Why Can't Other Plug-In Hybrids Copy Chevy Volt's All-Electric Running?

You just don't get it. Incentives are not there to lower emissions on a dollar basis. If they were, all incentives would go into public mass transit and bike paths.

Incentives are about helping new technologies get a foothold in the marketplace.
Hybrids didn't need as much incentives as their refueling is identical to other gas cars and require no change in behavior.

Plugins are making a bigger impact, faster than hybrids did in their first 4 years.

And if your measuring stick is how big a change the technology is making today, without any planning for the future, why in the world would you support any incentives for FCVs? Their impact will be less than either hybrids or plugins.

 

USBseawolf has good point if EVing ultimately emits more GHGs up and downstream for the sake of getting EV jollies and getting tax breaks, well, that is not prudent.
On another note, I would rather be following a mass of EVs in front of me than fossil fuel burners. I wonder what the air quality is like on a crowded freeway and how much gets into the cabin.

 

Half of those plugins are hybrids. Adoption rate should be higher due to the existing no-plug hybrid market and also disproportional amount of money throwing at it.

I understand it is being done to adopt new technology. I just don't support technology that supposed to save gas, costing more than gas itself and emitting more emission in the process.

 

Think carefully about that statement. What is left out is the effect over time. EV use today results in what can only be described as a minuscule increase in today's GHG if any at all...worse case. But what is happening now also results in the EV infrastructure and cultural shifting (Hey, EVs are fast, fun, and crazy reliable!) taking place when it has maximum payoff. The end result can be a much bigger total reduction in GHG over the next decades due to decisions happening now.

 

And once again, EVs don't emit more GHGs than the average gas car anywhere in the US.
And for most people, they emit less GHG than the cleanest gas car.

FCVs cost more per vehicle and emit more than EVs do, so, do you support those incentives?
Should there even be a national incentive when not all people in the nation can buy them?

 

not the same thing - $7,500 for a hydrogen car gives you an over-priced car w/ NO infrastructure. That same money for a plugin gets you an affordable ride with much less expensive infrastructure. Plus, hydrogen wastes natural gas whereas a plugin potentially doesn't have to use any fossil fuel.
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What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

 

This guy is your go-to authority source? Almost every number in his calculations is laughably wrong.

He thinks transmission losses are 10% (really about 6.5% in the US).

He thought the Volt was 45 kwh for 100 miles. Then added a note later on that someone had corrected him and the real answer was 30 kwh but there's no sign that he went back and redid the calculations. The real number is 36 kwh when he wrote this originally and 35 kwh for 2013+ Volts. Note that even after being corrected he could not be bothered to spend 30 seconds on a Google search to verify the right number.

He thinks it takes 30 kWh to recharge a LEAF that goes 73 miles so his calculation assumed 41 kWh per 100 miles when EPA was really 34 kWh since the LEAF's EPA range is not based on a 100% nominal battery charge combined with a guessed-at charging overhead.

I'm confident he's made other mistakes but that's where I stopped reading.

His article is entirely unreliable.

 

Again goals of the program as posted above.
EV Everywhere Grand Challenge: DOE's 10-Year Vision for Plug-in Electric Vehicles | Department of Energy

Of course you may not want energy security, but the government spends a lot of money on it. Singly focusing on ghg would likely give us a lot more diesels, and perhaps fewer suvs and trucks. You may or may not agree with those policies.

In 49 states plug-ins should significantly reduce oil use, and ghg against the cars they are bought against. Pretending that everyone that is buying a plug-in would A) not buy green energy and B) would buy a prius instead is a poor assumption. USB in his last response to me clarified that he didn't beleive that. He just really really hates the tax credit.

If your chief concern is ghg, they even give you this handy dandy calculator with the 2009 emissions from the 26 regional grids, and the epa city and highway miles based on your choices. Of course many on this board would choose the prius again, even if it produces more ghg, but the government is providing you with tools and choice for the low low price of around $11B over 10 years for the plug-in programs.
Alternative Fuels Data Center: Vehicle Cost Calculator

Especially behind a pre 2006 diesel. Those things really produce a lot of unhealthy emissions, but hey they are lower in ghg than the fleet in general.

I created this thread for ghg and efficiency choices.
Net effects of green energy and old coal on new electrical demand | PriusChat

I prefer to go there to discuss these strange matters as there seems to be quite a bit of misinformation.

Going by your source at eia which is a good one we have for 100 kwh of electricity

39kwh coal @33% efficiency = 118 kwh coal
27kwh natural gas @43% efficiency = 63 kwh natural gas
1kwh petroleum @32% efficiency =3kwh petroleum

So for 100 kwh of electricity we use 184 kwh of fossil fuel.
That leaves us 54% efficient on fossil fuels not 33%, we have all those non fossil sources in your link. On that other thread I did california where 40%+ of plug-ins are sold, and that is 62% efficient on fossil fuels.

Now that 2015 nissan leaf gets 117 mpge x 54% fossil fuel efficiency x 93% grid efficiency = 59 mpge on fossil fuel

Gasoline production is about 83% efficient so this is about equivelant to a 59/83% = 71 mpg gasoline efficiency

I don't find efficiency arguments good ones. We have a lot more natural and gas and coal in the US than oil, so it will last much longer and cause less energy security. Check out the other thread, ghg is not as ugly for gasoline powered cars as efficiency is. But when you read bad links with really bad numbers you should question them. Why would we make plug-in cars if the grid was so inefficient? It would be simpler to make the coal into methanol and run the fleet then. But when you look at electricity prices there is no way the grid could be as inefficient as the bad numbers in that piece.

 

And they got tax deductions before that, and Japan gave them subsidies to sell when introduced.
http://www.evaap.org/pdf/incentive.pdf

Seeing how most, if not all, PHVs are in the the top emission bins, your definition of pollute is skewed.

Which is less still than what the most fuel efficient Corolla emits per mile.
Compare Side-by-Side

Which is all a FCV will do too.
Since coal is shutting down, and most new plants are efficient NG ones, the electricity for a plugin is cleaner than gasoline in terms of pollutants.

How much can the price of a hybrid drop due to that incentive reducing battery costs?

And at best to reached 4% here when they were receiving incentives. We still don't have hybrids for some of the more popular segments. The Prius sells about 150k a year now. The Malibu sold in the 180k range. With those numbers, why does the Prius need help to move off the lot?

The US public only seems to buy them when gas prices are high. The low gas prices haven't hurt plugin sales as much as they have hybrids. So they are offering something beyond just gas savings, and the majority buying them are coming from an ICEV.

The steady increase in battery performance, and decrease in cost beg to differ with that statement.

The average new vehicle sold today emits 480g/mi. USB's worst case Volt example emits two thirds of that, and still less than the most sold car in its size segment. The grid data used for the plugin upstream emissions is from 2009; there is less coal on the grid.

The upstream GHG emissions can be 25% to 75% higher if it is coming from tar sands and oil shale. Over time the grid will get less carbon intensive while gasoline production gets higher.

Then there are the other goals of the incentive that AG listed.

 

Ok, so I went to the fueleconomy.gov site to look at total GHG emissions for my state CA of PiP vs. Volt. The site tells me tailpipe + upstream CO2 for

2015 Prius Plugin = 220 g/mi US natl. avg
2015 Volt = 250 g/mi US natl. avg.
average new car purchased = 480 g/mi

another chart showed 'emissions' as 6/10 then 8/10 for Volt (one was bin 4 something or other, the other ULEV rating, see for urself)
and 9/10 emissions for PiP. I don't like that 6/10 figure for Volt. Didn't see why that is.

Does the Volt put out more of other types of emissions besides C02 than PiP?

Interestingly, regular Prius 2015 clocks in at 218 g/mi CO2 natl avg, less than the PiP.
CA avg CO2 for PiP and Volt was 200 g/mi

Overall Volt looks like a very clean car emissions wise and it can sure use very, very little gasoline for some folks.

Just lookin' though. I don't see a plug in in my near future.

Looks to me like Plugin hybrids/EREVs are sort of on the skids for now. Battery electrics have outsold PHEVs 2 to 1 to date this year.
I don't see the Energi's picking up much in sales. I think the PiP is sort of toast for now saleswise, I sort of doubt if most people will care about getting a PiP even with a 20 mile battery. I'll bet many PiPers get them for the HOV stickers.

regular Prius sold more copies in US in March than all PHEVs year to date,. Hopefully Volt 2 will bump the PHEVs back up in the Fall,

Obviously, Prius liftback represents the best potential for sales of hybrids and PHEVs. These sedan hybrids / PHEVs with a half or third trunk full of batteries don't stand much chance to get anywhere near 5k sales a month here. Most want a big trunk 'just in case'. Who wants to be embarraed picking up family at airport and whoops, can't fit luggage and 2 or 3 travelers or have to 'plan' for the pickup very much.

Talked to a repair shop office dude other day. Drives a Mercedes E class. He's all jazzed about BEVs. Loves em. Uber or SLT has lent him models S to drive. He's hooked. Seems like a good thing.

I wager Volt 2 will get back to 2k sales a month in US in a year and the PiP sales will be a couple hundred or so a month. Who knows about PiP2, that's so far off ...

 

The volt is getting tested on newer stricter standards, it gets 9/10 for the pzev standard like the prius. Of course the ice is off for a high percentage of those miles, so lower per mile on some maybe higher on others. Both the gen II volt and gen IV prius come out this year. I expect both will be lower on the new tests.

its likely I haven't looked at the tests. The volt doesn't use canisters so evaporative emissions are likely higher, canisters don't work well if it may be weeks before you turn on the engine again. Overall both cars are extremely clean. They are in the same bin in the pzev standard so differences will be small.
+1

 

This will result in lower GHG emission. Giving out $7,500 for EVs and Volt in dirty grid state won't. That should have happened (in 2009) before the launch of EVs and I would be on board.

As I've pointed out, there are good plugins and bad plugins. I fully support good plugins sold in the states with clean electricity. I am especially focusing on the bad plugin like the Volt.

This is an informative link. The other one has a valid point concerning emission of EVs in some states but his math is not right.

It seems to be a good vision with our national interest. But then they are the one that put all the eggs in battery basket and cut off funding on all other technologies - in effect declaring EVs the winning technology.

It is a program that DOE put together. The grand goal was stated in this White House Fact Sheet.

In 2008, the President set an ambitious goal of putting 1 million advanced technology vehicles on the road by 2015 – which would reduce dependence on foreign oil and lead to a reduction in oil consumption of about 750 million barrels through 2030.​

Gas saving technology with a tax incentive that cost more than the gas it would save. Pretty ambitious but the problem was, the efficiency and emission was ignored.

I was using Prius as an example. If they don't buy Prius, they can buy 47 MPG Accord hybrid or the upcoming 47 MPG Malibu hybrid. Those midsize functional cars would sell well if there is $3k incentive and would cut fur more gasoline than Volt could -- without using any electricity from the outlet.

I hate badly structured tax incentive but like a good one.

Corolla emits 340 g/mi. His "high tech" Volt emits 320 g/mi. He can't claim his cost per mile is very low (due to using dirty fossil electricity) and claim his EV miles are solar clean. He better buy SRECs but then the cost wouldn't low, is it?

People had to wait in line to get their Prius. The incentive ran out in about a year, would've been faster if Prius were available.

Look at Japan with their 40% hybrid market share. That's what we can achieve if we structure our incentives right. We have good domestic midsize hybrids that can save a lot of gas.

Yes, FCV can use any primary fuel (just like electricity) to power with hydrogen. The difference is, it'll be cleaner in every state. It would be cleaner in CA as it is requiring 30% produced from renewable. It'll refuel as fast as a gas car also.

Volt is a compact car. 35 MPG compact gas car would emit 317 g/mi. The two motors 47 MPG Malibu hybrid would emit 236 g/mi. His Volt is emitting 320 g/mi and he needs to charge it overnight. What a waste of time and resources.

Interesting, they updated it. It used to add up (upstream and tailpipe) to 222 g/mi for a regular Prius.

Check this thread.

Volt can lower emission and also cut gas consumption in some states. There are also states where it would emit more.

 

I apologize to those who have to continually re-read the rebuttal to these misstatements;

1 - Dirty coal grid plugin BS:

Fossil Fuels Are Way More Expensive Than You Think

Repeating the, 'plugins on coal power are dirtier than gassers' b.s. won't make it true. Coal powered plugin's are still cleaner/less harmful than your average ICE. And cleaner electricity makes for an even cleaner plugin.

2 - FC cars can get hydrogen via electricity BS:
It'll NEVER be cost effective - because of the HUGE amount of electricity it takes to distill hydrogen via electricity. Hey! ... you can get gold from sea water too - if you use 4x more energy than the value of the precious metals.
.

 

In addition, as others have also stated, it is not a choice between a Volt and a Prius. It is a choice between a Volt and all other cars on the market.
Many plugin owners are replacing trucks/SUVs or sports cars.
People that wouldn't be caught dead (for whatever unjustified reason) are happily buying Volts, or other plugins.
At this thread you can find links to polls for a number of the plugin cars as well as the Prius.

Efficient car market growth and trends | PriusChat

 

Not only is his math wrong the conclusions are comically wrong. Its worse than cnw.

The correct math finds that for a gasoline car to be as efficient on oil as the leaf is on fossil fuel on the average grid it would need.

That is 2.6 times more efficient than the 28 mpg gasoline car the bad post calculates.

Its time to critically read these anti-plug-in rants for what they are. The author didn't even try to check out fuel economy.gov, and assumed the grid efficiency was that of 100% coal with 10% grid losses.

Conclusion from that bad blog
MPG for Electric Cars? | Do the Math

OK so if we do proper assumptions the math clearly says you get reduced resource consumption from plug-ins. For the second, this is trying to imply that the US grid is building a lot more coal. It is not. Coal is retiring in the grid faster than it is being built, and the epa rules say it will continue this decline unless it uses ccs. The only exception in the US is hawaii where a large amount of electricity comes from 32% efficient petroleum generators. Natural gas, coal, wind, sun, and geothermal are much more available than easy oil, and tight oil takes more energy ;-)

So his conclusion if he looked at the grid properly should be plug-ins are much more efficient with scarce resources. The grid is becoming less carbon intense, and for 60% of the population the average plug-in today will release less green house gas than the most efficient hybrid, and much less than a 34 mpg car. The dirtiest regional grid in the US in 2013, according to UCS would have the average (not the best) plug-in produce about the same ghg emissions measured in co2e as that 34 mpg car. New tech is adopted slowly. If you are concerned about green house gas 20 years from now we must continue to clean the grid, and change our transportation at the same time.

Now ignoring hawaii (I'm fine having plug-in bashers bash hawaii as it is the worst state to lower oil imports or ghg, The WECC Rockies is the dirtiest power. Here is what is likely to happen to clean it up though.

Coal's dominance likely to decrease in Rockies, Southwest US: analysts | US Natural Gas | Platts

By 2018, a lot of coal will be replaced by wind and natural gas. There still will be a great deal of coal, but this is the region with the least expensive coal. Plug-in buyers can choose to purchase wind in this region to accelerate cleaing of the regional grid.

 

"His" Volt (was this even a real person or just an example scenario?) is in Kansas. I've been there. In reality, people in Kansas aren't driving Volts.

Needing to charge overnight? Most plugin owners I talk to enjoy charging overnight so they don't have to constantly drive their cars to get a refill at the hydrogen station.

I crunched my own personal average for the last few months using the somewhat pessimistic fueleconomy.gov electric generation emissions for my region that are about 50% higher than the numbers reported by my Northern California utility.

My "bad" Volt plugin has been doing about 135 g/m.

 

When released, the Volt wasn't 'clean' enough to qualify for a Ca HOV sticker because of a spike of carbon monoxide on engine start up. The other pollutants; NOx, hydrocarbons, etc., were low enough to meet the SULEV/PZEV bin. The next model year had an additional piece of hardware added to solve the CO issue. It's a no cost option though, so it is still possible to order a 'dirty' one. While the Volt is in the same bin as the PPI and Prius, its actual measured pollutant levels are higher. personally, i don't see that as an issue consider where most of the more commonly bought cars are at.

There is a lot more selection in BEVs in comparison to PHVs at the moment, and then there are the ZEV credits. Nearly everyone has BEV for compliance purposes, and some are likely selling theirs at a lost for the credits. PHVs don't qualify for the credits.

The Volt is suffering from the new model slump. The PPI may do better if rolled out nation wide. Owners like the Energi's, but the obvious loss of cargo space is a tough sell. Aside: the Malibu and next Sonota hybrid will both have a flat trunk floor with full folding rear seats. Still some loss of cargo space, but being more usable maybe enough to convert more buyers. The Leaf is the only BEV for the everyman that sells in real numbers, and before the gen2 Volt unveiling, it and the Volt were basically tied on month to month sales.

For the high end market, the Tesla S is cheaper than the PHVs from BMW and Porsche. The i3 REX is cheaper still, but is handicapped for the US, I should say California, market.

How much has fuel cell R&D funding been cut? You have posted some research results that have been the result of government funding in that area. The FCV tax credit expired because the cars the FCV lobby said that would be on the road before then never arrived, and they are limited to a single state. If your issue with the plugin tax credits is bang for the buck, why would you support higher ones for FCVs, that can only be sold in a single state, which has a clean grid, so that the differences in GHG between the FCV and a plugin are tiny?

95+% of the car buying public don't buy a hybrid or plugin. So using the high outlier hybrid as an example of how plugins won't reduce gas consumption or GHG for the nation is a poor example. People that look at a Volt, but elect not to get it are for more likely to get a Corolla, Cruze, and even a larger ICE sedan instead than a Prius or any hybrid. I used the Corolla because it is the number one selling small sedan because it would be a like comparison. Even then the high efficiency model I picked won't be the model's top seller.

Many in this country weren't happy with the hybrid tax credits, and Cash for Clunkers(another incentive that helped hybrids), because they gave American tax payer funds to mostly foreign companies. Another one will not fly politically.

Of course he can. If coal electric costs him less than wind electric or gasoline, he can claim a low cost per mile.

How much more GHG does an uncertified PV system emit than an identical certified one?

Gas prices were also $4 or more a gallon for many during the peak in incentives.

Japan has no natural resources, expensive gas, and an auto market nearly closed to imports. Incentives for hybrids is an easier sell there because the public wants high efficiency cars, and the government funds don't leave the country. The hybrid incentives ended up hurting PPI sales there though.

Will it be cleaner using the electricity in the 'dirty' grid states to compress and pump the hydrogen, or burning the diesel to truck it in from a 'clean' grid area?

Do you sit in your Prius PHV for three hours while it charges?
If his(it was merely an example) goal was to simply reduce GHG, he should have bought a Malibu hybrid. I wonder why he didn't?

Started this thread in Fred's politics for any tax credit and incentive discussions.
http://priuschat.com/threads/alternative-fuel-incentives-discussion.152081/

 

Those two are interesting choices. The malibu is not out yet, but clearly came from the volt R&D. The gen II accord hybrid came from honda investing in in the accord phev, and likely wouldn't be here like the malibu without the plug-in technology push. The gen I accord hybrid seemed to be a commercial failure because the tech was too expensive for what it does.

Since we are talking about futures lets look at the gen II volt likely numbers 102 mpge for 50 miles, and 41 mpg in charge sustain mode. Just for grins 3% of trips encompassing 30% of miles for charge sustain.

Now where do we draw the line.
Compare Side-by-Side
I would say you want to credit the camry hybrid (40mpg) if you are going to credit the future malibu. What about the 38 mpg sonata hybrid? Its so close to the camry. I'm sure you would throw out as bad the 28 mpg highlander hybrid. Let's say 38 which represents less than 3% of cars.

The gen II volt will produce more ghg on non-green energy in 4 of the 26 regional grids and less sometimes much much less on 22. Let's throw out the grid in oahu, I agree it doesn't make sense to buy a volt there as a bev isn't going to run out of juice. That bev will run on a lot of oil in electricity production, probably more than a prius. We have WECC Rockies, (35), and SPP south and SERC midwest (37), so worst case that gen II volt will produce 13% more ghg than a camry XLE hybrid in WECC Rockies. Note this region has readily available green choice wind which would produce 70% less than camry XLE hybrid. About 40% percent would need to purchase green choice to be as low as ghg as the prius. Only a tiny percentage of plug-in buyers will live in these 3 regions and not buy green energy. I would expect all three of these regions to be much lower in CO2e in 10 years, even though coal power is cheaper there.

 

He can't claim both cheap and clean electricity. It is either or.

Solar production is not tracked with a meter. How do you even know the non-certified system is even on?

Japan spent less incentive and save more gas than we did with our plugin incentive. Plugin incentive also leave the US (Leaf), so you don't really have a point.

H2 infrustructure is still at infancy but on-site generation or central pipeline will not require trucking.

See this back in 2009.
Energy Department Cuts Funding for Fuel Cell Cars - HybridCars.com

Dr. Chu said yesterday that he holds little hope for fuel cell cars in the coming decades. In a press briefing, he said, “We asked ourselves, ‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was ‘no.’”
​

And 6 years later, FCVs are launching with more range than EVs and price is competitive with EVs.

In 2013, he resigned. In an interview, he admitted he changed his stance on hydrogen.
The electricity it takes to compress H2 is much less than it takes to charge the battery. 3-4% vs 10-15%

Normally, I don't wait as it is done overnight. However, when I need to use it and there are no more charge, charging it is too slow and painful

We have yet to see the details but it is a PR claim. It said the regenerative braking came from the Volt. OK....

Let's see the details. My hunch is, it is very similar to HSD. Even the EGR and EHR tech were copied.