Chevrolet Volt

Great Debates
101

No argument, it is possible to push the batteries to depletion. This is not a car for the driver whose prime focus is squealing around turns through the mountains without bothering to turn on the “mountain mode”, not the car for towing a boat with, not the best car for someone whose main focus is cross country car trips, not great for someone who needs to carry around three of four kids under ten years old, not the vehicle to use as a garbage truck or a snow plow, and it will not do my taxes for me either.

It is not a car for someone who finds plugging their cell phone in at night to be an onerous burden either. Or who do not have a convenient place to easily plug their car into at night, like a covered garage.

And it is not a car that will save people lots of money or pay for its premium at the current price point and gas at say $4/gallon.

And indeed tested at temperatures about 10-15 degrees below zero the engine needs to help the batteries out if the defroster in on full tilt. Not every day is ideal driving conditions.

I think we all agree on those points. It is not the car for everyone. Some drivers and some conditions may do better than 40 gas free and some much less in the real world.

Of course it doesn’t need be the car for everyone. Just enough of us to sell what they make.

There are some of us who don’t give a shit about a status car (hence my 7 year old Honda Civic that I plan on keeping around until it either dies or my next kid in college makes a good enough case to have it for his use) but who would be willing to pay a modest premium to be able to stick it to the oil producers and help decrease our reliance on the oil producing countries, and/or who believe that climate change is real and want to do our part to reduce greenhouse gasses, and who really hate stopping off at the gas station. Are there enough of us, and is that premium modest enough, to get this segment off the ground, and to a point where they can get production costs to a more favorable point? I think so.

102

I’ve considered buying a Volt. I won’t, since when I drive, it’s usually a longer trip to get out of the city and go hiking/snowboarding/etc. But they still seem like cool technology, and I still want to buy one. I imagine there are quite a few people like me, but with driving profiles that more closely match what the Volt is optimized for.

103

One man’s decrease in oil consumption is another man’s addiction to rare earth elements.

If I was Jay Leno I’d pay a small fortune for the 1st Volt. Actually I’d pay a large fortune for it because I’m Jay Leno. but as a point of debate I’d like to know what I’m getting for my tax payer money? Should we front technology that will always have limitations or should we push for a “people’s car” that covers a broader range of consumer and is cheaper to buy?

104

NO. Until, and unless, an electric car is substantially cheaper than a regular gas car, it will continue to fail.

They need to bring the cost to buy, maintain, and drive an electric car to half what a gas car costs to buy, operate, and maintain. Electric cars must also have the same range as a gas car, and be able to recharge in the same time it takes to fill up a gas tank.

If there is no advantage to an electric car, it will continue to fail as it has for over 100 years now. Electric cars have a 100 year history of failure.

105

Jay Leno already owns 3 electric cars. The newest was built in 1925; the oldest, 1909.

I doubt that Jay Leno will buy a Volt.

106

Actually it’s 2 electric cars, the other car he talked about was a steamer so he also owns at least 2 of those.

He is a serious car collector. He bought the first Ford GT-40 when it was reintroduced and he’s been active in the promotion of green cars. He even had celebrities race them on his show. I guarantee you he is interested in the Volt because it represents a sophisticated car that is fun to drive and is the next wave of technology.

By the way, thanks for the link, I’m going to research the steam car he talked about. It sounds really interesting.

107

Actually Leno owns multiple electric motorcycles and had an EV1. By two and a half years after he wrote that column he seemed to particularly appreciate the Volt, calling it “the car of the future” …

Anyway, few of us are Leno, or accept him as a prophet of the auto industry. And the rest of what Susanann posted need not be responded to.

108

You’re right, but that doesn’t really support what you said —namely, that utility will be lost. Yes, the car won’t be particularly efficient at performing some tasks, but it can still perform them. Hence, the utility is still there, and you still have a complete car.

That said, you obviously wouldn’t care to bother with this car if said tasks were the norm for you, rather than the exception. But that’s fine —every car is made for a niche, be it small or large.

109

I honestly don’t think you’re being very fair to the car. Like quoting the extended range mph of the Volt, as if that’s the meaningful number for this car.

Even a family that travels a lot probably spends more than 50% of their time in stop-and-go driving within 20 miles of home. But let’s say they spend 50% of their miles at 0 mpg, and 50% at 38 mpg, that’s still an average of 76mpg.

The only way to really measure the fuel efficiency of the car is to look at the total number of miles driven, and the total gallons of gasoline consumed. The per mile number is misleading because it changes dramatically depending on the mode of the car.

My guess is that the average Volt will get a lifetime mpg rating of close to 100.

No, you shouldn’t buy one if you’re guy who drives from city to city for a living. You might not want one if you live on a farm in a cold climate and have to drive 60 miles each way to get to the city. But then, you probably wouldn’t buy a Corvette for that, either.

You’re basically declaring the car a failure because it isn’t all things to all people. You call it a ‘niche car’ because it is lacking in utility compared to other vehicles. But people make choices like that all the time. A Camaro does not have as much utility as a Honda Accord. A Pontiac Solstice has even less. Every car is an exercise in tradeoffs, but you’re declaring the Volt’s to be fatal.

There are many people who rarely drive their cars outside of the city. Millions of people sit in traffic jams for hours a day, idling their engines. This is the Volt’s target market. Being brand-new technology in an attractive package, it also appeals to early adopters and the geek crowd. Being environmentally friendly it appeals to environmentalists.

It even appeals to drivers. Not sports car drivers, but people who have to sit every day in their idling car, worying about fuel consumption and suffering the noise and vibration. A dead-silent car that can sit in traffic all day as if it were parked is very cool. A car that you can jump in for a quick trip to the 7-11 and not burn an ounce of gasoline is also very cool. The car’s efficiency computer can be played like a video game while you’re driving. That’s cool. Until you hit a tree while staring at the graphics, I guess.

The point is, the Volt is a very good, very unique car. It’s too expensive, but so was the PC when it first came out. So were camcorders and big screen TVs. It’s new technology, and everyone knows it. GM built just enough for the early adopters, but there will be plenty more people interested once the vehicle becomes better known and the rough bits smoothed off it. Hopefully including a drop in price.

110

Sure. That’s why I said the battery only has to become better to overcome the other choice. It’s just that right now, I don’t think the scales tip favorably for all-electric. That could change at any time.

111

There is no need to respond to what DSeid posted.

112

In 1912 the Detroit Electric car could go 80 miles on a charge. Of course, it had a maximum speed of 20 mph, but if, as many posters have said, the primary use of the Volt is in city driving, that would probably not be a showstopper.

Am I alone in thinking that electric car technology has not progressed very far in the last 100 years? And the Detroit Electric was a much more georgous auto than the modern ones. Talk about style! I understand that it even had cut glass vases for fresh flowers.

One question about the Volt. Say you’re sitting in stop and go traffic on Manhattan Island in August and the temperature is 90° with 95% humidity. Does the Volt come with air conditioning, and if so, what does that do to the mileage you can drive on one charge?

113

As time goes on ,the batteries will be improved. This is just the opening . Chevy obviously sees the batteries as serviceable now. Since 80 percent of people don’t drive more than 40 miles a day, they may be right. Owners would rarely have to buy gas. That helps the pollution and the oil company stranglehold.

114

A car that loses half it’s hp while driving loses it’s utility. How would you like that to happen while passing a truck? Does a wheel have to fall off to point out a flaw? This is not a problem with a Prius.

115

If Jay Leno’s vintage Baker electric goes 100 miles on a single charge, albeit at a 20MPH max, but today’s lighter Chevy Volt can only manage 50, what happened to battery technology in 100 years?

All my life I’ve been hearing claims that battery (and solar photovoltaic) technology was improving at a steady pace, making great strides towards larger capacity and cheaper materials. Even if technology improved at a snail’s pace of 1% better per year (compounded) for the last 50 years, I would expect a cheap, breadbox-sized battery could propel a small car for 300 miles at least, yet we aren’t even close to 1910. What gives?

116

If, after getting a warning light flashing warning me that I am going to be put into a reduced power mode, I persist in driving in the sports mode through the mountains and so aggressively that I am trying to pass a truck while going uphill through the mountains (and that’s the kind of driving it took to put the car into that condition) then my being forced to drive at a reduced speed for a while is not my shortfall in the car: the brainpower shortage would be the bigger issue.

117

Uh “lighter Chevy Volt”??? It weighs about 3500 pounds and includes all the safety equipment that modern highway driving requires and the luxuries that we expect. Look at the picture of the Baker Electric. Leno fills it up with him in it it probably weighs a third of today’s cars. Golf carts probably weigh more.

Really it is a silly comparison. Edison’s batteries were indeed very impressive for their time, but they were not propelling a modern car.

118

You think electricity is free? Let’s look a a nominally efficient car that gets 30 mpg around town and 35 on the highway. at $2.70 a gallon it’s 9 cents a mile around town and 7.7 cents on the highway. A volt will cost $1.70 to recharge for 40 miles of utility or 4.3 cents a mile. That’s half the cost of a 30 mpg car or put another way, it’s a 60 mpg car around town. on the highway its getting 38 mpg so the difference is below that of an efficient non-hybrid car.

you would be guessing wrong. At best, it’s a 60 mpg car at today’s gas and electric prices.

I’m declaring it a failure as a fuel-efficient vehicle. It is less efficient than a Prius in combined driving and not efficient at all on the highway.

It’s a really cool tree hugger car that transfers dependency on oil to dependency on coal and rare earth elements.

It appeals to me as a novelty but I would never buy it because I don’t have Jay Leno money to throw away. If you want to talk about real technology that would work for the masses and have a wider utility range then turbo diesels burning bio-diesel from algae would deliver a full spectrum of fuel economy as well as consistent performance and towing in all conditions of temperature, altitude, and terrain. Algae based diesel would add the benefit of scrubbing co2 from the same coal power plants used to fuel the volt.

The Volt is a very cool waste of tax payer money made by a company that can’t justify losing money on it while it is also on the hook for tax payer money. It’s a pointless exercise. To be truly useful to society GM could have spearheaded cost reductions on conventionally efficient cars so the efficiency becomes a mass market purchase and thus REAL reductions in fuel consumption and profit for the company.

119

Solar panels would put the electric cost at zero. Eventually, when we retrofit homes, we will get it right.
The Volt is not for people who like to drive fast and pass trucks going up a hill. It is a commuter car for local and city driving. This argument sounds like what happens if you have a small car and smash headlong into a Hummer. I have driven lots of small cars without hitting any car head on.
GM is slated to pay back 40 of the 50 million it got. It has kept a lot of people working. It was a very good idea.

120

You’re just bumping up the cost of the KWH which makes it less cost efficient.

GM still has a huge retirement debt that hasn’t been realized so losing money on this car isn’t helping anybody.