Will the Chevrolet Volt be a failure or a success?

Apparently products exist that promise EIGHT inches!

I'll forward an advert on to GM for their consideration.

 

Well done.

 

mountain mode? In any case, "that should never be reached" is almost always reached .

 

john keeps posting emissions for Volt, and some parts are definitely lacking.

 

No they intentionally drove on a few more miles after it was out of both electrical range and gasoline fuel until it physically would not move anymore, not a normal operating condition, at least for comparing efficiency of the car on a similar trip where it was refueled appropriately.

I agree the Volt emissions in CS mode could be better, we just need to find a better way to analyze these multi-source powertrains.

Sagebrush is right in that it is difficult to determine a fair factor for how much of a driver's miles are EV or ICE, but it is certainly inaccurate to then just assume they are all ICE, many many Volt owners go days or weeks without any onboard emissions.

 

Not true, Volt's evaporative emission is not good. That kind of emission escapes from the gas tank, not exhaust pipe.

That needs to improve also before earning the enhanced AT-PZEV certification.

 

Actually, the gen1 Prius and Echo are SULEV I and ULEV I. The Volt and Cruze are tested under stricter standards and rated ULEV II.

 

So the point is valid. Volt does not improve emission over the non-hybrid (Cruze).

 

Depends on what emission is important.
CO kept the Volt from getting SULEV II. IIRC, the Cruze has lower CO, but higher everything else. I personly consider the NOx and hydrocarbons worse than CO.

 

Same testing standard.

By the way, SULEV is a wide range. Gen III Prius is about 1/3 to 1/4 the maximum allowed in that category. So saying that the Volt 'almost hit SULEV' range means it can still emit 300 - 400% more of each pollutant compared to the Prius even when (if) it makes SULEV.

 

Can you give me a link to the source for that fact? (I'm sure you have one, I just want to read it).

I'm confused how anything escapes from the gas tank when it is pressurized to prevent exactly that. Is it occurring when the tank is depressurized and the cap removed to refill the tank or are there passive leaks out of the tank?

 

First the question is does the volt success depend at all on having at-pzev in 2011 instead of 2013. The answer to that is of course no, no matter how much those carb lovers think it matters. The lack of the $5000 subsidy will simply mean fewer volts will be sold in california so they can be sold in the rest of the country.

The next question is what stopped the volt from qualifying and are these things important.

First is the battery warenty, this is the most expensive item. CARB's rational is a hybrid can run without the traction battery, so these must be warented for 15 years 150,000 miles as part of emissions. The logic is strained to the point of making no sense. Very few prii phv or otherwise will be running with dead traction batteries and with cars like the volt we get to an impossibility. Toyota got a waiver for 10 years instead of 15 on the prius, and it is likely the same thing will happen on the volt, when gm is ready to add the cost of the warranty to the price of the car. This timing coincides with the time carb will start counting plug ins as part of their quota system. CARB has no problem with the shorter warranties on bevs and customers that want warranties on the tesla and leaf can buy extended warranties, but if you don't want it you don't have to pay for it.

The next is zero evaporative emissions, which are a problem. Now zero does not mean zero it mean small and the test is changing. GM has committed to modifying the gas tank design to get its zero lower, and I'm sure this is already in the works. The testing is changing so hopefully gm's new zero will meet the lower 0 in future tests. I really wish they would not use the term 0 when they mean low. I have the same problem is partial

Finally there is the CO limit of 1 g/mile versus the volt's 1.3 g/mile. To put this in perspective the last time the epa thought CO was a problem for cars the average car and light truck fleet was 20 g/mile in 2000. NOx and particulate emissions are still a problem for automotive point sources of pollution that have health consequences. Still the volt is much higher than the prius, and we can assume this can easily be corrected by producing less CO when the cat is cold. The possible solutions are software for a warm up routine like the prius, heating the cat electronically like bmw, or a redesigned cat that works better with this engine. I do not like the current testing as actual co per mile will be much lower for phev's than the test shows. This forces a start up routine that wastes gas on these vehicles, and I fully expect that the prius phv would also do worse than the prius on this test. Never the less the volt with a redesigned cat can reduce co even with cold, and I'm sure they will just change software if they don't want to change the hardware.

When the temperature gets warmer the partial pressure of the gasoline increases, and even though it is under pressure and sealed this system is not perfect. The other source is emissions when the tank is opened for filling. Normal cars in the united states use canisters that store this gasoline, but they need to burn it in the engine within a period of time. Since the engine in a volt might not turn on for weeks the canister solution would not work in the real world. Canisters would work to lower the levels in the test, but that does not make as much sense as building a better pressurized tank.

 

Sure, it was posted in #238. It was burried in page 24 and digging for it was not fun. Anyway, check out the charts and don't miss the sources (CARB certificates) at the bottom.

I just noticed the Volt's cert link is broken. Here is the working link.

I might as well link Prius PHV CARB certification here as well. Keep in mind that STD is the standard value. CERT is the result of the tested vehicle. Note that standard value between Volt and Prius PHV are different because one is ULEV-II and the other is SULEV-II (actually eAT-PZEV with warranty).

This is how evap emission is tested: CARB Evap Emission Standard and Test Procedures

Oh, WTH I'll repost the chart also:

 

GM will easily sell every car they make for a while -- so long as they limit production to 20 cars a day. California, and New York state as two examples, matter A LOT wrt PZEV emissions cert because of HOV access. It is obvious that a large group of people are going to buy one or the other plug-in cars for that reason alone.

As mentioned earlier, GM would probably like to isolate buyers from those two states and charge them a premium that covers GM's expenses in warranting out to 150k miles that the buyers accept because of the HOV perk. I am just not sure GM will be able to exclude the extended warranty from all the owners who live in any CARB compliant state. If there is a solution I do not know it, and if a forthcoming political solution is on the table I have not heard about it. So while GM can most certainly improve the Volt's emissions profile to meet SULEV II, I suspect the extended warranty provision of PZEV is a real obstacle GM has yet to figure out. Toyota is in the same boat except their battery liability is only about 1/3rd, and the demands on the battery are less by architecture.

 

I loled.

 

It will be under 50 cars a day for most of the year. No one seems to get upset that their are only 5000 corvettes made a year.

Nissan is already doing a recall. If there really is a problem with the battery, software, or charging of the volt, don't you think they would rather fix it with 5000 vehicles in the field instead of 50,000. There is a reason for these slow ramp ups.

 

^^ revisionism.
Read the GM hype about anticipated production dating from 2009 and 2010.

If GM is limiting production of corvettes to 5k a year, it is because *demand* is 5k a year. I also do not recall GM pitching the Corvette as the reason congress should bail their asses from the BK fire.

 

To put things into perspective,

Toyota's luxurious yet underperforming HSD hybrid aka Lexus CT200h also fails the AT-PZEV certification. Now if the CT200h has a higher powered engine than the Prius, I would totally understand why the emissions certification dropped a notch.

 

I guess we could compare Volt production numbers to those of the Veyron, then it would look very nice.

 

TPFUN - To put things in perspective - Lexus CT200h is SULEV II which means it is a much cleaner car than the Volt.