Crazy Volt incentives makes me want to trade

My best tank so far is 1020 miles until the last 2 segments started blinking. No long trips on that tank.
My current tank has a 120 mile round trip, over the coast range on it, and a ~40 mile round trip to the airport. I'm at about 660 miles and still have around 3 gallons left in the tank. I can't honestly remember the last time I refueled, it was some time in early-mid April.

 

Yup, no problem making it there in EV downhill as long as you don't crank the heater up.

 

My best tank has been over 5000 miles. Current tank is 4300 miles and I have about 4 gallons left. The last time I refueled was in February.

 

In the past year my "punier tank" yielded a 4667 mile tank (4/16-9/27 ~9gallons), a 1876 mile tank (9/27-11/19 ~7gallons), a 1573 mile tank (11/19-2/2/13 ~7gallons), and my current tank which is at 2114 miles and will likely last until june. My gas usage is really limited by longer trips (where the 4K tank simply did not have too many, but were more airport runs in the fall/winter/spring).

Many volt owners don't fill even the 9gallon tank full becuase if you don't use the gas after a year it will make you use it. I take enough long trips its not an issue for me.. but if it was larger I don't think I'd fill it much less often just less full.. even now I've started looking for when prices start rishing (hence my 7 gall fill in Feb, because prices started rising again and it looked like I might need it for a trip.. but got lucky and was able to use some L2 chargers on the trip to save a gallon or so).

On my really long road trip (900 miles), I'm okay with the ~340 mile range (best we did was 320.. ) since I like to stop, rest, have a biobreak, food etc. Adding 10 min for breaks on a long trip is fine with me. At home, I like keeping gas visits to 3-4 times per year. I measure gas tanks in months, not miles ;-)

 

So.....
I guess the take-away is that tank envy, like range anxiety does not really exist.

 

If you don't make it, your gas mileage will be in the 30's or even 20's due to short cold starts without exhaust heat recovery system.

Not sure how well Volt regen can capture at the beginning when the battery is full

35 cents per charge? For PiP 3kWh? How about 13kWh for Volt?

If it is per kWh then you are better of not charging. LOL

Do you do freedom vacation drives? They may be rare but sure racks up a lot of miles.

 

Tell me what numbers you want and I'll do the spreadsheet again...I just used the numbers I've heard people report. I personally get 59 mpg and 14 EV miles, so I used very much downrated PIP numbers than I get.

The point of showing the two graphs was to show that with $.13/kwh the Volt gets an advantage in that middle range and the PIP wins beyond that...but with ~$.20/kwh the cost is about the same for short-mid length trips and the PIP wins after that. Changing the assumptions only modifies the exact numbers where the cutoffs are, it does not change the shape of the curves.

Mike

 

Most would advocate using EPA numbers published.

I personally get 58 EV miles and 43 mpg highway the last time I exceeded the EV range for any distance. I just barely have over 1000 miles on the ICE so it may improve yet. I know some folks are reporting 47 mpg highway.

Based on a 180 mile trip alongside my Gen II Prius last summer the cross over point for gasoline consumption was something significantly beyond 180 miles.

I also pay about 1 - 2 cents per kWh charging.

 

I'm another who doesn't. I use real-world data too, not assumptions.

As for patterns, notice how Volt advocates include the tax-credit without concern about what happens when it expires?

That's what sets the debates apart. There's the support in the here & now for an individual purchase being treated the same way as business diversity & profitability on the high-volume scale. They are fundamentally different.

Volt holds it's own on the individual level. On the business level, it has been a struggle with growing pressure.

Acknowledging that would be progress. It will relieve some of the pressure, paving the way for GM to reconfigure Volt for it to appeal to the masses. Enthusiast admiration doesn't pay the bills.

Do you want a praised niche or a ubiquitous vehicle?

 

How much real world data do you have for the Volt? When you make comments/comparison you do use assumptions.
The best real-world comparison data we've see was the switcharoo with JeffN and DevPrius, which show they cars to be pretty comparable on EV efficiency. Everything else has great variation in drivers. Like JohnH I greatly exceed EPA, with my EV performance over 12 months being 122 MPGe.. for the vast majority of my driving (all speeds not just low speed). But that cannot be compared to a PHV since it cannot drive highway speeds..

And you don't know what our concerns are.. but personally I see no point in discussing what will happen after tax credits when it would be idle speculation. I don't know what an company will do until they say it.

So john.. what's up with PiP sales? How can you want to talk about its high-volume sales and profitability? How does that apply to a vehicle that is selling well under a thousands units a month with declining sales and at least than 50% of the car you are trying to bash? How is a minor tweek of a existing platform driving "business diversity" but a radical new line built around EVSE is not building business diversity.

Enthusiasts (and in this case credits) are paying a premium to get a good car, and that DOES pay bills. Its one of the classic models of innovation, selling to high end early adopters before to help recoup some of the development cost before dropping the price in the next generation. Same thing was done for the Prius .

 

Transcript: GM CEO Daniel Akerson at Brainstorm Green - Fortune Tech

 

Actually, No.

Lets ignore your apples to oranges MPG(e) to MPG comparison; I invite your to just look at MPG to MPG, kWh/mile to kWh/mile between the Volt and the PiP.

"Cost efficiency" is an oxymoron.

Talk about cost, or talk about efficiency.

 

You asked about efficieny and correctly stated
"Efficiency is work_out/energy_in"
Computing total_work_out/total_enery_in requires all energy be converted to constant units, which is the point of MPGe. You cannot compare things on independent dimensions unless you can related total energy used.

The PiP, compared to a Silverado, is more efficient when on gas, but gets much worse kWh/mile (since the silverado uses zero kWh/mile. ) What conclusion can you draw?

I did not compare MPG(e) to MPG, I compared MPGe to MPGe on a particular hypothetical trip.

Both the PHV and the Volt are more energy efficient on EV, so the ratio of the time the spend in EV vs ICE is more important than the small differences between them in each of the modes.

 

F8L forgot to add in the surcharge for moving costs and extra rent when his SO throws him out on his rear again for churning 3 cars in a year or 2... I'm having no sympathy when that happens. I think he needs a new hobby or to take up meditation or something. Chill out bro, there's bigger and better EVs coming soon!

 

Sales data has been nothing but real-world. I'm not doing MPG comparisons.

Prius
Prius C
Prius V
Prius PHV
Camry
Highlander

What do all those vehicles have in common, yet they are quite different?

As for the "minor tweek" claim, look at design. Toyota clearly planned ahead, only needing to swap battery-packs when the cost of lithium finally dropped to a reasonable level for introduction. In the meantime, those hybrids have become part of the mainstream here. In Japan, 2 of them have become best-sellers, reducing the production of their traditional vehicles.

What should we expect from GM and when?

 

Loving this thread F8L. You got GM vs Toyota off topic. You of course got Volt versus PiP. And you even have semantics.

Would you prefer a firm estimate or a guaranteed forecast? I made it clearly ambiguous that the PiPA and Volt have similarly different costs depending on how far you drive.

But this is where I would like to digress off topic. Where do I move so I can charge my PiP for a nickle?

 

PIP = reality, volt = ???

DBCassidy

Yes,

You raise a very good point on the uphill drive.

DBCassidy

Toyota: understands their market. Government Motors understands nothing.

DBCassidy

 

Austin and San Antonio both have EV charging subscriptions. Austin's is $25/6 months of unlimited charging at 100+ charging stations. I think San Antonio's is $30/6 months. I usually consume somewhere in the 300-400 kWh range each month which works out to 1-2 cents per kWh. If you only charge your PiP once per day you will not get down to a nickel, but 3 times per day and you get there.