How 'green' is the electric Chevy Volt?
General Motors at its centennial celebration in Detroit on Tuesday is expected to showcase the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid electric car that carries the heavy expectations of reversing GM's slide and slashing consumers' fuel use.
Buzz around the Volt picked up last week when photos of the production car were captured, showing a less sporty look than the original concept car. But what are the environmental and cost benefits of the Volt?
The Volt will be able to run 40 miles on lithium-ion batteries and get a range of 400 miles from an internal combustion engine that charges the battery. The four-door sedan with a hatchback is set for release at the end of 2010.
Click on the image to see photos of what is said to be the production version of the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt.
(Credit: General Motors via TheCarConnection.)GM has not offered many details on the Volt's fuel economy and didn't respond on Monday to a request for more specifics. But early estimates indicate that the Volt will deliver a significant boost in mileage and be cheaper to operate than a gasoline car.
Plug-in electric cars also stand to reduce, although not eliminate, air pollution.
"The Volt story has gotten much more interest than other (GM) product introductions because it represents such a dramatic departure. Historically, things were more incremental," said David Cole, the chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
GM says the Volt will get the equivalent of 50 miles per gallon on longer trips where an expected four-cylinder engine will be engaged.
But mileage will improve substantially if a person stays within the batteries' 40-mile range. GM designers targeted a 40-mile battery range because most people drive less than that in a day.
In all-electric mode, drivers can expect the equivalent of about 100 miles per gallon, said David Goldstein, the president of the Electric Vehicle Association of Washington D.C.
In a mixed mode, where the gasoline engine kicks in, Golstein thinks that overall mileage for a 100-mile trip would be about 50 miles per gallon, but would go down to 35 miles per gallon for a 200-mile trip because the gasoline motor is working more.
Compared with a gasoline car, plug-in hybrids like the Volt stand to be cheaper to operate. Goldstein estimates that people will pay between 2 and 6 cents per mile with the Volt, depending on electricity rates.
A detail on the Volt's styling.
(Credit: GM)That price per mile estimate for the Volt is less than the 15 cents per mile that a typical gasoline car costs, calculated Scott Sklar, an alternative energy consultant at the Stella Group.
Comparing the cost per mile of a gasoline car with a battery-powered vehicle is complicated by the fact that many regions in the U.S. have different electricity tariffs that depend on usage and time of day.
Martin Eberhard, the founder and former CEO of Tesla Motors, is one of the first customers of the all-electric Tesla Roadster. After a few months of driving, he reported in his blog that the cost per mile of the Roadster is between 2 and 6 cents per mile.
From an environmental perspective, plug-in hybrids have the lowest greenhouse gas emissions over their product lifecycle compared with other transportation technologies except all-electric vehicles, according to a recent analysis done on the future of transportation published in August by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
That's because electric motors are more efficient than gasoline engines, said Goldstein. Also, electricity generation is several times more efficient than the energy conversion that happens in a car, said Cole.
Similarly, the the Electric Power Research Institute and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) last year concluded that adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles would lower global warming emissions, improve air quality, and reduce petroleum consumption by 3 million to 4 million barrels per day in 2050.
Road blocks?
But for all the promise of the Volt, there are some real engineering and business challenges.
The biggest technical issue is the reliability of lithium-ion batteries, in which nearly all auto makers are investing.
The useful life of these batteries is still not totally clear, as they haven't already been tested in vehicles for decades.
One business model that automakers are looking at is a leasing option, where consumers would lease a plug-in hybrid electric car's batteries for 10 years, said Cole. After that, the battery would be replaced and potentially used in less-demanding applications such as power grid storage.
A drop in the price of petroleum, which has fallen dramatically since earlier this year, could also put the brakes on the investment in engineering to make plug-in hybrid vehicles less expensive.
Recent reports said that GM is planning to charge about $40,000 for the Volt, more than what was originally anticipated. For the price to go down, there needs to be a multi-year ramp-up in battery production.
"Anyway you look at it, out of the box, this is going to be expensive. These are going to be expensive batteries," Cole said.
In its report, MIT estimated that plug-in hybrids will be commercially competitive with gasoline cars in eight to ten years.
The battery will weigh 400 pounds, be 5 feet long, and be placed under the car, Bob Boniface, GM's Chevy Volt design director said in an interview. Boniface said GM had to make a break from the initial concept car design to improve the aerodynamics and fuel efficiency.
The Volt is a series hybrid, which means that the car's internal combustion engine only charges the battery, rather than drives the car directly. That means an automaker can design engines that run on different fuels.
Cole said that the biggest environmental pay-off from this design will come once ethanol from nonfood sources, called cellulosic ethanol, becomes commercially viable.
A car that uses E85 fuel, a mix of ethanol and gas, could get 400 miles per gallon of gasoline, he said. There are a handful of pilot cellulosic ethanol plants in the U.S., but none are producing at large scale.
For GM, the Volt is meant to help change its image as a vendor or SUVs and other trucks, while giving it important technical know-how in fuel-efficient cars.
"All GM brands are candidates to receive this technology," said Cole.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
If they don't mention this, delete and find another article. This article doesn't, so it is worthless if you are interested in global warming reduction.
It is difficult to determine exactly how much CO2 is produced making LiIon batteries, since most of that process energy is electric - is that electricity from renewables and nuclear (no CO2) or natural gas (low CO2) or coal (very high CO2). Even with coal fired electricity, the CO2 emissions from production and use of LiIon batteries is much less than for IC engines.
Project Better Place and several utilities are planning to install thousands, eventually millions, of public recharge spots in parking lots all over the place.
1)Typical of corporate thinking and board meeting groupthink. If any detroit car manufacturer would be serious about the electric car we would be looking at the EV2 based on Li-Ion battery , not at some "hybrid" underpowered concepts. 40 miles autonomy ...
2)Leasing models are the stapples of the doom of such "Concepts" .... At least Tesla starts delivering cars and they don't have that "shoebox" look. Ethanol may be a way to reduce oil dependency but one HUGE factor few consider when looking at ethanol is that arable land IS a limited and diminishing resource.
I would rather been looking for the upcoming white star from Tesla or a Tesla roadster if you can live around a two seater vehicle. Battery reasearch does exist and most of these technologies have been bought off by well ... i'll let you discover by whom this is all the more shocking. Anyone interested into EVs and fuel issues should google "who killed the electric car?".
A pure electric Sedan is not viable yet, since the batteries still cost way too much and charge too slow. The Tesla Roadster is viable because it completes with expensive high performance cars where range is less important. That's why Tesla's planned sedan will work just like the Volt. It's also why the creator of "Who Killed The Electric Car" (Chris Paine) is a big advocate of the Volt.
The Tesla Roadster is very cool, but it's relatively easy for a company like Tesla to hand-build a few Roadsters each day. The task of creating a new plant to mass produce such cars by the thousands is much harder and takes much longer to setup.
Lastly, I think people will be surprised at how "fun" the Volt is. It's 160HP electric motor should have some very nice acceleration off the line. Not crazy acceleration like the Tesla, but still very nice.
No official word yet on whether their 3rd model will have a hybrid option.
As far as Ethanol goes, any energy-savings from that fuel in its current state of production in the U.S. has been throughly debunked. The consideration of the chemical and mechanical energy used in growing the corn, harvesting it, transporting it to the Ethanol plant, removing and disposing the waste, and then transporting the Ethanol through the distribution channels just eats up any savings of petroleum fuels overall.
I agree that when comparing energy sources, the full chain of production needs to be considered. So with the Atkinson-cycle Prius, that should include the cost of finding and drilling for oil, shipping it to the refineries, refining the oil into fuel, and shipping the fuel to thousands of gas stations. And lets not ignore the US military needed to protect the crude oil supply channels. I think you will find that electricity (created using domestic coal, nuclear, wind, solar, etc) distributed on the existing grid compares quite favorably.
As a consumer I only need to look at what the car does for me. Safety, Capacity, MPG.
It's only on the broader scale that the entire cycle matters.
Right.
Practical range for any kind of city car is 100 miles between charges, minimum.
In other words if Toyota comes out with a plug in Prius they will again kick GM's butt. I both commute and take my car on trips. It has to be efficient all the way around. I have an SUV for my inefficient needs.
you're right- I never do any of those things. My round trip to work is 30 miles and I rarely go anywhere else. If I do (grocery store), it's usually on the way. Sure I go out every so often, but that's an exception to the rule, and 50 mpg would be just fine. This is a perfect commuter car.
Powerplants can take advantage of large heavy efficiency boosting devices not possible in car engines, so the combination of powerplant, distribution grid, charger, battery, and motor is actually more efficient than an internal combustion engine and produces less CO2.
LiIon batteries have no toxic heavy metals and are considered non-toxic and safe to dispose, but are worth recycling to recover and reuse the materials inside.
GM has always claimed that the Volt will get 50MPG (not 35) when running off the generator, so it's 8 gallon tank will take you about 400 miles. And running on grid electricity costs about 1/5 of what it costs a normal car (say at 30 MPG) to run on gasoline. So in cost, that equates to about 150MPG, not 100.
My hopes is that the current hybrid, like Toyota will offer plug-in versions soon and make the battery work more in the first 40 miles, so it can boost fuel economy.
AGW is some bureaucrat?s wet dream. They get to bilk consumers out of billions of dollars by making them feel bad for supposedly destroying the planet. As we move into our next solar cycle and the temperature starts dropping, I'm gonna be curious to see what the AGW crowd claims is the reason.
We need to alleviate our dependence on imported fossil fuels through conservation and efficiency, but AGW isn't the reason. Let's leave CO2 out of it and have the marketplace dictate the success of the Volt based on the bottom line cost to operate.
And, of course, the top contributors of PM10 were automobiles and coal-fired power plants. It's always automobiles and coal-fired power plants.
Ford had a diesel Escort that got 50 MPG in the 80's. Of course that wasn't a clean diesel like the TDI, but there's proven tech out there that can out perform this car. It's a nice first step, but there's a long way to go. I just ordered a TDI and there's already a 4 month waiting list.
Can we please stop with this solar power nonsense. The efficencies aren't even close to what they need to be. Let's put it another way, if solar worked it wouldn't need government subsidies. Same with "biodiesel" and other food for fuel scams. The only viable alternatives are nuclear and tidal. Wind is not consistent enough, no matter what T Loone Pickens wants you to invest in. Notice he made all his cash in oil. Nuclear is proven, and tidal is just another form of hydro, also proven. The trick there is getting materials durable enough to survive in the ocean. Salt water is really corosive.
See how stupid you sound?
Wind is consistent enough in many places. Areas in ND, Arizona, NM, Washington, Oregon, etc. Distribution is the problem.
Same with solar. There are towns in northern Japan that are 100% solar and each home makes money selling excess power to the local utility company.They don't get nearly as many clear days and you are probably thinking.
Nuclear is poison. Many areas in states like Colorado and Washington are contaminated to the point that it will take hundreds, if not thousands of years before these areas are livable and farm-able.
I get all my energy from water and it is dirt cheap: 0.7 cents per kWh. At that rate how much to charge the Chevy Volt each night?
Decider: If your electricity rates are 7 cents per Kwh, then a full recharge would be about 63 cents. The Volt battery pack holds 16 Kwh, bu only 8 Kwh is used to achieve the 40 miles of EV range. (the rest is held in reserve to maximize battery life). Since charging isn't 100% efficient, figure about 9 Kwh for a full charge, or less if you've driven less than 40 miles that day!
The is a lot FUD about nuclear power, most from Green Peace.
I agree biodiesel is a scam as it is right now.
I know concept vehicles rarely make it to market without being emasculated, but I had held out hope for this one.
Most people cannot even manage a financial budget, let alone an energy budget in an automobile.
Without self-charge there would be thousands of stranded electric car motorists.
Accordingly, the EV1 was rightfully killed as it asked too much from the common driver and also subjected even experienced drivers to periodic unavailable transportation. Such is incompatible with the randomness of day-to-day life, with its occasional emergencies.
The fix for the EV1 would be an on-board generator, not newer technology batteries.
will almost certainly average over 200 MPG, even if there are no recharge points outside the home garage. This really isn't rocket science, EPA guys. JEEEZ!!!!
It is easier to control pollution at a single location than from thousands of scattered tailpipes. Also, an increasing amount of electricity is produced by renewable source with little or no pollution.
Most of the recharging will be done at night when electrical demand and prices are at their lowest. The transition to electric vehicles will take years, we'll have plenty of time to build new power plants.
There is no need to wait for cellulosic ethanol plants to produce E85. There are more than 2,000 E85 stations in the US right now, mostly in the Upper Midwest. In Minnesota alone, drivers bought 21.5 million gallons of E85 last year, and are on track to buy even more in 2008.
See this American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest website for details:
http://www.CleanAirChoice.org
The real reason electric car advocates keep pulling 40 miles a day out of their hats is because that's the best you can get with batteries right now. A few years ago when the best you could get was 20, these same people were saying that 20 miles was sufficient for most people.
Chemical batteries aren't ever going to be economical. They just don't pack enough energy. You don't get to legislate physics.
Third, The Volt was designed to go only 40 miles per charge using half the battery capacity before the gasoline fueled range extender starts up, as that is enough for most daily driving thus not needing gas, and the smaller battery costs less. But the range extender can add an additional 300 miles per tank for those rare times it is needed, no risk of being stranded as long as gasoline is available.
Fourth, we are nowhere near the theoretical limits of battery chemistry. Lead acid only stores 20 wh per Kg, NiMH about 60 wh per Kg, and LiIon currently stores 80 to 160 wh per Kg depending on type. But LiS batteries could reach 320 wh per Kg, silicon nanowire batteries could reach 800 wh per Kg, and experimental Li-Air cells have already reached 1,000 wh per Kg and theoretically could exceed 3,000 wh per Kg. Moreover, since electric motors are 6x more efficient than gas engines, a battery pack only needs to store 1/6 the energy of a gas tank to get the same driving range - and that is well within theoretical limits!
The EV revolution has just started. In a few year, with improved batteries, exceeding the range of a gasser will be easy, and we could be seeing over a thousand miles per charge from a smaller, lighter, and best of all cheaper battery than what is available now.
Plus, what is the horsepower. Getting rear ended entering traffic because you accelerate too slowly is a real negative.
A viable electric vehicle will have a useful trip duration, the ability to maneuver in traffic and be at least 20% more economically including battery cost. Unless of course an electric vehicle will cost less instead of more.
20 MPG on gas = 16 MPG on E-85, but the E=85 only has .15 gal of gas in it so you get 106.666 mile per gallon of gas on E-85. They forgot to tell you that you had to buy 6.6667 gal of E-85 to get that gal of gas.
- by shera89 September 16, 2008 8:53 AM PDT
- It's at least a step that is not going totally in the wrong direction. Most of the comments I read here focus on everything that might be wrong with this car, or business model. However, I would encourage stepping back for just a moment and observing that there is finally a somewhat viable alternative - albeit, with much room for improvement. I think the concept of running a vehicle off of electricity, particularly renewable electricity from solar, wind, etc., is pretty exciting. Rebates for renewable energy investments are available in a lot of places right now, and future minded folks are taking advantage of those incentives now while they are still good in anticipation of plug-in hybrids, and even electric cars. Utilizing home solar production to power not only ones house, but also ones vehicle, would accelerate the ROI on both the solar system and the vehicle. That, to me, is very cool and exciting!
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- by theantibush September 18, 2008 10:46 AM PDT
- It is exciting. Im plan on picking up a Volt and being a part of this transition away from conventional propulsion.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (79 Comments)Its my little part for American industry, national security, and piece of mind.