this is excellent news
time to buy some GM stocks for long term investment
lol

 

Electric vehicles will help reduce pollution for sure - the pollution created to power an EV is a small fraction of what the equivalent all gas or hybrid car would create.

But anyhow... who cares about pollution from late model vehicles anyway.. the cars coming out these days produce a very negligible amount of pollution compared to all of the other sources out there.

This is mainly about saving money, and assuming the Volt comes in at a reasonable price and assuming fuel continues to rise, then the Volt will save people plenty of money over time.

Those complaining about the 40 mile range of the Volt compared to the EV from 12 years ago need to realize a couple of things:

-GM's original EV was an entirely electric vehicle. There was no gasoline charging system, so once you were out, you were out.

-The later revisions of the car had a theoretical range of 75 to 150 miles but for the most part the cars were doing around 50-60 miles and then that was it... you were stranded.... call in the tow truck or push it down the road because you can't even go get a gas can to get it to the next station.

-It had over 1000 pounds of batteries in it... and these batteries were prone to overheating, didn't have the best shelf life or number of designed charge cycles, and had a habit of developing a memory.

LiIon and in the future LiPol is the way to go. GM is doing the Volt right. 40 miles per day is enough to get most people's daily commute taken care of, and a 600 mile range at 55mpg highway after that is great.

 

Because they realized they made a terrible mistake and that there is a thriving demand for these vehicles?


WRONG. GM was not forced to build the EV1 by California's 1990 mandate. The mandate suggested that if they wanted to continue to sell vehicles in the state of California, that a certain percentage of their sales needed to be EV by a certain date. I don't recall the specifics at this point, but it was something like 10% by 2005, 15% by 2010, etc etc. The state of California did not force GM to build anything. However, once they got wind that EVs were being developed by GM, that is when they created the mandate. It was a bad idea and it certainly helped GM make the decision to crush the project and sell off the battery technology to Chevron.

 

Here is an important question. First off, I'd like to see some ling range good looking electric cars in the future. I think those types of cars will be a large part of future automobiles. That said, how does the accessory 12V system work? is there a generator or something that will continuously charge the 12V system to power your everyday 12V accessories? If 12V is converted from the main electric batteries, does this mean that the more 12V accessories you have like cell phones, stereo systems, DVD players and such will reduce your over all range?

 

All the manufacturers have been trying to ditch 12 (actually 14.4vdc) electrics for some time. If you look at the electric power steering in the 2IS, you'll see it runs on 48vdc. This was because the manufacturers expected to convert the industry to 48v by 2008. Unfortunately it has not happened. They wanted to do this to reduce the weight of the wiring harnesses by reducing the current necessary to run all the things needing power in the modern car.

Another small factor with GM's electric cars - side impact, rollover, and supplemental restraint laws have changed a LOT since the mid 90's. This means one of two things - more expensive materials to build the chassis, or a heavier chassis built with conventional materials. One kills cost. The other kills range. I suspect they're a lot more concerned with cost than range right now.

I'd bet a LOT of money they've spent some serious millions of dollars on market research to arrive at the conclusion of a 40 mile range before needing a recharge.

I always love hearing non-engineering types argue the merits and demerits of electrics.

BTW, the "excess capacity" built into the current electricity generating system isn't truly excess. It's there, but if we start exercising it 24/7 instead of the existing model which allows for maintenance and extended service life, we'll be seeing a whole lot of money being spent to provide additional RELIABLE capacity to our electric grid. Add to this the complete hogwash about renewables being the primary source of additional capacity or "forcing" renewables to be the primary source, and you're going to **** off a lot of utility stock investors who will see rising maintenance and operations costs with little return. It would seem these people have already forgotten the brown-outs in California that got Gov. Davis kicked to the curb. And yes, California has approved building new power generation facilities. Unfortunately the vast majority of them are natural gas powered. Not wind, not water, not switchgrass ethanol, but NATURAL GAS. That's surely helping a lot, isn't it?

 

I heard they wanted to convert to higher voltage for a long time now. However, there is a large 12V aftermarket market. Until the entire, or at least he majority of the aftermarket follows it would be tough to just switch. Personally, I really don't care too much about what standard things come with a car, but what and how easy it is to add aftermarket stuff that I want to it.

 

The other reason they want 48v is so they can use electronically controlled valves in the engine and ditch cams altogether. I think that would be marvelous. But it's not GM Volt related.

 

Not all efficiencies are the same. You're assuming that a coal plant operates at the same efficiency as an IC engine. Not even close.

 

for those whining that they sometimes have to drive 500 miles a day.....

The Volt has a range of about 40 miles on the battery alone which might not seem like much. But, considering that most people drive fewer miles than that per day, it should mean that a lot of drivers will never use a drop of gas on their daily commute. However, when the fuel tank is filled to it's capacity of 12 US gallons of gas, the Volt has a range of 640 miles. In addition, the Volt ICE is fully flex fuel capable and can run on any combination of gasoline or ethanol up to E85.

 

if youre expecting a 100% ideal answer, you'll never find one.

 

+1, great post!

goes with CL's mentality...seems like most alternative vehicles/hybrid/EV gets negative comments on CL unless it goes 0-60 in 3.5 secs (Tesla) or has 500hp.



my take -- if the Volt's battery can be eventually stretched to even close to 100 miles, I don't see how this vehicle CAN'T make it unless its priced crazy...GM needs to follow the Prius path to success...didn't Toyota initially lose money on this car just to get it to market?

 

Hmmm... I thought the volt was electric only. 640 miles.... wow.

 

I put an article up in the Automotive Future Tech posting about some of the development issues going on. As for how GM is developing the Volt, they are getting some things right. From that article:

"Public policy debates now affect every aspect of vehicle design, propulsion systems, and fuel usage. The scope and depth of these debates produced energetic discussions at two recent automotive conferences and led to some surprising questions.

For instance: How do U.S. drivers actually use their cars, and are government test cycles out of date? Does the United States require diesel engines to be too clean? Will the batteries developed for plug-in hybrids make regular old hybrids so affordable that plug-ins will never actually make sense? Could proposed European carbon regulations deal a mortal blow to the German auto industry? And how did London’s mayor inadvertently devastate the UK market for electric cars?

First, it turns out that Southern California drivers don’t drive the way the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s test procedures say they do. The EPA uses standard urban and highway driving cycles with patterns of acceleration, speed, braking, and idling that are now fairly well known to automotive regulatory engineers.

General Motors chose to use real-world driving data to model and benchmark its Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle, said Pete Savagian, director of engineering for GM hybrid power trains. He described a set of driving-cycle data, recently gathered from actual Southern California drivers in actual cars, to conferees at the Hybrid Vehicle Technologies Symposium, convened by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in San Diego in February.

What’s the bottom line? These drivers are tough on their cars—much tougher than the test drivers using the EPA’s regulatory cycles. And they drive very differently from the greenest of Toyota Prius drivers, who often attempt to keep their cars in electric mode as long as possible.

Why are these data significant? Like other sprawling suburban areas connected by freeways and six-lane arterials, Southern California lends itself to a rapid mix of high-speed driving and bursts of stop-and-go traffic—and its drivers are impatient. This pattern is much more reflective of how average U.S. drivers behave.

What, asked Savagian, was the median freeway speed based on actual Southern California driving data? The answer was 83 miles per hour (133 kilometers per hour). As Savagian remarked solemnly, “Drivers in L.A. turned out to be very, ah, aggressive.”

 

Yup, 40 miles pure EV, then 600 miles as a hybrid (50mpg). I really can't wait to see how this develops and what Nissan & Toyota are going to come up with to directly compete with the Volt

 

50mpg? I thought the equivalency was 100mpg?