Volt's Latest Bad News-Couched as Good News

+++++
Too bad CARB can't set the rules for the rest of the states. Or the world, for that matter.

 

This is a misleading post Jim. GM cannot or does not want to warranty the battery for 150k miles. I honestly doubt it has anything to do with tailpipe emissions. If I understand the story correctly, GM will not seek AT-PZEV cert, because of the battery warranty requirements.

CARB never tried to fashion itself as a consumer protection agency; and fwiw, consumers are welcome to buy the GM Volt with whatever warranty GM decides to give it. But GM at best lacks any credibility in terms of likely reliability on this first gen car, and the vast legion of consumers, even EV advocates, are going to take a deep breath and ask themselves if they are up to buying a new 24 Kwh battery in less than 10 years, perhaps in 5 years. I won't even guess what the installation cost might be. The (to my mind) unintended consequence of the CARB 150k req is to unmask any GM pretense that this battery will be long-lived.

Does this impede innovation, like AustinGreen believes ? Only if you think that avoiding hellacious complaints from early adopters and pictures of EV landfills is a bad thing.

 

It can meet emission standards, when powered by electricity it beats them. When powered by gas it does not meet the tightest standards set by California. That is ok with me.

Requiring a 150k battery warranty seems a little over reaching for an emissions standard. 100k should be fine for the whole system. Maybe the rule could be that it has to perform up to 90% for 100k miles then after that it can perform to a lower set number like 75%.

 

Volt's emission rating is not as good as Prius. Volt does not go as far as the Leaf on EV. Volt is looking to be the most expensive of the three. Volt is not a good hybrid nor a good electric car and it costs a lot. Well, that's my view.

 

I like how most the people in here are saying gm can't stand behind their products, and will only give a 100k warranty on the battery for the volt.

Toyota user a smaller cheap battery in my prius, I get the same warranty as gm 100k. GM will match Toyota's warranty!!! As i said before GM has 40k extra warranty than Toyota on it's powertrain, with free rentals for service if it takes longer than 1 day. Toyota may have to give a 150k warranty in some states, but they sure don't unless they have too.

I guess what to sum up what people are saying in here is GM should offer 2x the warranty as other car makers, then you will find anotherway to bash them.


I really think if GM didn't spend money trying to make a electric/gas car like the volt, everyone wouldnt be bashing them so much.

They don't make hummers anymore, Lets give them some credit!!!!

 

I completely forgot about that. I anticipate the same resounding success for the Volt as GM has had with their hybrids.

 

Hill,
coal power: air pollution | Union of Concerned Scientists

Average coal plant generation is 3.3*10^9 Kwh/year.
Thermal efficiency of coal combustion or petrol burn in a Prius are about the same.

Here is one example, looking at hydrocarbons:
600 coal plants,
provide 50% of domestic electricity,
which is 4000 billion Kwh/year, or
4*10^3*10^9 Kwh

So, annual average production of a coal plant is
3.33 billion Kwh

220 tons of hydrocarbons, equal to
199.584*10^6 grams/year.

In grams/Kwh:
199.584/3.33 thousand Kwh, or
0.06 grams/Kwh.
If a BEV runs 3 miles/Kwh, this is 0.02 grams/mile.

OK, one more:
NOx is 10,200 tons a year.
Using the arithmetic above, this is
(10,200/220)*.02 grams/mile = .9 grams/mile. This makes diesel look good.

 

Just looking at a refinery - 1 gallon of gas needs on the average 7.5kwh equivalent of energy input. We are not even talking about production and shipping of oil.

If you use that 7.5kwh of electricity to move a BEV - it will travel some 30 miles.

Looking at the larger picture ...

Debunking The 50% Coal FUD

 

Your logic is flawed, EVnow. Until coal is removed from power generation, EV is a shell game.

I have my own reasons to support EV, and I personally desire it very much, but I prefer not to be oblivious. It is even true that our collective nirvana of EV+PV at home is a rather moronic use of social resources if one considers the *much* better uses green dollars can be put towards for conservation, thermal solar, and wind.

 

No Carb favored hydrogen cars and totally missed the boat on plug in hybrids. Then in 2008 when they were a reality, chose to keep rules like 10minute fill up time (favors hydrogen over ev), long range (favors hydrogen over ev and plug in), long warranty (favors normal hybrids, ev, fuel cell) over plug in hybrid vehicles.

You can read the rules from the closed door session of CARB, closed door because environmentalists and ev proponents might have objected to CARB throwing them under the bus.

http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/factsheets/2003zevchanges.pdf

The only change from the lawsuit according to carb's own report was

Not exactly anything to kill electric cars, in fact the new rule actually helps hybrids like the insight and prius, but hinders the development of plug in hybrids as they get exactly the same credit as a Silverado hybrid.

But the kicker in CARBs move to kill electric for FC is further in the document.

Few ZEVs needed. BEVs since they can't charge in 10 minutes or have 300 mile range don't get nearly the credit. Just build some hybrids and fuel cells. Plug in hybrids forget about it.

Just in case you still buy sagebrush's line, in 2009 when Chu cut the hydrogen subsidies to a good level, carb was the biggest critic. Carb states laid a charge to restore it all, but only got a small chunk of graft and corruption money back.

GM failing to meet a warranty requirement should as hill said make you think about the reliability and only a $7500 subsidy instead of $12,500. Sagebrush the waranty is 8 years 100000 miles and in 2012 they will change the waranty and likely the battery pack to conform to CARB's credits. It has nothing to do with how clean the car is. That requirement is part of the hydrogen is better than batteries arguments. Next up batteries are dirtier than hydrogen because they use coal energy. Thanks for that sagebrush. Free markets instead of government choice of one technology. Let's have pollution rules not give always to the highest bidder.

 

Nonsense, his logic is quite valid.

A. EVs will use electricity from any source (PV, Nuke, Coal, Nat Gas, etc).
B. EVs will automatically use cleaner fuel sources as energy generation gets cleaner.
C. EVs will take time to become a large portion of the light vehicle market.

Thus, the sooner you start getting EVs into the market the better.
EVs are as clean as ICE even if they are charged off of 100% coal AND the coal is local, not foreign.
And if your Electricty is generated with natural gas, nuclear, pv, hydro, the your net decrease in pollution is substantial to huge.

 

Source, please?

 

What do you hate technologically neutral things like cafe standards so much that you fail to see the changes happening in the auto industry because of them. Or is it because California didn't raise them on their own. Cafe standards were raised 40% to 35mpg. It was the first time they were raised in 32 years. I would hardly call that SOP unless you already have decided the pro hydrogen leanings of CARB are the only way to go, and that somehow carb promoting hybrids made all the difference and we are breathing clean air when visiting LA now:mod:

 

Follow along, friend Zythryn:

Neighbor A uses 500 kwh a month of electricity, and 200 kwh a month of fossil fuel for the car;
Neighbor B uses the same.

Now Neighbor B buys an EV, saves the fossil fuel, but adds 200 kwh more electrical demand that comes from coal (or sometimes gas) because the alternative portfolio is already in use and cannot supply marginal demand.

Tada -- no benefit in CO2 emissions, but a lot more 'tailpipe' emissions from dirty coal.
Parenthetically, this is why I will not buy an EV until I make the clean juice myself.

So what makes sense, until dirty energy is off the grid? Conservation and solar heating, because they give the most net savings in coal use for the $. A good hybrid like the Prius is a lot cleaner than an EV in tailpipe, and equal in CO2, but costs less than half. CARB is right.

I am not your SUV apologist, but I have little use for politically correct, in-vogue, 'feel-good' environmentalism that does squat.

 

Regarding CARB and its hydrogen love affair: If CARB was subsidizing that nonsense like the bushies I would join the hate-fest. But offering high ZEV credits -- Who cares ? Even my beloved Honda has belatedly realized it is about 100x times too expensive to bother with.

Giving HV and PHEV relatively small ZEV allowances is great -- it just puts more on the road.

 

AG, read the bushiite small print:

This bill was set far enough in the future, with enough provisions to scrap it, that GM and friends were laughing all the way to the bank. Not surprising, since the US auto companies wrote the crap. Just another example of free market in action.

Don't even get me started on the 'footprint' provisions.

 

Nissan - but original source not known. See the discussion here.

My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - 7.5 kWh of electricity to produce a gallon of gasoline?

 

I call this total BS. You haven't given even a figleaf of a rational ... that clearly shows you have no reasonable arguments here at all. So, you decide to hit and run.

 

Umm, given vast differences in ICE efficiencies and Major Power plant efficiencies, why did neighbor B change his driving habits to drive a whole lot more to use the same amount of energy?

Also, since my fuel cost will drop dramatically when I start using the EV, why do I want to wait to start saving money?

There are a lot of reasons for many to wait on EV's or skip EVs. Environmental equality with ICE vehicles is not one of them, regardless of where the electricity comes from.