Chev Volt vs Prius

Fiscally the Volt makes no sense, just as the Prius didn't for its first decade of life. So in this sense although GM beat Toyota to market with a plug in hybrid they're still a decade back in getting costs down to the point that the vehicle can be purchased on its economic merits.

This is also the reason Toyota has been beaten with a plug in. It's not that they couldn't put one on the market but didn't want to presumably because of cost (though when the prius plug in comes out it also will not make financial sense unless tax credits lop a bunch of cost off). Garage tinkerers have been upgrading batteries and making plug in Priuses for years, so surely Toyota could have done so but lacked the motivation for one reason or another.

 

The situation was different back then. Time was abundant. Gas was cheap. Misconceptions ran rampant.

Toyota had plenty of motivation, but rather than use it to pursue expensive battery technology that would change anyway (since the computer industry was so heavily investing in the meantime), they chose to diversify their hybrid product-line instead.

Think about how well prepared Toyota already is to take advantage of batteries when that magic price/density threshold is reached.
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the ONLY thing going for the Volt is a high potential to greatly reduce gas consumption. in my analysis of my driving needs since in got my 2010 Prius in May 2009 is that all but 6200 of the 15,000 miles I have driven could have been done in 100% EV mode (2800 of the 6200 miles was done on a single trip last month) so going MONTHS between fillups would be very possible in my situation.

but in that; there is too much against it to justify my purchase.

1) Size; after 12 days in a 2010, we cannot go smaller for long distance out of town trips which is THE ONLY reason i would get an extended range EV and the Volt is signficantly smaller

2) Cost; for the same price, i can retrofit my 2010 and get nearly the same EV range and only sacrifice my underfloor storage (yes it was packed too!@!) for the inconvenience.

3) performance; the Volt is on a roadtrip from the first test drive in Western WA (which i participated) to the 2nd in SF. in the drivers blog he is getting 38-40 mpg on the highway in charge sustaining mode. In my Prius, fully loaded @ 65 mph, we average real mpgs going down of 57.5, 51.9 coming back (our way back was the torturous curves of the Pacific Coast Hiway. its 15 and 20 mph curves and constant elevation changes makes for one of the worst hypermile opportunities you could imagine!!) i was; quite frankly, blown away by the figures. getting more than 50 mpg under those conditions is still find hard to believe

4) its GM.

 

Chevy Volt $41,000 the Toyota Prius V $28,000......You make the decision......Me I took the Prius, Because I know the Volt is not a true electric car.....It is a plug in Hybrid

 

Apples and oranges. Price difference is too great. At half the price, Prius is probably still better technically--it's been around longer to get the bugs out--except for the floor mats, of course. LOL.

 

More than the price difference....until GM proves that they are on par with Toyota reliability, I think it's safe to assume the Volt (over the long haul) is going to cost the owner a lot more than the sticker price. Add to all this...the hybrid game is a whole new ball game for GM, so no doubt they will have some component and design issues why they move up the hybrid learning curve.

 

Volt = Vaporwareop2:

 

Ownership experience has to be considered as well. It has 3 clutches and 3 coolants. Coolants have long life now, typically 100k miles. The clutches will be very difficult to replace. They are inside the transaxle. It is pretty much as transmission rebuilt job.

 

I really don't hate the Volt, I had hopes for it being a real option for those seeking an American solution for ultra FE vehicles! But that price really killed it for me, and please don't talk about the $7,500 credit cause not all of us are in that bracket to take advantage of it! The car will use little or no gas for most commuters, so what the numbers will be like after 60+ miles means little. A quick and informal "poll" I took last week amongst friends and coworkers about the Volt brought up responses like this:

Chevy what?
Yeh, that's an electric car, right?
I hear it's expensive, like $25k?

So we'll see, but I think the Prius has little to worry about!

 

a play of Mr D.'s words.

the prius is a true hybrid. it takes the best of both worlds. (a truly efficient ICE, and the most efficient methods for the electricity.

the volt is a plug in.... with a hybrid touch. it's really meant to only drive 40 miles. it simply has a dummy system attached for errors (gm makes those? lol) and dumb drivers who can't figure out their usable miles per day.

it's like an electric vehicles for dummies... oops.. i ran out of juice.. back to the good ol' ICE.. (dare i say Yee-haa?)

Edit: the people willing to pay this price want a real EV... and are smart enough to get a prius. they should cut the pack in half and sell it for a decent price. (a price people are willing to pay for a plug in 32mpg vehicle)

or.. cut the capacity and add a diesel... this way a smaller size will have the torque to rotate that generator. if you're going from gas to electric, wouldn't you want to sources that work most efficient around the same rpms? it seems that the volts ICE and generator would have two completely different curves that would work against each other.

 

Volt was called an EV because it could provide full power without the gas engine, unlike PHV Prius. Well, that turns out to be another lie! Volt has more power (and faster acceleration to 100mph) in CS mode (gas assist) than in CD mode.

A plugin hybrid pretending to be EV is written all over the wall.

Code:

TEST DATA 
Acceleration to mph* (*Pure EV; comb gas/elec mode)
0-30	 3.0; 3.2 sec
0-40	 4.5; 4.6
0-50	 6.4; 6.4
0-60	 8.8; 8.7
0-70	 11.9; 11.3
0-80	 16.0; 14.5
0-90	 21.3; 18.3
0-100	 29.8; 23.0
Passing, 45-65 mph	 4.9; 4.5

Source

 

Hi USB...,

I think your getting too bashing on that. To 60 mph they are within tenths of a second of each other....

 

Take a gander over on the GM forums & blogs. The "trophy mentality" there has them bragging about every little tid-bit they can find... or make up.
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You should see how much they bash PHV Prius for starting the gas engine. Duh, a hybrid uses both engines. They had a notion that using the gas for assist and provide direct torque to the wheel was inferior. Now that the cat is out of the bag, they starts to see the benefit of it. There is a frequent poster still claiming PHV Prius always start the gas engine after powering it on (absolutely false).

CS mode has lower battery state charge. Once 30 mph is reached, the gas engine starts to assist. At 34 mph, the power at the wheels is even. Beyond that speed, the electric motor torque starts to drop and therefore the power tanks.

 

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  Have you seen "who killed the electric car? Don't just blame GM. Other manufacturers were working on EV's at that time. They all quit at roughly the same time.

 

How can Toyota continue since GM sold the patent for large format (EV) NiMH battery to oil company and it refused to license?

It was more than EV1. It was also the battery technology that enabled it.

 

I predict collosal failure for the Chevy Volt and that's a shame...

It is way too expensive even with govt tax incentives yet...it doesn't look expensive or special. The limited introduction numbers to me prove that GM also fears there is a very limited initial market for this car.

At 41K this car needs to look very special and needs to look like a 41K car. GM does not have the cache of Cadillac or Lexus so this is going to be a very hard sell. Just like Tesla there are probably 10,000 soles who have been anticipating this car for years and will buy no matter what but what about in the next few years when 30-40K buyers are needed? I doubt this car is special enough to get the affulent buyers they need excited enough...that is unless gas hits $5.00 usd/ga.

 

The 3 clutches are not a problem, with good programming (I am not saying GM has done this) it offers more flexibility then HSD. You can run the electric mode faster and harder with the Volt setup, as well as use the gas engine in parallel or sudo-serial mode.

The $41k is a problem, and the sub 40mpg is a problem. If they could get it down to $29k with rebate I would be much more interested.

 

So distortion meets with distortion? Let's try to stick to facts, and opinion based on facts. I haven't seen trophy mentality at the gm-volt site, and have no interest in gm fan boy sites.

So the facts are GM promised 40 mile ev range and around 40mpg charge sustaining milelage in serial hybrid mode. Parellel hybrid operation was suposed to not be allowed in software. That is as of January. The mileage is now 25-50 ev range, and mid to high 30s in charge sustain mode which now allows parallel operation in hybrid mode. Over promising on the mileage and range and under delivering, bad gm. The software thing just seems like a stupid decission that that put out, and reversed in production cars. Seems like a bad pr move to let one of the magazines announce it, instead of being ahead of the story. Let's call that one typical gm mismanagement, but it doesn't really affect how the car will perform.

If you want to go further back in time gm was supposed to have a much cheaper volt with better mileage. Toyota was suposed to have fleet sales of the phv prius in 2010 and like sales to the general public. Both seemed to fall far short of their promises. Ford and hyundai seemed to have promised much less, but be on track to deliver some phev's and bevs.

serial hybrids do have benefits, that is not what gm or toyota appear to be building. The phv prius is really a compromised design for the us, lacking even a switch lock in ev mode or hybrid mode. It also won't be delivered until mid 2012, so toyota has some time to rethink some of their decissions. I doubt the phv prius will look that shiny after 1.5 years of volt sales and likely 30 mile range phev focus and 20 mile range phev sonata being released at the same time.

I missed that technical information can you point me to the source? GM did underspecify the traction motor for unassisted operation over 70, and definitely picked a bad engine for the volt. From the power to wheels chart you posted from mt the volt seems to have a better power curve than phv prius at higher speeds, even without engine assitance.

 

All the superiority claims declaring Prius obsolete are hard to miss.

As for the fan boy sites, the serve as good study sources to identify differences between marketing hype and what consumers actually want & need. Their focus is quite different from other sites.
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