A Jolt for GM's Volt? Car-Pool Access (California)

strange . . . you'd think after gm shut down to retool for the 2012 model, that'd the CARB compliant model would be available now .... not sometime after February. I wonder what GM had to do in order to clean their ICE up to solo HOV/CARB compliant status.

 

That would have been the time to do it, but it could be an issue on the supplier's side for a part, or it required changes at the engine plant, etc. We won't know until it's known what the change is.

 

If I understand PZEV correctly, GM will have to offer a 150,000 mile warranty on the battery. Moreover, I do not see how GM can weasel out of offering the long warranty to any buyer of the car in a CARB compliant state.

 

EWwww! you're right! Nice long warranty as a colatereal benefit. There are about a dozen or so states (the BIG ones) that follow CARB, so this is a really good thing GM's finally doing. Poor slobs who got the 1st article might REALLY want to take GM up on their offer to turn their rides in 'because there afraid of fire.
Heck, with the 150k mile / 10 year battery warranty, that'd pretty much make the car worth its $40k sticker price. The dirty non carb compliant ICE comparred to the sticker price has always been my big issue.

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The exhaust draws in ambient air to allow the cat to remove more pollution.

Plus as noted above they have to warranty the entire EV system for 10 years/150kmi.

 

Link ?

As described, it sounds like an additional power drain. I'll guess that EPA and CARB would not be fooled by a simple dilution of pollutants trick, although I would not put it past GM to try and game the system that way if they thought they could get away with it.

 

New enhAT-PZEV Chevy Volt ready for California HOV access, extra $1,500 in rebates *UPDATED

Secondary air injection is used on many vehicles to reduce cold-start emissions. It does not draw a lot of power as its moving only a small amount of air and is only needed until the engine warms up.


While many states follow CARB in terms of emissions levels it is not clear they will all get the extended warranty.

The ability to turn cars back in because of fire concerns is over. And I'll bet some did try to turn them back in to game the HOV access issue.

 

It is interesting that outside California, more volts were sold in the US than leafs. This does lead to the idea that the California incentives really draw a disproportional share of plug in sales to the state.

The other surprise was Michigan, not a typical hv state, was third on the list for volts.


From the above link

Have they moved engine manufacturing to the flint plant yet? That and exhaust supplier may be the reasons this didn't happen during the summer retool. It really is not much of a retool of the plant to change over to the new components. I'm sure they will go into all the volts.

 

Wrong (maybe 1/2 right) If the author had bothered to read CA legislative history, (s)he'd have understood the dual purpose of HOV lanes is to both encourage clean(er) car driving (to reduce toxic exhaust) as well as encourage car pool'ing (to reduce toxic exhaust & congestion). At least that's the rational CA legislators had in mind. Your state may vary. SOME state's allow solo SUV access - as long as the SUV is badg'ed 'hybrid' .... so CA is by no means as wacky liberal as SOME ststes ... at least as fat as HOV access goes.


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I don't think the author was ignorant of CA policies, they just seem to not agree with them. I haven't seen any studies that show that car pool policies have actually achieved their stated goals.

 

I've never looked for one ... but the 1st google search I framed pulled up a few ... of which this was just one -

transportation.njit.edu/nctip/TechTransfer/spring98.pdf

I didn't read it beyond the title ... it's just to point out that one won't necessarily bump into studies, pro or con, unless you're looking for them. But there's always detractors/proponants on both sides of any political agenda ... including HOV access. No one wants to waste a perfectly good hour or 2 sitting in gridlock ... and so the HOV carrot was created. Hybrids yield a premium in congested CA. WHY. HOV access? I guess we gotta look for a study.


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Lots of more recent studies out there. Summary of these studies is HOV have not significantly increased the number of car poolers or reduced congestion. That was the cheif goal of their creation. DOT of many states are attempting other methods to do this, and many of the studies discuss why the lanes have not worked.

On the hybrid, and now ZEV and at-pzev cars -

Hybrids, carpool lanes: For hybrid drivers on California freeways, it's now the past lane - Los Angeles Times

Many of these would have been bought without the stickers, so if lower smog was the goal, this small number of cars has not statistically significantly reduced it. This also has been studied.

But ----

This has sold some of these cars, and will sell some of the 40,000 under the new rules. It does reward these drivers and carpoolers, but the idea was to increase carpooling, reduce congestion, and reduce smog.

I do understand the switch from hv to zev and at-pzev, I just don't think it really does much good.