Comments on: How 'green' is the electric Chevy Volt?

GM is expected to show off the plug-in electric on Tuesday, and the initial focus is likely to be its looks. But what about the car's potential fuel and cost savings?

[ballzakk]

ford focus diesel does 60mpg combined and i drive like my hairs on fire

[never74]

What is this?! What happened to the uber-cool Chevy Volt we were all waiting for, and promised? This looks like a Saturn and a Prius had a love-child. How horrible. Way to go Chevy, once again you took a great idea and screwed it up. Just change the name to Citation and ruin the entire concept completely. I want an electric car, but I don't want to look like Ed Begley Jr. driving it. You promised us a cool car, not a K-car! Liars! No wonder you're going bankrupt. I'm buying a Honda, screw you.

[bboystylez]

"In all-electric mode, drivers can expect the equivalent of about 100 miles per gallon."
Huh? Is the car still using gas in all-electric mode? If not, how is this being calculated? Can anyone help me out here?

[HighwayHome]

"The inefficiencies of individualized power generation will be transferred to the centralized power generation, unless serious consideration is placed on SOLAR POWER GENERATION."

What good is a solar powered vehicle, since you can't rip off the masses on fuel charges?

[areyouactuallyserious]

OK, there's two outrageous incorrect facts in here.

"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."

for the fuel economy to go from 50 for the first 100 miles to 35 on the 200 mile trip, the fuel economy on the second 100 miles would have to be 20 MPG. 20. With a super efficient engine that charges the batteries and only runs at its most economical RPM setting. Nice fact checking...

"A car that uses E85 fuel, a mix of ethanol and gas, could get 400 miles per gallon of gasoline, he said. "

Uh, ok. That completely ignores the fact that each gallon of ethanol currently requires more than a gallon of gasoline/diesel to make and transport, and has a lower energy density. Efficiency of the conversion is going to have to go up a ton before it's a greenhouse gas reducer. Even if you do believe in this global warming scam, it's not great.

[justpbob]

"That completely ignores the fact that each gallon of ethanol currently requires more than a gallon of gasoline/diesel to make and transport."

That's not true. Look it up on any of the US government websites on alternative fuels. The greenhouse gas reduction is signifigantly better than gasoline powered engines.

[colette veney]

well as a consumer and viewing the rest of the world and their expedient transition to renewable energy is now a world forum - I am relieved that Billionaires know that their money wont be worth a cent if we dont have a good economy if we in each state do not start taking this global warming seriously and it is not just about the animals it is about our drinking water for one for two it is the air we breath for three it is about the soil we plant and the grounds where the herds of animals graze. So for GM to finally took that plunge and say yes it serious and yes it is true and yes we have to start right now cause I would say a good decade has gone and we are suffering more than any point of our history. I am here to say that mother nature can not be ordered around and man cant stand up against mother nature it is to be respected like the Native Americans of this great land. We failed them and now we have failed ourselves. At this point we have achance to not be consumed by mother nature with torrent winds and floods and the people of the coastlines need to know what occurred last week isnt the end of it. ALl the fancy glamour will have to wait until the ceo of the corporations stop putting money before a human life to me one life is too many . One animal is too many and when we as a people become numb to the news of devastation than watch out we have something to be really concerned about . It will now take great advertisers from the green sector to push the glamour realm of safety and green productions and for the most part it will sale .thank you cnet for your vital news info because technology isnt going anywhere but up and we have to be smarter and not wasteful forget the glamour. Thank you for caring and sharing

[tewkewl]

This thing is useless for half of america because we live in apartments.

i guess they didn't think of that when they made the car.

Also, 40K for a car that says chevy? chevy has the ugliest symbol in the business! at that price, they sould have called it a cadi. at least people wouldn't mind the name plate then.

[theantibush]

For aparments that want to remain competitive they will install electric car outlets.

[juxtaposicion]

So here?s a thought, and I feel retarded so no other news outlet has mentioned this, but does the Chevy Volt, in order to get it?s 360-mile range need periodic stops?

The 71hp-generator hooked up to an electric engine (and the generator runs at only this speed.) The electric engine is 160hp, and eats up a full battery charge in about 40mi.

As the battery gets low, the gas engine kicks in to start recharging the battery. But because the generator generates so much less power, wouldn?t that limit the max speed after your battery is depleted? The max speed for the electric motor is ~100mph, and if you cut the power (once you?ve run out of battery) to 71hp/160hp~44% of that, you?re top speed is like 44mph, no? And that?s not including other inefficiencies, and assuming (probably incorrectly) that power is proportional to speed, so the max speed is probably still lower.

So assuming that you?re doing a cross-country trip, are your choices go at 44mph (or whatever the actual max is) or stop, charge up, and go again? Does that 360-mile range have this big caveat?

Because I don?t see a way around it. I don?t see other secret power sources, and the generator runs at one speed, so it?s not like you can ramp up power at the expense of efficiency.

chris

[albizzia]

44 mph? Nah, this isn't a wimpy NEV. No, it doesn't take full power to maintain freeway cruising speed.

That 40 mile EV range is achieved using only 8 Kwh of the battery capacity. The generator kicks in when the battery charge is at 35%, leaving a reserve. The power output from the generator is sufficient to drive at a steady freeway speed, and the motor can draw power from both the generator and battery when needed for acceleration and hill climbing. No, it is NOT necessary to stop for recharging, power from the generator goes directly to the motor, and any surplus power from the generator or from regenerative braking is used to recharge the battery while driving. If the charge level reaches about 45%, the generator can shut off and the car resumes running on battery power. The main charging is to be done at the outlet, as that saves gas and money.

Turns out the generator is not limited to one speed only. Most of the time it runs it will use the the most efficient speed and power output, but if necessary it can sacrifice some efficiency for more power - like going up a very long hill!

If I'm not mistaken, top speed is 130 mph, and 0 to 60 mph is a reasonable 8 seconds. Performance should be sufficient for all but the speed demons.

[wahooyahoo]

Need to be able to charge the battery in a very short time, or have a solar storage source to dump into cars battery for overnight charging.

[cobaltblue1975]

Interesting thought. I was thinking about something similar the other day. I wonder what would be involved in producing photo voltaic see through glass. So every window on the car is a solar panel.

[celticbrewer]

"In all-electric mode, drivers can expect the equivalent of about 100 miles per gallon"

I'm confused. If it's in all-electric mode (ie staying within the 40 mile all-battery trip limit and charging at home off the grid); how is it burning any gas to come up with 100 miles per *gallon*?

There's a seperate figure (50mpg) for when it's running in a hybrid mode, so that can't be the variable.

Does the engine run all the time to power other things like lights and heat/AC? Watching hybrids (Civic) idle at a red light and have exhaust coming from the tail pipe would lead me to believe so.

[albizzia]

The "equivalent of 100 mpg" is talking about the energy equivalence between electricity and gasoline, but that figure is a bit low, it is over 130 mpg equivalent. Of course it isn't using any gasoline when in EV mode, so the gasoline fuel economy wouldn't really apply until the generator kicks in.

Like most hybrids, the A/C is electric, the engine doesn't need to be running unless the battery is low, about 35% charge.

[theantibush]

The Volt is just what Ive been waiting for. My park&ride (Seattle area) has plug-ins for electric cars, as does my employers office tower and my own garage at home. Unless I went on a road trip I wouldnt ever use a drop of liquid fuel with the Volt. Certainly, the Volt wont work for all people, no car can. But it will work for enough people to save petrol for things lacking alternatives, such as long-haul trucking and aviation. And Im sure electrical generation plants can be much greener than a lot of the smoking cars I see on the road. I wouldn?t be surprised if 3rd party applications come up in the years ahead that make use of used volt batteries to store home solar energy for nights and cloudy days, not to mention other uses. But the most amazing thing of all is that an American company has finally gotten a clue. I hope that they never lose it.

[cobaltblue1975]

"But the most amazing thing of all is that an American company has finally gotten a clue. I hope that they never lose it."
You can say that again! :)

[cobaltblue1975]

MacHeads,

I understand your frustration. It drives me crazy as well, but here is the reality. The world unfortunately is driven by money. Sadly, global decisions are based on how much of it can be obtained as quickly and safely as possible. The environment and doing the right thing will always take a back seat when money is involved. We have decades of complacency to prove that. The technology to do this has been around more or less for 15 to 20 years. Yes the battery tech is different, but we could have started the work much sooner. I don?t know how much the oil company?s had a say in this complacency, but I can?t see them having to much say in the decisions of auto makers if the auto maker could see a true profit in building something that didn?t require gas or less of it.

Necessity is the mother of invention! That fact will always hold true. The necessity isn't for the environment, or to help people, its their wallet that?s in jeopardy. GM realized almost too late that they made a critical error in their thinking. They assumed that gas prices would always remain the same, they assumed that American's all had the same "Big Vehicle" mentality. By the time they realized it, Honda and Toyota swooped in with more compact and fuel efficient vehicles and right on time for the fuel price escalation. So where did that leave GM? With a bunch of Hummers and Escalades that they'd invested the dough to build but can't find people to buy even at deeply discounted prices.

Necessity has dictated that GM adapt or die. So enters the VOLT. Is it perfect? No. Is it a good idea? Absolutely! If necessity (even capitalistic in nature) is driving auto manufacturers to start getting serious about ultimately doing away with the I.C.E (Internal Combustion Engine) then I'm all for it even if its baby steps or not full blown electric.

I personally hoped that Gas prices would start reaching into the $5 and $6 range. It?s that discomfort that has spurred the huge interest in finding a better and cheaper way to power our cars. Sadly, necessity is driven by money on the part of the population as well. We haven't put pressure on auto manufactures as we should have because gas has been pretty cheap up until a few years ago. If gas was still cheap, like in the $1.10 range that it was a decade ago you can bet this article wouldn't even exist and we would still be sitting around dreaming of the mere possibility of this vehicle. We wouldn't even have the opportunity to complain about its imperfections.

So, I'll take it! I don't drive more than 40 miles per day, so for me and for most people it is effectively a full blown electric car. My only concern is that GM has 2 years to royally screw this up, either with delays, poor PR, lack of public awareness, or inflation. The latter being the biggest of my concerns. This article has shown me the second increase in the projected price of this vehicle. The VOLT when announced was originally supposed to be a reletively reasonable $30,000. It then went to $35,000 when the engineers realized that electricity is required to power Radios and Windshield wipers (And these people get paid how much?). The extra 5k is for the cost of "Redundant Systems" to compensate for accessory power usage. Now it?s ballooned to $40,000. Hopefully it doesn?t make itself a moot point due to cost.

[IronBob]

There's only one solution to the global warming problem. Kill all the environmentalists, stack their bodies in a big pit and burn them for fuel. This solution addresses two issues at the outset. 1) We won't have to listen to these morons and their pseudo-science bullcrap 2) We actually will get some fuel out of the deal.

As long as we cater to these whackos we'll never get anywhere because the entire lot of them, at least in the global warming debate, will never be happy until everyone else but them is living in a cave. You see, environmentalism is a hypocrisy. They drive, pollute and take a dump like everyone else but they actually believe that theirs doesn't contribute to the problem or that their impact is minimized by their good intentions.

I mean seiously, look at this thread. It's so full of stupidity that you're IQ will lower just reading it. We have one person who says we shouldn't convert to electric technology because power plants burn coal. HELLOOOO! Gee, I never knew that the Hoover Dam ran on coal or nuclear power plants relied on it either! But we won't be able to rely on water or nuclear because we might disturb Bambi's freaking habitat or we might have a 3 Mile Island (which was 30 years ago and we're not the USSR so GET OVER IT!!!!!)

Then we have the type of environmentalist that is worried about disposal. Never mind that we can drill a big freaking ditch out in the middle of the desert and dump the damn things. No, that might hurt the scorpions.

As for me, I'm going to take the Dennis Leary approach. I'll be running in a gasoline car or truck until the ozone opens up and swallows me. In fact, I'm going to drive whatever is the most economically feasible car to drive. If that's electric, sign me up but trust me, environmentalists will never stop whining..EVER. To put it mildly, I could care less about their rotten, spoiled brat kids and whatever legacy we supposedly owe them.

[WRByrd]

Somebody tell Michael Moore. Dude ? this is who ?killed? your electric car.

Let?s start with some basic facts:

? The Chevy volt lithium ion battery pack stores 16 kWh of electrical energy.
? One gallon of gasoline contains 36.6kWh of chemical energy.

This isn?t an ?apples to apples? comparison, since a gasoline engine is only about 25% efficient at converting chemical energy to mechanical energy, while a battery and electric motor are typically more efficient at converting electrical energy to mechanical energy ? and it is mechanical energy that makes a car move.

A lithium ion battery will be 80 to 90% efficient in storing and then delivering electrical energy. http://www.pluginhighway.ca/PHEV2007/proceedings/PluginHwy_PHEV2007_PaperReviewed_Valoen.pdf
Call the battery 85% efficient on average.

An electric motor will max out at 95% efficiency at converting electrical energy to mechanical energy (and would be less efficient than that at off-design conditions, which would seem to apply fairly often for a vehicle motor). Call it 90% for automotive use.

The combined battery / electric motor would have an efficiency of about 76%.

Adjusting for the efficiency of each system:
The Chevy Volt battery pack / electric motor will deliver about 12 kWh of mechanical energy to the car?s drive train.
A gallon of gasoline / gasoline engine will deliver about 9 kWh of mechanical energy to the car?s drive train. Using a normal gasoline engine, it would take 1.3 gallons of gas to deliver the same amount of mechanical energy as the Chevy Volt battery pack. (note: this just confirms a quote I read from the lead engineer for the Chevy Volt, who stated that the battery pack is ?about the same as a gallon of gasoline?).

The Chevy Volt is supposed to go 40 miles on a full charge of the battery pack, before the on-board gasoline engine kicks in. On an energy-equivalent basis, that equals about 31 miles to the gallon. (40 miles on 1.3 gallons of gas). There are lots of inexpensive cars that get better gas mileage than that ? including my son?s Honda. Thus, the Volt isn?t an especially ?energy-efficient? car. It just uses a different FORM of energy.

At $0.15 / kWh (a typical residential electrical cost), it will cost $2.40 to charge the Chevy Volt battery pack.
Gasoline in my neighborhood today (8/24/09) retails at $2.23 / gallon. It would cost $2.97 to purchase 1.3 gallons, which will deliver the same amount of mechanical energy as the batteries in the Volt.

IF (and that is a HUGE IF) the Chevy Volt is ONLY used for trips less than 40 miles in length, the owner of a battery-powered Chevy Volt will save $0.57 per 40 miles as compared to the owner of an equivalent gasoline-powered car ($2.97 - $2.40). If driven for 50,000 miles, that would equal a savings of $712.50. Of course, if trips were taken longer than 40 miles, the Chevy Volt would be much LESS efficient than a conventional car, since there are huge inefficiencies in how the Chevy Volt will run a gasoline engine to power an electrical generator to charge the battery pack to run the electrical motors to power the drive train. So it will actually cost MORE to run a Chevy Volt on trips exceeding 40 miles (or on any combination of trips that exceed 40 miles between re-charging) than it would to run a conventional car on a gasoline engine. A good estimate of that efficiency would be to shave off the 76% battery pack / electric motor efficiency from the cost of running a pure gasoline engine car. $2.97 / 0.76 yields $3.91, or about a buck MORE than the pure gasoline engine car for that incremental 40 mile trip.

For extra credit, those who recall their high school algebra can calculate the break-even distance at which the energy cost for the Chevy Volt will equal the cost of a pure gasoline engine (saving $0.57 for the first 40 miles, then paying $0.94 extra for the next 40 miles). It breaks even at a trip length of 64 miles, at which point you would be better off driving a Honda Civic.

I haven?t even bothered to try to factor in the extra weight of the Chevy Volt?s batteries and electric motor / generator, which will further decrease its efficiency compared to a normal gasoline engine car (don?t forget that the Chevy Volt has a 1.4 liter gasoline engine, in addition to all that other stuff).

Unfortunately, the Chevy Volt will cost about $20,000 more than an equivalent economy car, running on regular gasoline.

There aren?t many people who are willing to shell out an incremental $20,000 just to make a political statement.

And that?s what killed your electric car.