Will the Chevrolet Volt be a failure or a success?

Apples and oranges. The Insight-I is a 2-seater and hence was intended to serve just one segment of the market. The family of 2-seaters Honda has made over the years also includes the CRX, the NSX, the S2000, and the CR-Z, none of which was intended to be a mass-appeal car. Furthermore, during the timeframe of the Insight-I, Honda was producing other hybrids aimed at different segments: the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Accord Hybrid. It wasn't their only shot in this area, like the Volt is for GM.

Is there a sizable segment for 2-seaters? Sure, consider the popularity of Porsches, BMW Z3/4, Mazda Miata, etc. Not everybody buys 4- or 5-seater cars. I had owned four two-seaters before I got married, and then we got a CRX for my wife because she liked it (I drove a wagon). It is amusing to see that the CR-Z, the Insight-I's less efficient descendant, is outselling the Volt 3 to 1 YTD through August:
August 2011 Dashboard: Hybrid Sales Remain Sluggish | Hybrid Cars

It's not clear what GM intends the Volt to be (possibly not clear even to GM itself!), but the original fanfare presented it as a mass-appeal car. Sales numbers so far don't support that. YTD thru August, it's being beaten 2 to 1 by the Leaf (same link as above). The Leaf offers a different set of parameters than the Volt and apparently more people prefer that set.

It's also noteworthy that the non-PHV Prius is outselling the Volt 26 to 1 (approx 84,000 to 3,200). And that 84,000 is about 46% of the total hybrid/plug-in market of about 183,000 vehicles YTD!! Toyota is certainly relying on the popularity of the present Prius to boost sales of the PHV and the other two Prius variants that are coming out in 2012. Volt, at 1.7% of this market, has no such leverage.

All the anguished discussion above about breakeven points and commute distances ignores the fact that people buy cars based on their imagined needs, price, and their gut desires. It also ignores that not everybody uses their car on a regular commute to work and back. Some drive to school, others run kids around and do errands, others work from home and make multiple trips to clients during the day, some don't have fixed daily meanderings at all. The discussion also ignores that households own several cars and can often use different cars for different specialized purposes.

Obviously manufacturers guess, make a range of vehicles that they think will suit different segments, and hope that they will sell enough vehicles in at least some of the segments. They will make mistakes (the Accord Hybrid comes to mind here!).

The Volt wouldn't be an efficient choice for me. If I were starting from scratch and if I could recharge in my condo carport (they are being rebuilt right now, with 220v power run to them), I'd probably have a Leaf (for local errands, would also have been perfect for my 34 x 2 mile commute when I was working) plus a plain Prius (for longer trips, e.g. 140 miles x 2 back and forth to Boston). The Prius is just large enough to fit rowing oars and riggers inside plus the two of us and the dog; rowing shells fit on the roof. For the time being I'm keeping the Insight-I (which I originally bought for commuting) for longer trips when I don't need as much space as the Prius. Mileage is phenomenal: 98.9mpg coming to Boston Saturday, and that's nowhere near the best I have gotten for that trip in it). It's also a collector's item. Someday something better (from my POV) will come along, but for me at least the Volt ain't it.

However, if we could have just one vehicle, the Prius PHV would probably be it.

 

Problem being it won't have a non-blended CD mode, your All Electric Range = 0 miles (my prediction for your EPA sticker).

Review I read from a driver of a production model said the ICE kicked on after even mild acceleration. If you're burning any gas at all during the test cycles its going to kill your numbers.

 

The current Prius will, in "EV" mode, allow moderate acceleration before kicking in ICE. I'd grant moderate as sufficient to keep up with traffic at a light, but of course it kicks off at 10 mph. Or ~24 mph if you were able to turn it on when you were already moving (it's very temperamental). I have heard that the EV mode in the plug-in allows more aggressive acceleration before EV kicks off, so even though the ICE will kick in at full throttle I would expect that it would be quite reasonable to drive and stay within traffic with ICE remaining off.

The diff being that the Volt sells itself as an EV with a range extender whereas the plug in prius is still a typical ICE-based hybrid at its core with the ability to substantially pre-charge to jack the mileage up.

 

I don't use EV mode on my Prius, but in ECO mode I find I can start off and accelerate moderately without kicking in the ICE (assuming it's warmed up). I can see the ICE RPM on my ScanGauge. I can drop into electric-only at speeds up to mid-40's (I think the limit is 46mph) and get 0 GPH gas flow on the ScanGauge at higher speeds in warp stealth (at light loads) even though the ICE is spinning (RPM=900-1000).

Hard to believe that Toyota would engineer the PHV to replicate this behavior and not use EV more aggressively, but I haven't driven a PHV.

 

Unless the engine is cold or battery low you can pretty much always keep it running on battery as long as you're to the left half of that sliding scale. However, it allows only a very light throttle to stay to the left of it, whereas in true EV mode you can get a lot more out of the electric motor before it kicks in the ICE. The problem being it leaves EV mode quite readily whereas the "pseudo EV" like you're describing can indeed stay well above 24 mph, albeit at very light acceleration.

 

OK, that's what I see. In warp stealth, make that "very very" light throttle. Knowing that one of the Volt guys will chime in here, I'll say that this works over only limited distances given the small battery of the non-PHV Prius.

What I try to do is to go electric-only in parts of the trip where the load is very light (thus saving the fuel used to keep the ICE running at very light loads) and then let the ICE regen the battery in sections where the load is greater, so that the regen load will simply add in to the greater propulsion load. When the load is very light (low speeds and/or downhills) the electrical usage will be light, which stretches out battery range to greater distances than predicted from flat-road calculations.

 

this is the article I was referring to. I would love to compare with any of you that have actually driven a production model with the smaller pack.

 

Do you mean production PHV Prius or a production non-PHV Prius?

In regards to the article:
"Yet, offering a plug-in car that looks just like a Prius, and drives just like one, comes at a price: namely, that it looks just like a Prius and drives just like one."

Well, it's nice that the author admits his bias up front. So does anybody seriously believe that someone who doesn't like the way a non-PHV Prius drives would like the PHV, given that it is designed to drive like the non-PHV? And how much weight is this opinion worth given that 84,000 people so far this year actually liked the way a Prius drives enough to buy one?? Not to mention the other hybrids using the HSD system, which presumably run similarly.

"To EV drivers—including this one—it’s annoying to hear and feel the gas engine of the Prius Plug-in Hybrid come on so easily. Based on my eight miles in the production version on Friday, it happens anytime your foot applies slightly too much pressure, even if it’s just coming out of a parking lot."

I'd say the author's butt is too sensitive and his foot isn't sensitive enough. Having an insensitive butt, I had to buy a ScanGuage mainly to see when the ICE is on because it's barely perceptible (to me). And perhaps thanks to the delicate gas pedal on the Insight-I, I find it easy to modulate the gas pedal in the Prius in anything but warp stealth (where without the SG it's impossible to know if the ICE is using gas because it's already spinning).

 

Very light throttle to stay in pure EV when not in EV mode is true.

However when in EV mode, you can have rather good acceleration and stay in pure EV mode.

All you need is an EV button on a current gen Prius to feel this. The PiP is supposed to allow for even more acceleration than the normal Prius while in EV mode.

 

Production PHV (by smaller pack I was referring to the 4 kwh production model as opposed to the 5 kwh test mules).

I know it is kind of picking nits here, but to me the most important question we don't know yet is how often the ICE will come on during the first 15 miles in normal real world driving.

I don't doubt any decent hyper-miler will be able to keep it off.
I don't doubt any hater will be able to floor it and force it on.

What I want to know is if we hand the car to one of our wives not used to driving efficiently, and she pulls out into normal traffic, will it come on or not, even for a second or two during the acceleration itself. Does it matter if you're using the A/C? etc...

 

Another question that I forgot to ask about when I was at the Green Car Expo in Richmond recently is whether the production Plug-in will be allowed to avoid starting the engine to warm the catalytic converter at the beginning of every trip.

My original and gen2 Prius have to do this in order to avoid spewing emissions under load on a completely cold gas engine. As far as I know, the gen3 Prius does this as well. I recall that the prototype Plug-in did not start the engine right away but there were questions about whether they would be able to get away with this in the production U.S. version.

This is only a problem for blended plug-in hybrids and does not apply to full-power designs like the Volt.

 

We know that the PIP is ATPZEV, so I would not worry too much about "spewing."
I will be interested to know how Toyota did it. My WAG is a mixture of pre-heating the cat with electric power, and cat insulation.

 

This is Brad Berman's article, right ?
In a follow-up question, he admitted to pressing the fuel pedal about 1/2 way down while exiting the parking lot. That is my getting on highway behavior.

As for the ICE comment, he has selective hearing; otherwise, he would be complaining non stop about road noise from the tyres.

 

I have already posted for you how to calculate EV and petrol efficiencies in a blended number. Stay ignorant if you want, but stop the FUD.

 

The SULEV standard require 1.0 g/mi while Volt emit 1.3 g/m. Volt missed the SULEV by 0.3 g/mi. Even if it meets SULEV, the SMOG related and evaporative emission are still way higher than Prius PHV.

 

You should send it to Toyota so they can update their website.

We'll just have to agree to disagree until the EPA sticker is revealed, then I will gladly eat crow as appropriate should my assumptions be false.

For the record it was usbseawolf2000 that originally posted the EPA blended PHEV sticker which was the basis of my assumption. The series sticker example in that pdf has all electric range and then hybrid range, but I don't think thats the sticker they'll use with the PHV, precisely because it is blended.

 

The final update to the test standard still has the AER on the blended PHEV sticker. The way to measure AER is to run the tests until the gas engine kicks in. We know PiP is capable of running city cycles without engine starting. It'll also run first half of the aggressive highway cycle in pure EV.

City and highway pure EV miles will be weighted (55% City / 45% Highway) to get the final AER.

So, no PiP's AER will not be zero on EPA sticker.

 

The AT-PZEV emissions achievement is dependent on a functioning catalytic converter. Any gas engine placed under load with a cold cat converter is going to "spew" hydrocarbons and other emissions relative to SULEV limits.

That being said, it's clear that the Prius gas engine does an excellent job on emissions generally.

I suspect it would take an impractical amount of battery power to pre-heat the cat converter at startup just in case the gas engine is needed but maybe not.

 

According to the regulations linked thats the procedure to get the charge depleting range, not the AER (if any). You'll have a charge depleting range of about 15 miles. I'm referring to the separate notation under the bar graph on the EPA label.

With regards to AER it just says:

"use this procedure to establish an all electric range by determining the distance the vehicle drives before the engine starts, rounded to the nearest mile"

without more information on how much acceleration the PHV will give before ICE kick in its hard to say.

 

True. The Volt emissions for NMOG, and Nox still meet the SULEV emissions targets. The Prius just far exceeds the requirements.

Most Volt owners will likely have many fewer "hot soaks" (evaporative emissions off a hot gas engine after it is shut off) versus a Plug-in Prius and also fewer refueling events so the differences won't usually be as large as the graphs indicate.