Chevy Volt drivers average 800 miles between fill-ups.

[nintenho]

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/04/2...verage-1-000-miles-between-fill-ups-in-march/

ost 2011 Chevrolet Volt owners only had to make one trip to gas stations in March, according to General Motors. In fact, GM says that the average Volt went 30 days and 1,000 miles between fill-ups. Cristi Landy, Volt marketing director, states that:

Volt owners drove an average of 800 miles between fill-ups since the Volt launched in December, and in March they averaged 1,000 miles. When the majority of miles driven are electrically, gas usage decreases significantly.

Steve Wojtanek, a Volt buyer in Boca Raton, FL, has made it his personal goal to drive as efficiently as possible and is "surprised" by how infrequently his Volt needs to be gassed up. Wojtanek's Volt has more than 3,417 miles on its odometer, with 2,225 of those miles driven under battery power. Similarly, Volt owner Gary Davis of Greenville, SC has piloted his plug-in hybrid for 4,600 miles on a mere 8.4 gallons of gas.

Landy points out that "80 percent of [U.S.] drivers commute fewer than 40 miles a day," which sort of implies that some Volt owners may never burn through more than a couple of tanks of gas. On the other hand, owners of the Nissan Leaf or the Tesla Roadster have absolutely no need for gas.

So the idea of a plug-in hybrid car certainly seems to have its niche in the real world. Now they just need to get the manufacturing cost down and these cars can be tempting for the average commuter.

 

[Sxotty]

The question has always been is it the most efficient way to do displace petroleum, or would a cheaper smaller battery pack PHEV be better? We will have to wait and see if any of the other promised PHEVs actually materialize.

 

[nintenho]

Yeah in five years I'd imagine most automakers will have a plug-in hybrid of some sort. I honestly can't see any of them going with a smaller battery pack though. A Volt's battery does cost about $8,000 but a 40 mile electric range is pretty much as low as you can go if you still want to appeal to drivers making daily commutes. By comparison, the Nissan Leaf gets about double that but of course it has no gas engine to take over when the battery runs out.

My guess is that we'll see all-electric cars going for the 100 mile "real world" ranges while heavier PHEV's stay at about half that.

 

[Blazkowicz]

well here's a car from the 80's that averages way over 600 miles between fill ups.
not sure the enormous battery costs, elecricity generation and distribution etc. are worth the increase.

it's just a one tonne vehicle powered by a turbo diesel.
(ah, it's lying on the ground but when you turn it on it gets up. old hydraulic system)

 

[Sxotty]

Yeah in five years I'd imagine most automakers will have a plug-in hybrid of some sort. I honestly can't see any of them going with a smaller battery pack though. A Volt's battery does cost about $8,000 but a 40 mile electric range is pretty much as low as you can go if you still want to appeal to drivers making daily commutes. By comparison, the Nissan Leaf gets about double that but of course it has no gas engine to take over when the battery runs out.

My guess is that we'll see all-electric cars going for the 100 mile "real world" ranges while heavier PHEV's stay at about half that.

Since Toyota is going 5.2 kWh I have to imagine that they will go lower than the 16 in the volt

 

[eastmen]

well here's a car from the 80's that averages way over 600 miles between fill ups.
not sure the enormous battery costs, elecricity generation and distribution etc. are worth the increase.



it's just a one tonne vehicle powered by a turbo diesel.
(ah, it's lying on the ground but when you turn it on it gets up. old hydraulic system)

What size tank does it have ? The volt's is 9 gallons.


My gf and I figured out that if she bought a volt she wouldn't need to fill up her gas tank for about 3 months at a time. She only drives 6 miles to work both ways. So thats 12 miles. My house is about 20miles round trip. But when she gets over here she could plug in for a few hours

 

[zed]

When the majority of miles driven are electrically, gas usage decreases significantly.

No thats impossible

 

[Blazkowicz]

What size tank does it have ? The volt's is 9 gallons.


My gf and I figured out that if she bought a volt she wouldn't need to fill up her gas tank for about 3 months at a time. She only drives 6 miles to work both ways. So thats 12 miles. My house is about 20miles round trip. But when she gets over here she could plug in for a few hours

thanks, so 9 gallons is 34 litres, and the old car has a pretty big for its category, 66 litres tank (it claims way over 800 miles if driven very carefully).

that makes the chevy look more impressive, they should have stated it right away - for a reason I thought it had a bigger tank for those very long trips, and american car means a big tank (that explodes in a spectular way when fired on with a gun, sending the car 10 meters upwards)

 

[eastmen]

The concept verison was supposed to have two 9 gallon tanks but they cut it down to just one .

Anyway I've driven one a few times now and its a really good drive , its just to expensive , my gf and i are hoping jersey passes the 5k refund they are talking about for electrict cars.

I have a feeling if they switch to a desiel generator they would increase mpg also. But mabye in a future verison ?


http://gm-volt.com/2011/04/26/gms-tony-posawatz-talks-about-chevrolet-volt-cost-reduction/

“As we increase our volume, contractual relationships will change with higher volume price comes down,” Posawatz said. “As we resource [battery] cells and they no longer come from Korea, and they are going to come across the state from Holland, Michigan, do you know how much money is reduced?”

“What’s going to change when you get your U.S.-made engine on line,” I asked.

“Not much. Effectively it’s another example of a cost reduction,” he said, because it will be another major component now made in-state, without international shipping

our dealer is putting in one of the fast chargers , he wants to fully charge customers volts when they are brought in for service which i think is a great idea

 

[Sxotty]

A diesel power plant would increase the cost eastman. If you are not going to use the ICE much why get an expensive ICE? The only reason would be if you can get a more compact light ICE. OTherwise you are actually hurting the viability of the vehicle. (And yes it would get better mileage in charge sustaining mode with a diesel and yes diesel fuel is more energy dense so a direct MPG comparison is braindead anyway).

Also if I recall correctly it was going to be a 12 gallon tank originally, but then they decided to decrease the size to save weight mostly. If you carry 12 gallons around you decrease electric range. They have not been aggressive with weight reduction yet though. They could cut weight significantly and increase the electric range. Some of the cuts would be really cheap, but they would rapidly get expensive.

 

[eastmen]

Wouldn't a desiel generator be much less complicated , require alot less maintance and be smaller ?

Sorry not really a car guy at all , can't even really change the oil in mine (sure if i read the manual i'd be able to do it though)


Also i remember them saying they were using an engine from a car they produced for now so they'd be able to get it out sooner but will replace it with a custom design in the future.

 

[Mintmaster]

Diesel needs to stop getting so much hype. A gallon of crude will produce a certain amount of gasoline and a certain amount of diesel. If we make a push for diesel cars, then the price of diesel will go up and gas will go down a bit so that some people will switch back (possibly even trucks). More diesel cars doesn't help overall efficiency or oil consumption, and it just increases cost.

If biodiesel production becomes more efficient, cheaper, and grows in scale, then we can start making a push. It would be sad, however, if biodiesel impeded the progress of PHEV. The latter is much better for addressing urban air pollution, which is far more deadly than global warming.

 

[Sxotty]

Eastman, originally the volt was going to have a 3 cylinder turbo (gas) custom engine so it would be compact and powerful. Then they decided just to use an off the shelf 4 cylinder to save time, money etc... It did weigh more though. And no a diesel isn't all that much less complicated. They are fairly complex actually. They don't have spark plugs, but that isn't a big deal that saves a great deal on complexity. The volt is not a serial hybrid despite early beliefs. This means that it isn't just a generator. The ICE is also connected to the wheels. There are I think 3 clutches that distribute different power sources as needed. So you hook the ICE to the wheels and a generator which charges the battery. Or you can use the clutch to disengage the ICE completely in all electric mode and use the generator as a supplemantal motor to the main motor.

Mint biodiesel isn't really that great compared to other biofuels at the moment though either in terms of cost/MJ. Perhaps some algae or other stuff will come through, but at the moment it isn't that great. Also biodiesel currently isn't that clean to burn (even though the life cycle emissions might not be that bad). As you implied it takes the emissions to urban areas and has worse emissions factors than ultra low sulfur diesel.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Question: Since most of the worlds energy today is hardly produced from renewable energies, in fact most of it comes from quite pulluting activities, isn't the electric car just shifting pollution from coming out of the car, and instead pollute wherever this energy needs to be generated?

On a unrelated note, why does 99% of all these hybrids and electric cars look like crap? It seems to be some sort of necessity to make the car look "futuristic" or stupid.

Some brands are on a good route , Lexus & merc, who just put hybrids into existing models, tesla is also quite fun to look at.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Question: Since most of the worlds energy today is hardly produced from renewable energies, in fact most of it comes from quite pulluting activities, isn't the electric car just shifting pollution from coming out of the car, and instead pollute wherever this energy needs to be generated.

A coal fired power plant is still actually better than a car. And not all of the energy is coming from coal.

 

[Mintmaster]

Question: Since most of the worlds energy today is hardly produced from renewable energies, in fact most of it comes from quite pulluting activities, isn't the electric car just shifting pollution from coming out of the car, and instead pollute wherever this energy needs to be generated?

Urban air pollution is debilitating for millions and surprisingly deadly (medical studies pin the figure at 70,000/yr). The population is concentrated, so you get a multiplier effect. Even coal generation in remote areas is better than ICE in cities.

It's a chicken and egg thing. Replacing coal right now won't air pollution as much as it could because cars/trucks remain. PHEV shifts pollution to generation areas. It's still worthwhile, though, and in the future nuclear or renewables will eliminate that displaced pollution.

On a unrelated note, why does 99% of all these hybrids and electric cars look like crap? It seems to be some sort of necessity to make the car look "futuristic" or stupid.

Some brands are on a good route , Lexus & merc, who just put hybrids into existing models, tesla is also quite fun to look at.

Maybe 99% based on sales, since nearly all are Priuses, but how could you forget the best looking one of them all?

A coal fired power plant is still actually better than a car. And not all of the energy is coming from coal.

One thing that I found surprising is that in terms of GHG (which I don't care about as much as urban pollution), a good hybrid is actually better than an electric car fueled by a coal plant. You get around 3-4 miles per kWh in an electric, and 45+ mpg in hybrids. 1kg CO2 for 1kWh coal, 9kg CO2/gallon for gasoline.

 

[Sxotty]

Mint you are right, but alpha is as well. A coal plant and PHEV still beats a regular car. The rest kind of depends a bit. A recent study suggests the life cycle emissions from NiMH is 3x worse than thought before. That makes a current regular hybrid worse since they use NiMH not LiIon. That will not be the case forever though.

Cheeze they want to have small batteries since batteries are expensive. That means you want good aerodynamics. And good aero looks similar to a prius.

 

[eastmen]

Eastman, originally the volt was going to have a 3 cylinder turbo (gas) custom engine so it would be compact and powerful. Then they decided just to use an off the shelf 4 cylinder to save time, money etc... It did weigh more though. And no a diesel isn't all that much less complicated. They are fairly complex actually. They don't have spark plugs, but that isn't a big deal that saves a great deal on complexity. The volt is not a serial hybrid despite early beliefs. This means that it isn't just a generator. The ICE is also connected to the wheels. There are I think 3 clutches that distribute different power sources as needed. So you hook the ICE to the wheels and a generator which charges the battery. Or you can use the clutch to disengage the ICE completely in all electric mode and use the generator as a supplemantal motor to the main motor.

Mint biodiesel isn't really that great compared to other biofuels at the moment though either in terms of cost/MJ. Perhaps some algae or other stuff will come through, but at the moment it isn't that great. Also biodiesel currently isn't that clean to burn (even though the life cycle emissions might not be that bad). As you implied it takes the emissions to urban areas and has worse emissions factors than ultra low sulfur diesel.

Thanks for the info , I believe they are still designing that engine , it just wouldn't have been ready in time and would have set them back years

 

[Mariner]

These dudes claim to have finally developed a functional OPOC engine and have just signed a deal with a large Chinese company to develop and produce the engines:

www.ecomotors.com

Another alternative to current hybrids, perhaps, depending on how long it takes for the engines to be commercialised?

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Cheeze they want to have small batteries since batteries are expensive. That means you want good aerodynamics. And good aero looks similar to a prius.

I thought good aero dynamics looked more like a sportscar than a prius?