More on Renault’s planned approach.
I think the goal is to have the car cost about as much as a similarly sized and powered ICE car and the cost of leasing the battery plus the electricity cost about as much as gas would.
I think it would be easier and more practical to bring diesels into the US but the new NOx standards are making the engines overly complicated. Not sure it’s even necessary. For me to buy an electric vehicle means getting a second car/truck to haul stuff. I’d rather use a trailer when needed.
Perhaps the Volt will be better able to compete also on price in Europe where the gasoline price most places is considerable higher. Anyway, it is going to happen sooner or later. It will take some time to phase out the older technology models, but who here thinks he will be driving a gasoline car in 2025/2030? I hope the Volt succeeds because that would speed up the process.
I find this really interesting, because I used to have a 1998 Jetta, and I’d drive it any day over my sister’s 2005 Prius. The Jetta was fun (it was a stick-shift, so that’s part of it), quick, nimble, and her Prius is boring, sluggish, and doesn’t get that great of mileage (she’s averaging about 35 mpg lately; I don’t remember what the Jetta got but it wouldn’t have been much less than that). Different strokes, I guess.
Where I think the Volt would really do well is with the families that already have another car for road trips and such, but have a techie-type person who has a reasonably long commute. I think it’s a good-looking car for a sedan (although does anyone else think Chevy should change their logo to something less clunky and old-looking?) and the “neat” factor is as important to a lot of people who are choosing a new vehicle as pure economics.
DSeid’s point about stores attracting customers with complementary chargers is also good. I think it would attract customers, including, at first, people coming to see a car plugged into a socket. If I was walking by, I’d stop and look. And people will shop at more expensive places for some relatively minor perks. We have a grocery store chain in my area that gives $.10/gallon of gas at a certain gas station if you spend $100 there. The store is quite a bit more expensive than other options (for no jump in quality), you can easily add 20% to your grocery bill by shopping there. But I know people who shop there for the gas discount. It doesn’t always make sense, but people like to feel like they’re getting something for free.
If Chevrolet markets the Volt on purely economic grounds, it will fail. The people who care about saving money on gas aren’t the people who can afford a $37,000 car.
If Chevy markets it as a car to save the planet, it will find a niche market among upscale greens, but that’s it.
The way to market this car is, “The car of the 21st Century”, or something like that. Show the iPhone app in the commercial. Focus on the whiz-bang dashboard with all the digital gauges. Show an animated flowchart of electrical current surging through the car. Have a shot of someone sitting at a light in complete silence, then plug in a USB stick and hear a symphony start to play. Then have the driver grimacing as a loud, roughly idling car pulls up next to him.
The message is, “You can either have the old, lumpy, vibrating 20th century car with the big gas motor, or you can join us in the 21st century and drive a car that does it right.”
Something like that. Make the car cool in its own right. Build cachet around it. If they try to make it, “The efficient commuter car that’s good for Mother Earth”, they’ll lose.
The technology will have to accommodate the ability to tow stuff before it wipes ICE off the market. It’s like power tools. I can use a battery powered hedge trimmer because it doesn’t require a lot of energy to cut hedges but when it comes to edging or trimming grass then a battery doesn’t come close to storing enough energy to make it worth my while. Now that may change with something like a capacitor battery that fully recharges in seconds. And batteries shouldn’t just recharge quickly, they should last forever (not become landfill in a couple of years). Unlike ICE engines, batteries represent stored dollars and not just stored energy. Their lifespan represents a major cost to the car and not just the energy to power it.
The technology is already within our grasp so I expect battery operated cars to be something of a norm in 2025 but I don’t see the towing replacement of an ICE engine on the drawing board so it’s hard to guess at this point.
The problem is that it doesn’t replace a regular car at this point. It’s a niche car because it doesn’t fulfill the full utility of a standard car. The true efficiency (The batteries) cannot operate on a continuous duty cycle. When they are exhausted the car is severely limited in performance.
In it’s current state, it can’t be sold as a 21st century car. It has to be sold as a mother-earth hugging status symbol.
Of course, it’s not going to be the Volt or the Leaf that ends up being the Car of the Future. Ultimately, it’s going to be a successor to the Volt or the Leaf. But you can’t have the successors until you have the frontrunners.
How do you figure that? Where does it lose utility? Sure, it’s not super powerful and you’re not going to tow anything with it, but the same is true for many small cars.
80% of all driving is done less than 10 miles from home. A 40 mile all-electric range means that for many people, turning on the gas engine may be a fairly rare thing, and their systemic fuel economy could be in the hundreds of miles per gallon. And if they need the extended range, it’s probably on the highway where you can get away with lower power in the first place.
As far as i know, the only thing the Volt gives up un utility is.a small amount of luggage space due to the battery. What else is it missing?
All choices give up something to gain something.
I am attracted to the low wear and tear and thus low maintenance of a pure BEV and really like the idea of not wasting my time at gas stations. Plugging in at home is no extra time for me. Giving up towing is no sacrifice to me as I do not do that. (Although there are indeed electric vehicles that tow and more, and those that are very very fast too, so I do not get that objection at all.) Giving up the ability to drive cross country is no problem for me as I only do that to on the college road trips and our family has another vehicle than mine. I’d enjoy doing a small part to decreasing our dependence on oil and the countries that produce it. I’d feel good about doing my part to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. If the price point gets close enough, that balance is little to give up compared to what I gain.
Another person may feel that giving up the ability to drive cross country is too much to give up for those advantages but is willing to take back on some oil changes in return for that utility to get them. They still like the idea of rarely stopping for gas and the intangible feelings of sticking it to oil and doing a bit to helping decrease climate change.
And another doesn’t gain much from those intangibles, and doesn’t mind stopping for gas. Maybe plugging in isn’t feasible for them either. Neither a pure BEV or a PHEV/EREV make any sense for them. At least not with our current infrastructure and technology.
The issue is not whether electric will be THE vehicle of the future. The issue is what share of the future will it have and on what time course, and how will that future play out for the different players involved.
towing aside, When the batteries have been exhausted the car won’t get out of it’s own way. Definitely not something you want to drive through mountains with. As has been pointed out, the the fuel economy argument doesn’t work because of the cost of the car so it doesn’t really serve any purpose in it’s present state.
Add fast charge batteries/fueling depots, reduce the price and the Volt/Leaf are the cars of the future.
I like plug-in hybrids better than pure electrics today simply because they seem to be a better engineering solution. One of the biggest problems with electric-only is the size, weight, cost, and charge time of a battery large enough to take the vehicle a couple of hundred miles. But 80% of driving is done in a 20 mile radius. So why not size the battery for all-electric driving within the 80% case, and provide a small gas generator as a range extender for the rare trips beyond that? You save weight, volume, cost, and charge time.
If we can get another doubling or tripling of battery efficiency, that equation might change. But for now, given the state of battery technology I’d go with the smallest I could get for my use and accept a gas backup.
What do you mean by “When the batteries have been exhausted the car won’t get out of it’s own way”? - Honestly that makes no sense. The batteries are never exhausted; before they get to 30% charge the on board generator kicks in to keep them above that state of charge. If you are heading to mountains you can put it into mountain mode which keeps the batteries at a higher state of charge (45%) so more power is available. There is also a sport mode that increases the power available. Mind you, it is a sedan, not a Tesla sports car - but one advantage that it shares with true EVs is that it delivers a fair amount of torque - 273 pound feet - which is more than a V-6 Honda Accord delivers (254). For a sedan in its class it has some punch.
Really, what the heck are you talking about?
Sam, the problem is that the small gas generator costs as well, and it requires maintenance that the electric motor does not. Again, the utility of being able to go farther, even cross country, with extant infrastructure, may make such worthwhile to many. But it is only trading one compromise for another.
Look at the link in post 77. despite the mountain mode the testers managed to run it out. Hard to say what real world experiences will be with 4 passengers and luggage. As far as performance goes, the Volt’s zero to sixty times are the same as the 4 cyl Accord which gets 34 mpg on the highway versus the extended range 38 mpg of the Volt. Not a huge difference for people who do a lot of traveling. Real world efficiencies are going to vary drastically depending on distances driven and type of terrain.
The car is very appealing in all the video reviews of it but I’m not a huge fan of the glass cockpit mentality. I have grown weary of computer driven heating/air conditioning systems after having worked on them. And I realize the car needs LED headlights/tail lights and I truly look forward to these becoming a standard (do you hear that general aviation?) but the average consumer is not going to appreciate any of the maintenance costs associated with the Volt.
Yet this is what the review said:
No, it is not a sports car. Trying to drive it like a sports car up a mountain and in the wrong mode for that condition, will disappoint the “enthusiast”. And a Honda Accord would disappoint that enthusiast as well. As far as performance goes I personally don’t care about zero to sixty; I care about torque a little, the car’s punch, that’s what gets me merged and passing safely … and that it gets me to and from work.
Want an electric sports car, buy a Tesla. The Volt is a city commuter car .
The review shows that the batteries can be pushed to depletion. Substitute more weight for their aggressive driving along with air conditioning/heating and real-world driving experiences will duplicate the loss of power. Subtract more for cold weather.
You talked about not having to fill up for gas but that is something that occurs once a week versus plugging it in and unplugging it every single day. That’s going to get old real fast and doubly so in the Winter. As the temperature drops, so does the range of the batteries. The “80% of averaging driving” drops with it. According to this site the batteries aren’t up to defrosting standards set forth by FMVSS so the engine is going to be used as a defroster. That severely reduces the concept of driving on batteries function of the car.
There’s a lot of sunshine and warm fuzzies for the Volt that will only be realized under ideal conditions and even then it doesn’t pay for itself. It’s in GM’s interest to market it to people who will buy it as a trophy car and not a daily driver.