Introducing the 2016 Chevy Volt (2.0)

Nope. You may be thinking of the Ford Focus Electric.

 

Accord plugin has a 6.6kW 32A on board charger. Volt can only be had with 3.3kW? Sounds like it might need 6.6

 

Rear seats still look unimpressive , cramped, also cheap looking. Will validate my suspicions shortly.

DBCassidy

 

oh wow, so on public charging one can end up spending 50% more energy cost per mile for electricity than gas for a PiP, a car that would seem to need public charging the most.
That's not good

 

I agree but it seems that most owners prefer 3.3 kW if it reduces the MSRP. Faster AC charging would cost GM a little more so I think they should make an option. There's no sign that it actually will be an option yet but I think they will eventually do it but perhaps not in 2016.

 

Or least because it gets +60 MPG by using a blended-mode, warm-up, due to the nearly double efficiency of the engine drive.

Bob Wilson

 

Still that electron tank is really small, and if you go by numbers on-star gen I volt is around 35 (a little worse than self reporting), I would expect the gen II adds it to at least 39, and of course 65 mph or slower highway will do better. CdA of prius is 8% better than gen I volt (car and driver test in the same wind tunnel of liftback and volt) and gen II volt should be about gen I. Real world prius is probably 47. We have a range of 50 versus 11 miles in charge depletion, and probably 21% better fuel economy on the prius phv not almost double the volt in charge sustain mode. That makes the prius phv look really bad as a phev compared to the volt. I expect poor volt sales until the gen II comes out.

I expect gen II prius phv will show a lot of improvement, but that won't be released until end of 2016. Still with toyota's likely variable costs, toyota could sell the phv at a lower cost to the customer and make higher profits if it priced the car less than the liftback after tax credits in states like california and texas where there are state incentives on top of the federal ones.

 

Leaving out detail is what we've been discussing. That has nothing to do with exaggerating.

That "under average climate conditions" is a good example. It's so vague, it will end up misleading people.

We've seen it happen. Allowing it to repeat is a bad idea.

 

The fact that the competition, as well as Bolt, will offer 6.6 is what really stirs disappointment with the new Volt. Many enthusiasts & supporters weren't happy that Volt wouldn't be getting the option. After all, it supposedly will be competing with other EVs, not plug-in hybrids.

 

Lower MSRP that way, and GM's gathered stats shows most simply charging at home at level 1(15amp outlet). A more powerful charger would be wasted when charging overnight; a 6.6kW one would not decrease the charge time from a wall outlet. It would just run at a 3ish kW rate in order to not overload the circuit.

The 2016 Volt charger got bumped up to a 3.6kW over the gen 1 3.3kW. Just enough to charge it from the wall within the gen 1's 10 hrs, and 4hrs from an EVSE level 2 charger, with its higher capacity pack. This probably is the limit that we will see in all future Volt traction pack capacity until level 2 charging at home becomes more common.

But I agree it should be an option in the upcoming years for those that use public chargers.

But some of the reasoning for the smaller pack was that it takes less time to fully charge, and with public chargers it could get near the EV ratio of a Volt without the cost of a big battery.

 

Its not worth it as an option. It probably is physically bigger and runs hotter, then you have inventory costs, etc. It is a silly option for this car. I can't imagine anyone not buying it because it has a 3.6kw charger (its slightly more powerful than gen I, which combined with higher efficiency charges miles about 20% faster), because they want to wait for a custom one with a 6.6kw charger. I don't see them keeping inventory at dealerships. IIRC for a full charge a 6.6 would save less than 2 hours, and who doesn't have 5 hours for a full charge when parked at home at night, or the office? Most surveyed would not pay for a public L2 charger in a phev if the charger asked for money.

I can see that chevy might change everything to 6.6kw or 7.4 (bmw i3 rate, could buy from same supplier) if prices of chargers drop. I could also see a L3 option like the bmw has, that charge rate is fast enough to make a difference.

When we look at polls of likely buyers, that toyota sales talking point failed miserably. People would rather pay for a bigger battery than 11 miles if they are going to buy a phev. Its about charging miles per hour, not about being full and not having many miles of electrons in the battery.

 

Um, I was talking about how EPA rated miles compare to normal driving speeds. Obviously, EPA rated miles correspond to some temperature range. I was expressing that as "average climate conditions" or, in other words, moderate temperatures experienced during many months of the year that are between the extremes of winter and summer. EV range is worse than EPA in cold winter and better than EPA in nice weather. You know that as a PiP owner. Feel free to suggest a better way to phrase that. When driving under those condition, the EPA rated miles seem to correspond to a driving speed of 65-70 mph.

I just got into work after my regular one-way drive at dawn at about 43F with dry roads and a 500 ft. Elevation drop.

I drove at an average speed of around 45-50 mph on the highway due to occassional traffic congestion and arrived at work after 45 miles with an estimated 4 miles of remaining range.

My 2011 Volt, EPA rated at 35 miles EV, is 4 years and 3 months old and has 110,000 miles on it (67,000 from recharging it).

 

sweet.

 

There's a new article at GreenCarReports about the 2016 Volt's powertrain operating modes:

2016 Chevrolet Volt Powertrain: How It Works In Electric, Hybrid Modes

It has some minor errors but it gives a good high-level overview. It includes some nice graphs and illustrations provided by GM.

A more technically detailed article written by myself and a couple of other folks is available here:

Gen 2 Volt Transmission Operating Modes Explained

The highlights are:

1. Still an EREV so it uses any available battery charge in EV mode and doesn't start the gas engine due to vehicle speed or acceleration (driver torque demand).

2. Has a new 2-motor mode that allows both electric motors to be combined together for high torque output.

3. Use of rare earth metals in the motor magnets has been dramatically reduced. The small motor now has none and the big motor has much less. Toyota has said they are researching this as well so it is a possible new feature for the 4th generation Prius.

4. No more "pure" series mode. Whenever the gas engine is running it always has a mechanical path through the transmission to the wheels just like the Prius and other Toyota/Ford hybrids.

5. The 2016 Volt's city driving transmission mode is now essentially identical to the Toyota and Ford hybrids. Of course, it has bigger motors and a more powerful battery and the detailed gearing ratios are different. In particular, it looks very similar to the 3rd gen Prius in that it has the engine and small motor on one planetary gear set which is then hooked up to a second planetary gear set that also has the larger motor and the wheels attached to it.

6. In addition to #5 above, the 2016 Volt has an additional eCVT mode that is optimized for highway speeds. In some sense this is like the old GM 2-mode design which had these same "input split" and "compound split" modes for city and highway driving. However, the internal transmission design and other various features of the new transmission make it quite different.

7. Finally, there is a fixed gear mode where the gas engine (when running) can directly drive the wheels without any mediation overhead by motors or generators. This is used at medium speeds between city and highway driving.

 

How profitable will gen2 Volt be without any tax incentives?

DBCassidy

 

does anyone know if the battery pack will be easier to replace in gen2 volt?
the way i see it, it's cost prohibitive to replace it now (after warranty of course).

 

Physically it is nearly identical in the way it fits under the car. There is s replacement battery part that appears to have a subsidized price that is very reasonable. I don't remember the price offhand but I'm pretty sure it's under $5,000 and requires the original battery to be returned.

It's seems very unlikely that owners will be replacing batteries before the 10 year mark. Many will probably last 15 or even 20 years before truly needing to be replaced (as in the car rufuses to operate without a new battery). By then there should be used battery packs available as well as new replacement packs.

 

Yup. Should be no different than a Prius. Cost will go down with time with battery replacement.

Much like the Prius, one would have to assume a Volt would last so much longer than a conventional ICE car that we might have to live with it for decades. Even the Prius owners doing carrier work got 300k miles on mostly interstate drives on mostly ICE power, which we could in theory do with more battery/EV miles for city driving.

 

The second reason I did not purchase a Volt (when I purchased my LEAF) was due to the 3.3 kW charging speed (first reason being price/incentives). When I purchased my PiP (one year earlier before I knew anything about the plug-in market), the primary reason was due to size (so I could fit my 9 foot surfboard and 5 people for long road trips). That being said, I honestly likely would have bought neither if it weren't for the HOV Stickers program. I'm curious to see the effect of the Green HOV Stickers running out on Volt 2.0 sales in California.