power to hold elements at ideal setting-- it uses "mechanical advantage" to allows the Volt to use motor speeds and power ratios that a Prius cannot.

The lag of the volt going from parallel to serial mode is no longer than the lag of the prius ICE starting and providing power if in EV mode and stomping on the accelerator.

I agree the Volt is hybrid.. all EREV's are hybrids as they ER part uses a different fuel. The Leaf is what I call a garage/rental hybrid.. the owner uses a different car with an ICE. If I had a leaf I would have used more gas in the past year.. as the other family ICE is a 27mpg CUV.

Too bad there is no, nor does it seem there there ever be, meaningful real-world data for the PiP. It will only be self-reported and hence very highly biased data. Clearly there is some bias in voltstats.net (70/30 vs 60/40 milage split). Voltstats.net is biased, but there only takes a little effort as the user just has to enter a number and everything else is automatic. If you think voltstats.net is biased, imagine the bias for fuelly or the PiP spreadsheet. That is a lot of work, so only those that really care will bother. Those that really care probably care more aout being efficient. It may be an interesting experiment to use the allvolts-to voltstats and PiP-spread sheet to fully as estimates to model the bias and estimate estimate actual values for cars on fuelly.

 

The guy you quoted said " If I had put all the 27,113 miles on my 6.2L V-8 GMC Yukon XL instead, that would have been 1,695 gallons of gas, so I saved 1,264 gallons over the past year, or gasoline savings of $4,804 at $3.80 per gallon."

If I will only consider Sherman or Merkava tanks, does that make the Merkava a smart choice ? A rational choice ? His prejudices in cars are not my concern.

Let's see:

(Estimates)
Volt
40k base price
3k taxes
1.36k additional finance charges more than Prius
7.5k tax credit
--------
36.7K

Prius
21k base price (just wait for a dip in pump prices. I was quoted 19k in 12/2011)
1.5k taxes
-----
23k


Difference: 13.7K
I'll leave the exercise up to you to figure out what happens if credit is not tier 1.

 

Then also said this if you read on. If he had saved the money and not bought a car he would have driven only his yukon. Instead he bought a volt and saved compared to the Malibu.

Comrad brush, even if the US forced you to buy only one car, I doubt it would restrict your choice to one only imported from japan. Normally when countries do this they stop you from buying imports. He seems to have made his choice which used a lot less gas than his malibu. It even uses over 100 gallons less gas a year per year than a prius would. His goal was to reduce his oil use, and still drive a car he liked. Choice is good. It would be even better if he drove less miles per year. Aren't the guys driving their big SUVs (Yukons, Expeditions, Sequoias) more of a energy problem than those driving volts or prius vs, etc? Choice is good, and if you ask government to restrict it, it likely will not do it in ways you want.

You could just say you exagerated. You claim the toyota dealer is going to give the guy a $3800 discount but a chevy dealer is going to charge list. Then you charge a higher than market interest rate. Still you can't get your numbers to work. The guy might actually like being a tech innovator and willing to pay for electric drive and 17" wheels and better acceleration. A volt is much less than the Yukon he already has. What is your problem with people that want to buy volts?