Will the Chevrolet Volt be a failure or a success?

Perhaps you misunderstood. I was referring to the emotion preference of wanting only pure EV driving under ALL conditions. Logically, providing full power from both hybrid engines is the better choice.

Let's be real, Volt will never be emission free unless you recharge from renewable energy source (solar, wind, hydro, etc..) and drive with an empty tank. How realistic will that be with only 35 miles EV range? How much electricity would be wasted (for the life of the car) lugging around the gas engine and associated components? Wouldn't a pure EV car be a better choice if that's your objective?

Look at it from a different perspective. Volt has EV range of 35 miles but the gasoline range is 344 miles. It is a gasoline car since the battery can provide only 9% of the total range. I know, it is how you use it. Since you were basing your point on one extreme scenario, I am just presenting almost the opposite.

Prius PHV can provide full EV experience at low speed and city range. It can also provide the best full hybrid experience at any time. That's the best of both EV and HV worlds. You can't say the same with Volt.

 

My opinion is that GM wanted to offer an EV, but couldn't get past the range anxiety issue. In keeping with this, they pitched the Volt as an EV with a "range booster", rather than admit that it was a plug in hybrid. I think it is all about marketing and image.

Tom

 

You are correct that under that driving profile a leaf would be a better choice.

Let me try to phrase a different way:

I can choose to drive my Volt like a Leaf and I can choose to drive my Volt like a Prius. On days where a Leaf would suffice it would be a better choice, on days where I would need a Prius, it would be a better choice. Neither the Leaf nor the Prius have the same flexibility I have to make the choice.

Now perhaps we hear again the argument I should just get a Leaf AND a prius, thats just not practical. My lease payment is $1 more than the Leaf lease payment, if you know how I can purchase insure, maintain, and operate a Prius for $1 a month please show me how.

 

I did use the cordless Prius to calculate the CO2 emission but it should be the same if not lower for the Prius PHV.

When I compared other types of emission, I used data from Prius PHV and the Volt.

Volt may have a slight better EV experience under rare extreme situations. I think a better HV experience (along with city EV experience, lower cost and family mid-size) is far more important and useful for most people.

 

Don't you put down more with the Volt? The sales tax (due to $41k vs. $33k) would have increased the final monthly payment.

Leaf would consume less electricity and your Prius would consume less gas and emit lower emission than the Volt. You can put more miles with two cars and wouldn't have to go over the lease mileage limit. You and the significant other can drive both cars at the same time also. At the end of the Leaf's lease, you'll still own your Prius and not forced to buy/lease another car after the Volt.

I have no information about your household but most American households have more than 2 vehicles. How does your family do with a single compact four seater?

 

1. Yes I did have to put more down on my lease
2. I really think insurance and registration costs etc... would wipe out the 2 better than 1 argument but we can explore it if you wish
3. We are a family of four, my wife drives a Mercury Mariner hybrid, she was convinced she needed an SUV and at the time it was "the most fuel efficient SUV on the planet" (sidenote while identical to the Escape hybrid they sold fewer Mariners so the tax credit lasted longer for essentially the same vehicle)

My family loves the Volt, the kids (6 and 7) find the bucket seats in the back far more comfortable than the bench was in my Prius, they also prefer the cupholders and the console between them makes a good natural barrier ("mom shes touching me"). My wife and I find we have more room in the front seats than in my prius, particularly "shoulder room". [reminder my prius was a Gen I, I know they have gotten bigger since then]

edit:
Also if it helps I can tell you I am looking closely at the Prius V to replace the Mariner next year.

 

^^ Didn't he say his wife drives a hybrid SUV ?

I suspect that most families that want EV will find that one ICE and two cars in the family is enough, rather than two ICE that gwmort decided to buy. Of course convincing Americans to buy to cover 99% of their needs rather than 229% of possible wants is a chore. My recollection is that gwmort tried to make a rational decision when he bought the Volt.

Each to their own. I look for value and energy economy. The Volt, of course, is neither.

 

Delaware is a small state, but my wife and I both have jobs that require us to travel to most parts of it any given week, max trip about 120-150 miles in a day. An EV with less than 200 miles range doesn't meet our needs. We can't guarantee that we both won't have to travel on the same day, in fact it is fairly common. An EV that lets me drive 60-80% of the week oil free and still lets me hit that 1-2 trips a week without worry about making it home is exactly what I wanted and got in the Volt.

 

No problem. Your situation does raise a question in my mind though. If you can estimate your EV and non-EV miles per week I would be curious to calculate your petrol use in the Volt vs a Prius vs a Prius-PHV.

 

It varies, my commute to the office is 38 miles roundtrip to home. The first couple of days I had the volt I was doing a couple extra miles showing co-workers and what not and burned 10 miles (~1/4 gallon) a day.

I did a long trip to the next state to show my brother the car, I used mountain mode so I would have EV range left to demonstrate to him.

I bought the car on 3/30 and refueled for the first time on 4/5 when I bought 7 gallons, including the 210 mile trip home from the dealership my lifetime mpg at that point was only around 70 mpg and the odometer reading at the first fill up was 480 mi.

Since the middle of last week I have been charging at work with virtually no non-EV miles. Over the past 330 miles I have burned 0.4 gallons.

Today I traveled 67 miles, 63 of which were EV. Today the app says I have 4 gallons of fuel left, the lifetime mpg figure is up to 96 mpg and the odometer is now on 1017. So I've gone about 530 miles on the last 3 gallons since fuel up.

Overall the app says I've gone 1017 miles, 585 of which have been EV, so the other 432 were on roughly 10 gallons of gas (and about half were the first night's trip home from the out of state dealer). I don't have good data on how much fuel the dealer put in, so after a few more fill-ups I'll have a more accurate sense of my non-EV mileage numbers.

If it helps for additional data points, my home electric rate is just under 11 cents per kwh, my office lets me charge on the 110 v for free, but we analyzed their commercial rates and the total impact of my charging 8 hrs every workday (which I won't because of the travel) adds about $27 to the total monthly. I also spent $520 on the 240v voltec charger for the garage and $200 for its installation. Finance wise we put in $5000 and have the 3 yr 15k miles per year lease.

 

If we use the EPA rating on the 2011 Prius of 50mpg, then that 1017 miles would have required 20.34 gallons of regular.

I don't have good assumptions or number of trips data to figure out the PHV equivalent, but if we look at the commute of 38 miles and assume charging at both ends like I do now I could get 26 miles in "EV" mode and 12 in HV mode. Assuming it would still get 50 mpg in HV mode thats about a quarter gallon a day, plus whatever was burned in EV mode accelerating or on the highway, which I believe will work out to around 125 mpg of petrol burned in EV mode, so the 26 miles is another .2 gallons or about 0.45 gallons a day.

 

Sagebrush does have me thinking on some interesting comparisons though.

I'm not a great grapher, maybe usbs can display this better, but lets consider one long trip in each of the cordless prius (A), plug-in prius (B ), and volt (c), with no recharging on route:

1. All three vehicles leave the starting point; A starts burning gas immediately, one gallon later A has traveled 50 miles, B travels 13 miles on EV, then 1 gallon later is at 63 miles (for now assume PHV does not burn gas in EV mode), C travels 35 miles on EV and 1 gallon later is at 72 miles.

2. All vehicles then burn 1 more gallon of gas; A makes it to mile 100, B to mile 113, and C to 109

3. All vehicles then burn 1 more gallon of gas; A makes mile marker 150, B makes mile 163, and C makes 146.

It looks like the Volt compares favorably to the PHV prius (at least in terms of petrol consumption and disregarding consumption by the PHV in EV mode) until about 100 mile trips, and favorably to the conventional prius until about 140 mile trips, thereafter the prii will really start to pull away (next data points would be 200, 213, and 183).

I am comfortable then that in my daily driving I am burning substantially less petrol than either and on my longer trips of 120 - 150 miles I am not doing significantly worse than a PHV prius and maybe better than a cordless one.

 

Thanks for sharing gwmort.

What I don't understand is why Mercury Mariner hybrid (long range) and Leaf combo wasn't enough for your household. Since you are planning to switch MMH to Prius, Prius+Leaf combo would be a killer.

Sigh, you would save more gas by switching from MMH (28mpg) to Prius (50mpg) than the gas saved by the Volt (96mpge) over your Prius (42mpg). On top of that you would save 216 kWh of electricity (that your Volt consumed) because the 50mpg Prius is cordless.

 

Basically because we believe we need two long range vehicles, there are days when both myself and my wife both drive more than 100 miles on the same day which is not possible with the leaf.

I looked at the Leaf really hard (because I am an EV enthusiast) but just couldn't see the limitations working out for us, if I had been convinced it could have coped with the 150 mile days I probably would have gone for it.

My Gen I prius was dying, I believe it needed a new hybrid battery and I needed a new car. I had an aspirational goal of continuing to advance myself towards greater electrification. If the Prius PHV had been out I may have gone that route, but it just wasn't one of my choices to fit my immediate need. The Mariner is doing fine now and shes happy with it, but like I said if we decide to replace it in the next year or two I may go with the Prius V as the family car (thats the letter v not 5).

We were the first hybrid owners we knew with the Gen I, we were the first double hybrid family we knew when we got the mariner, and now we're the first ones we know with a plug in (and possibly the first privately owned Volt in Delaware). Its something we enjoy.

 

Maybe he just wanted the Volt. Is that OK? I see you put aftermarket rims and tires on your Prius despite knowing you would lose a few MPG, presumably because you simply wanted them. You actually spent money to use more gas.

I'm losing faith in you usb.

 

Absolutely, just saying so we don't have the double standard (Not OK to waste gas but OK to waste electricity).

 

I didn't catch earlier that you have charging at work, that turns the Prius PHV into a 28 AER car on workdays. I'll rework the calcs accordingly ...

I'd like to hear details of the work arrangement. Already available socket, or ad hoc ? How big a company, and how much hassle to receive permission to charge ?

 

Are you interested in petrol consumption break-even points ? I think the easiest way is to plot lines

This works for one trip and one charge ...

Volt: y = 1/35(x - 35)
Prius: y = 1/50x
Prius PHV: y = 1/50(x - 14)

x axis is miles, y axis is petrol gallons



This graph is meant to be useful to people on work-days. I assumed most people would drive less than 35 miles round-trip so did not include double charging for the Volt.

 

It's intriguing to me that a speculative topic (fail/success) has made it for 30some pages.

 

The work charging probably balances out in the calc you did because you based it on every 35 miles of my EV driving not the number of days commuting.

I work in a small law firm, 3 attorneys (1 owner and 2 associates) 5 support staff. We have our own building on our own lot (so not an office bldg downtown) in a small town. On the outside of the building at a point close to the parking lot is a normal exterior 110v outlet (with gfci). I went to the owner of the firm and asked for permission to plug in while at the office, we analyzed his electric bill and saw the impact would be less than $30 a month and he agreed as an additional benefit of my employment. I pull into the parking spot in front of the socket, take the portable 110v charger out of its storage place in the back, and plug in.

As i said previously my commute is 38 miles round trip but i generally put on another 10 miles at lunch or running errands or what not. Before charging at work that meant burning gas everyday, now I get to work with 12-15 of EV range left, charge from 9-12, go out at lunch time with about 22-25 miles of range available, plug in after lunch (1-5) and head home after 5:00 with about 28-30 miles of range, get home again with about 10 miles left and plug into the 240v to fill up again and start over the next day (or pop out again later that evening).