Edmunds Smackdown #2 and #4

Hi,

Many times a thread will drift as various folks bring their point of view for comment. But I'll give you my take:

Over the past four years, Edmunds publishes a "Smackdown" driving exercise where five cars follow the same path in a trip to Las Vegas and back. In this annual report, usually in September, Edmunds drives five cars for three days over:

1. Back Roads to Las Vegas
2. Las Vegas streets
3. Interstate back from Las Vegas

It turns out "Smackdown 2" has the ZVW30 Prius and "Smackdown 4" has the Chevy Volt and both have a Jetta TDI suggesting these tables:

smackdown #2	MPG #2	MPG #4	smackdown #4
2009 VW Jetta TDI	41.2	39.5	2011 Jetta TDI
2010 Prius	47.2	37.8	2011 Volt

Back roads, country highway.

smackdown #2	MPG #2	MPG #4	smackdown #4
2009 VW Jetta TDI	31.6	29.8	2011 Jetta TDI
2010 Prius	48.7	44.8	2011 Volt

Las Vegas city driving.

smackdown #2	MPG #2	MPG #4	smackdown #4
2009 VW Jetta TDI	40.6	40.4	2011 Jetta TDI
2010 Prius	47.4	45.2	2011 Volt

Interstate.

Observations

• The larger displacement 2011 Jetta has lost MPG
• Jetta is hurt in City driving, does OK in either Highway
• Volt is hurt in Country Highway driving, does OK in City and Interstate
• Prius is at the top, both Highway routes and City

Now some folks objected to the test as having unreasonable distances, 180 miles, on the first and third test, and a whole day of cruising around Las Vegas. But it turns out that many of us to live in less urban areas have friends and co-workers with daily commutes in the same order of magnitude. And then I realized we could actually characterize typical USA vehicle usage by looking at their annual mileage.

Ebay also sells cars with the model year and odometer readings. We can plot this data and using a linear trend line, get a good approximation for annual mileage. Divide the annual mileage by the number of driving days per week and voila, we have a reasonable number for the daily miles:




So looking at the slopes and treating the weekend as 'half-day', we can calculate a credible, daily miles:

• 20,000 mi/year -> 20000 / (52*6) -> 64 miles/day
• 15,000 mi/year -> 15000 / (52*6) -> 48 miles/day
• 10,000 mi/year -> 10000 / (52*6) -> 32 miles/day
• 5,000 mi/year -> 5000 / (52*6) -> 16 miles/day

The top two miles/day exceed the Volt EV range significantly. Living in North Alabama, I have co-workers whose daily commutes are twice the 64 miles/day, closer to the "Smackdown" mileage. These folks are not good candidates for a Volt replacement. Now my co-workers might get some Plug-In Prius advantage but they are better served with just an ordinary Prius. So I suggested our good Volt friends might shift from the Prius community to proselytizing other car owners:

• Camry - the top selling sedan in the USA, gas-only version
• Hummer - another vehicle often cited by Prius skeptics

Both of these vehicles are well within the Volt EV range. This is not the case with many Prius owners. We actually are driving many more miles, at least 50% more per year than Camry drivers. And then there is the Hummer.

In 2006, CNW Marketing issued a press release about an unpublished study claiming the life-time cost made the Hummer 'greener' than the Prius. A couple of months later, they released their study and it turned out he claimed 300,000 miles for the Hummer and only 109,000 for the Prius. In fact, every hybrid-and-gas model showed the hybrid with fewer miles than the gas model ... someone having both a gas and hybrid model in their driveway would choose to drive the more expensive gasser. This report release was just months before GM announced they would end the Hummer line. Here is data, six years later, showing the complete humbug of the claimed, lifetime mileage:

• Prius = 2*Hummer :: highest mileage vehicles
• Prius = 2.5*Hummer :: average mileage vehicles
• Prius = 7*Hummer :: lowest (style) mileage vehicles

The Edmunds "smackdown" comparison of the Prius vs Volt led to a discussion of the distances involved. This led to looking at Ebay odometer readings and actual co-worker commuting practices. Adding the Hummer metrics closed the book on the old CNW Marketing "Dust-to-Dust" report.

Bob Wilson

I agree that someone with a 128 mile daily commute would be better with a Prius, but with the 20,000 mile/year, 64 mile/ day commute, Volt is more fuel efficient than even Prius Plug-in.

But you pointed out that my criticism of Edmunds was wrong, because this 180-mile city test has been their method for years, and they'd lose an ability to compare results if they changed the test. Fair enough. I was wr wr wr... I'm having trouble saying it.

Personally, I see the Volt as the Precept brought to market 10 years late. Had it come out in 2002-03, it would have given the first Prius and Honda Insights significant competiton:

The first generation, 2-seat, Honda Insight always got better mileage than the early, 5-seat, NHW11 Prius. But the Prius, especially the NHW20, pretty well crushed Honda Insight sales that ended in 2006.

In one respect, the 4-seat Volt faces a similar problem, utility, but it is on the market. The current 5-seat Honda Insight was a good attempt to fix the 2-seat Insight problems but it came out five years late. Hopefully GM will continue their Volt efforts and come up with improved versions in the future but I suspect Prius technology will advance too. Eventually the market will decide.

Bob Wilson

Utility, a high price, and GM's reputation for poor quality. But oh, how I wish my Plug-in Prius had the battery capacity of a Volt!!!

I must agree this edmunt test is totally out of real word use ... not sure how many volt has been sold so far not many... compared to Prius.

I drive daily about 25 miles each way to work, from suburbia to new york city average speed about 15-16 MPH over most fill ups (I do take road trips what 5-7 times a year ???) AND I drive differently on those trip... as you can see my 3 year average is about 51.3 mpg (winters are killing the overall numbers) this is about 50% btw 1 or 2 person in the car ... very rarely full occupancy. But use a drive btw LA and Las Vegas as modeling commuting by car is ludicrous ...

So yes I do not drive coast to coast btw 20-40 MPH but over the three years I drove what 6 times coast to coast under 20MPH average !!!! So I would say that in any metropolitan area the actual average MPH is a lot lower than perceived !!! I do keep records (quite detailed ) so I know ... and since this is the ONLY car we have it is used for daily and recreational use ... (recreation a little bit lucking due to the current hard times ...)

The difference is that if you were a Volt owner, you'd likely charge the car nightly, so your gas consumption would be roughly 180 MPG, because the first 40 of your 50 miles would be electric. But if you drive continuously coast to coast, your Volt would get about 37 MPG, because the first 40 electric miles wouldn't much matter on a 2000+ mile trip.

Well that was my point exactly ... also only certain kind of costumer can buy the Volt if you do not have a garage or comparable facilities (you live on the 5th floor apartment let say and you can not regularly charge the car guess you wouldn't even buy it ...)

So this is a big issue that the Volt fits certain use cases ONLY.

This quoted test was out of real world use... OF COURSE you buy a car which fits you driving (usualy)

Cheers,

Good point:

We have a lot of apartment complexes even in Huntsville without any form of vehicle charging stations. It is hard for a renter to justify a charging station they can't load in the U-haul or moving van:

• 34% Renter-Occupied Housing (NMHC - National Multi Housing Council - NMHC)
• 66% Owner-Occupied Housing

What incentive exists for apartment buildings to install charging stations? It is the same problem of a business that has a capital budget. What is their pay-back for having charging stations? Employee loyalty?

Perhaps if a utility company decided to make money by having charger stations embedded in the base of their utility poles, transformer pads, or lighting poles. They might sell some off-peak power but what is their pay-back? Even wholesale prices, the wear and damage repairs would easily wipe out these marginal sales. Worse, copper cables are at risk of theft ... unless part of the vehicle ... and even these would be at risk.

Bob Wilson

Been driving a Diesel for the past 6 years. If you drive under 20 miles one way, drive 100% on city streets, drive is in cold temperatures or you drive one way in under 10 minutes; a diesel is a big mistake. Diesels flat out suck down the fuel when they are cold and they take quite a while to warm up. My last truck would get me 11 MPG on my 10 mile commute to work, yet on a vegas run I could easily average 26+ MPG sustained. Yeah I know Truck vs car, but the same principles of a Diesel Engine apply.

Even if it were free to install, some still wouldn't simply due to location. Where do you put them that won't interfere with snow removal? A pickup pushing a plow loaded with lots of snow is a routine dilemma here. Winter is quite cruel. And that's without even considering what could happen to the cord.

Guys, charging the battery of an EV or PHEV isn't like illuminating a light bulb. It takes a LOT more current. At 120v it requires a dedicated 15A circuit (nothing else on the circuit), but of course at 120V charging will take all night (varying somewhat depending on the size of the battery) so unless somebody else wants to charge during the day (or at night if the charger is at a work location), that means 1 vehicle per charger. Level 2 chargers at 240V are much faster but draw 30-80A, which is one or two 240V circuits. Power requirements for the even faster Level 3 480-500v chargers haven't been determined yet. To give you an idea, service for an ENTIRE single-family house is typically 100-200A these days.

Street lamps are usually only 400W each at most, so it just won't be possible to hang a charger off every street lamp post.

And these chargers are hardwired, which means code requires that power be run to them in conduit, underground if they are outside. Running conduit isn't cheap, nor is setting up new power supplies and breaker panels.

Just because you have electricity "around" doesn't mean that there is enough of it to run chargers, and/or that hooking it up will be cheap.

Here's a sobering read:
http://tinyurl.com/6mztvco