Vetting the Volt?

GM is owned by the government. Fear not. All will be taken care of and they will not fall because the government will just reach deeper into your pocket and - Bing! - fix the problem.

The good news is the Volt will help propel the development of this technology here and abroad.

Dear AH, Do you think that the Volt will meet the Taxi Challenge?

You and I do have our differences, but you know I consider you expert in this area.

If this Volt will be a superior Taxi, able to operate 24 hours a day, all over Manhattan it will be a winner, regardless.

I'd be surprised if the batteries would last 6 months.

That makes sense to me, though I wouldn't mind if you elaborated some as we wonder how many recharges these batteries are good for.

Certainly it would not be unusual for a cab that is run for two 12 hour shifts a day in Manhattan to clock 400 to 720 miles a day.

I arrived at that these figures by multiplying 30 miles an hour times 24 hours.

At 15 miles an hour average, for 24 hours, that is a total of 360 miles per day.

365 times 360 equals 131,400 miles a year.

What will a Volt initially sell for?

If a Volt is applied to the work of a cab, when will its batteries need to be replaced? What would that cost?

I am just messing around here trying to figure out how this new vehicle stacks up for the most demanding of car tasks.

I do consider that any car that will make it as a taxi, a desirable car.

Altho I never drove a taxi I did a lot of driving around NYC when I was a health inspector forNYC. Frankly from what I've read about the volt, I do NOT think it will make it as a taxi. the biggest problem with an all-electric car is the high cost of batteries, currenlty batteries cost approx 50c per WattHr and UP. LiPo Batteries have the highest energy /pound of all but are also very touchy, I know, I've had more then one battery go up in flames. LIFe batteries are probably the best system, but their prices have to come down quite a bit before battery powered cars are practical. I use to own a Mehari by Citroen, this car which looked like a small jeep, used a33 HP gasoline ( 2 cylender opposed Air cooled engine ). Translating that to electric, a 20 HP motor would probaby be the equivalant. Since 746 Watts (OK let's round that out to 750 ) is = to 1 HP, we would need 1500WHrs to give us 1 hr of driving or 3000 to give us 2 hrs driving which woudl translate to 100 miles @ 50 MPH. But this is a very light car ( also the Citroen 2CV or Dyanne would work ). 3000 WHrs = 1500 dollars at 50c / WHr. if we went to a let say 80HP motor thatwould require 12000 Whrs or 6000 dollars to get us 2 hrs driving time if we went to 120 HP motor we would need 18,000 WHrs and if we went to 200 HP we would need 30,000 Whrs for a cost of 15,000 dollars just for the batteries to drive that car for 2 hours or 100 to 140 miles. add the cost of the electric motors, and the recharging circuits etc and you can see the problem. I'll wait for the hydrogen economy

Harry L.Goldman livagain1@hotmail.com

You are right that the cost of batteries is very high.

Your math is off by an order of magnitude, however. (The cost of battery packs is even more astronomical than you implied.) Where you say "Since 746 Watts (OK let's round that out to 750 ) is = to 1 HP, we would need 1500WHrs to give us 1 hr of driving or 3000 to give us 2 hrs driving" you would actually need 15,000 WHr for one hour or 30,000 for 2 hours. However, electric motors (and gasoline engines) do not operate at full output at 50 mph. The Mehari was small and light, but had atrocious aerodynamics, so probably used 10 hp at 50 (and therefore, all 33 hp at its top speed of 75) (hp requirement goes up roughly with the cube of speed to overcome aero drag). Using this figure, 7500 WHrs would get you 50 miles, for a consumption of 150 WHr per mile. This squares pretty well with the figures for converted Pria, which consume about 250 Whr/ mile (The Prius is much heavier and has more frontal area, but a much more streamlined shape.)

The motor's peak hp output has little to do with battery range, for the same reason -- in ordinary driving, the hp used is a small fraction of the total available. The Tesla Roadster has over 200 hp, but uses about 300 Whr/ mile, so 80% of its 56KWh battery pack will take the car 150 miles. In very spirited driving (i.e. on a track) the Tesla gets about 50 miles per charge. Using the 300 Whr per mile figure, at 50 on a level road, the Tesla would be using 15 KW, probably pretty close, given its mediocre aerodynamics and weight of about double that of a Mehari.

You may have a long wait for the hydrogen economy. In a typical electric vehicle, for each kilowatt hour of energy used to charge the batteries, at least 60% ends up at the drive wheels (and in a high efficiency vehicle, charging is 90% efficient, the motor and controller together are 90% efficient and the transmission is 95% efficient, for 77% efficiency from plug-to-wheel). The "hydrogen economy" equivalent of charging the batteries (i.e., getting hydrogen into a tank at a reasonable volume and weight to energy ratio) is full of losses. Then, once in the tank, the fuel cell used to turn the energy back into electricity is also inefficient. The losses involved in creating, compressing, refrigerating, and storing hydrogen are so high that it cannot make environmental or economic to sell the stuff as a fuel. This thread references an article by Robert Zubrin that is worth reading.

I did my own research and I think he has an agenda

I still feel the H2Eco economy is the answer and yes I did round things out as for price of batteries, I had gotten a quote on them and at the current time if one buys 5000 units one can get 3.2Vx100AH batteries for about $125.00

I would prefer they give an honest 'cost per mile' range based on realistic electrical and fuel cost comparisons.

It would equate the real savings a person gets to what it really does cost not what it could cost.

Heres what I see as why a cost per mile rating is more realistic.

If your charging your electric vehicle and you live in a high electrical cost location of say $18 cents a KWH and your local gas prices are around $2.00
a gallon (this summers local low) your cost per mile on electric power is going to be near that of an efficient gasoline fueled vehicle. That is your gasoline car gets a realistic 40MPG and your electric car may only get an as calculated 42 MPG equivalent.

However Take those same two vehicles and move them to another location and time where the electric car can be charged on off peak power at around 3.2 cents a KWH (local rate) and gasoline costs $4.00 (last local peak) a gallon. The gas powered car still gets an average 40 MPG but the electric cars as calculated MPG is closer to 450 MPG in comparison to the $4.00 a gallon gasoline vehicle.

Just using a single average 230 MPG equivalent number leaves to much open in terms of realistic application data.

I agree whole heartedly. One GA for you Blink. The demise of the EV-1 and the much delayed yet overly touted Volt almost made me want GM to fold. (I know that a GM bankruptcy would not return the EV-1 and the short term economic effects would be horrible. But I despise rewarding incompetence.) I do think that GM is not consciously lying about the Volt's capabilities though. Just like the insane are not criminally responsible for their actions. GM cannot tell truth from fiction.

Personally I hope GM does well with the Volt. It's a well designed vehicle in both aesthetics and operation. I am not a global warming fanatic but I do believe we are depleting earths resources, slowly mind you, but depleting none the less.

I have one grandson at the moment and hope to have many more. I would very much like it if when my children's children become grandparents, they will have resources that they can still rely on. I don't look for anything drastic to happen in my lifetime but I am glad to see that an automobile company is looking to the future, Whether its GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, or any other manufacturer.

From what I read of the GE Volt, the battery can only run the car approx 40 miles. after that it has to use the regular gasoline engine, Well if you go let say only 45 miles, using the gasoline engine for 5 of those 45 miles, then yah you may get y our 230 miles per gallon. But I doubt you can run the car 230 miles on one gallon of gasoline. This sounds like pure HYPE!!

Welcome to the world of marketing.

The volt is an interesting vehicle, and it should stimulate some interesting research, but not at GM. Nothing has really changed at GM the culture remains the same, even with a shake-up at the top. I have been talking with quite a few people at GM since the bailout and they all still have the same old arrogant attitude of 'we know better'.

Back on topic.

The electrical grid simply cannot sustain the added load of the proposed volume of EV added. Ponder this; Electrical peak is just after people return home from work. They get home and turn on all their 'stuff' and demand peaks. For years we have been told to conserve, to turn off a few things to help reduce peak demand. Now we are being told the EV will save us all, however by plugging it in when 'Joe worker' gets home, the demand will increase. We will be saved, in the dark. Major problem solved, no electrical use, no pollution for generation stations. Sorry for the sarcasm.

For these vehicles to work tow markets in North America have to buy them in large volume. One being California, the other New Jersey, both the largest concentration of consumers, and the target of almost all marketing campaigns. Unfortunately both areas have weak electrical grids, and very high usage. Adding capacity in New Jersey is by far easier than California, however is would still take near a decade to get additional generation on line, not going to happen at all in California, they have made the rules far too strict and the density of the 'not in my back yard' types is far too high.

The solution is not a pure EV, but a hybrid, look to the rail system, it has worked for them for decades.

have a great week everyone.

The being able to only charge the vehicle after peak hours problem has long been solved or at least around here it has. Typically utility companies around here just put off peak control boxes on the non critical high load devices and remotely turn them off as the peak demands durring the day rise and fall. Its the whole point of OFF peak rate savings programs and the related hardware needed to use it.

12 cents a KWH normal rate Vs 3.4 cents a KWH for off peak doesn't take much convincing as to what advantage waiting until later for your car to charge up has. And being the power company has the control over who gets what turned on and off its fully automatic.

Around here off peak water heaters, central air conditioning and heating sysytems are the most common applications. However most any high power consumption devices can be set up to use it as well.

Unfortunately the device is not universally used and most people will not even consider the difference in cost when they get home and plug in. If they did we would not have issues with brown outs.

Also many utility companies foolishly see off peak charging rates as a way to loose revenue, not boost efficiency. In a perfect world (aka ruled by me ) no utility price increase would be permitted without an off peak charging structure. (Now where did I put that scepter )

I own a 2001 Honda Insight, and now have over 125,000 miles on it. Honda replaced the battery at 117,000. Although I love this car, my feeling about hybrids has been modified by owning this car. First of all, it gets 50 mpg, not 70 like some claim. I've made a science of my driving technique, and conclude that the only way you can approach 70 is by drafting big rigs at 60 mph. The Prius, which is heavier and has a bigger cross-section gets an average of maybe 40. The trouble is, many people either lie or don't know how to calculate mpg. Yesterday I saw a full size truck in front of Costco, and it was a hybrid with a $52K 20/20mpg sticker. For crying out loud, you can get at least that with a turbo diesel, with fewer parts, no big battery, less driving weight, and a much lower sell price. My question is this: which produces more pollution per mile, my 50mpg Insight, or a new 50 mpg Jetta TDI?

My question is this: which produces more pollution per mile, my 50mpg Insight, or a new 50 mpg Jetta TDI?

The Jetta is built to newer, tighter emission standards (and because it is a diesel, has more expensive emission control stuff). (On the other hand the Insight was much cleaner than the 2001 requirements.) The short answer is that they are very close. A slightly longer answer is that diesel fuel is higher energy and uses more crude per gallon. But then, there is more refining involved in gasoline. The GREET spreadsheets (from Argonne National Lab) go into such stuff -- but have been known to case headaches.

Re the $52,000 price: The hybrid system is not the main cause here, and I think you'd find that identically equipped diesels and hybrid trucks should be fairly close in cost. In somewhat the same way, the Diesel Jetta and the Prius are similar in price, even though the Prius has a little higher gee-gaw content. Who knows what will happen to diesel fuel prices, but at various times it has been hard (in the US) to justify the higher cost of a diesel car (e.g. Jetta Diesel vs Jetta gas) because the cost of the fuel has been higher -- you have to drive tons of miles to reach break even.

From an overall pollution, resource depletion, manufacturing energy etc. perspective keeping your Insight going puts you in the top 1/10% of drivers, environmentally.

I doubt VW's claims re the Jetta. The EPA tests are precise and repeatable, and for most cars, are close to average driver results (at least if average drivers respond to the EPA site.) I'd submit that the average Jetta diesel driver is far more economy conscious than the typical driver, so gets better-than-EPA test results -- but that's a measure of the driver, not the car. The same applies to your car -- I know a few economy nuts who really keep very accurate records and get very high mileage with Insights -- but they are effectively hypermilers. You probably drive like a normal driver who wants to get somewhere.

Thanks Blink, that was very informative. I do like diesels, and often wonder why nobody has a nice little 80HP turbodiesel for the Smart or the hybrids. A good diesel engine is pretty clean - I've seen them in Germany on Audis and you can put a white hanky over the tailpipe and pick up no soot - and they're more efficient, have fewer parts, etc. Of course, diesel is cheaper in Germany and they grow a lot of castor beans to make it. Maybe you have some insight wrt this.

Also, I've heard people claim that the environmental impact of a hybrid is greater than that of a Hummer, based on toxic manufacturing and disposal issues. How true is that?

I would like to trust a GM product since I was in the past,but after they conspired to destroy all of the largest mass transit systems in the U.S. & were barely punished because of political influence & when Henry Ford included a safety option on his cars that included the first shoulder/lap belt,padded dashboard & padded visor they threatened Ford with underpricing to run him out of business,he eliminated the option, not to forget the Corvair that broke necks & was dangerous in many ways(turning over,front gas tank that made it a fireball) & destroyed the EV-1, probably the best of the first electric cars never needing any maintenance to speak of. Ithink they have found a big "TIT" with deep pockets to squeeze more from, like the military/industrial complex has for way too long(more than half of our GDP) We are all working for the Pentagon for the war machine. No,I will wait for better scores on the Volt before I think of buying & then probably not.