Introducing the 2016 Chevy Volt (2.0)

or tea, more likely.

 

A 15-20 minutes charge using a 6.6kw charger (2kwh) can only last 5 miles, which is about 25-50 cents of gas. Really not worth the trouble for most people unless it's a scheduled stop.

The Chademo charger is a DC charger though, so it might be able to do 120kw, which is a different story. The industry really needs to come up with a standardized DC charger for all EVs.

 

2016 Chevrolet Volt - Q & A With Volt Engineers
I think they did a great job with the interior and range improvements.

We know the prius takes a hit in the cold and this beast is likely to take a bigger 29% hit. If the 50 mile range is real epa, then its likely we really are at 55 in good weather ( my guestimate based on current generation).
Electric vs. Gasoline Showdown: Vehicle Range in Cold Weather | FleetCarma
That makes it 39 miles even at 0 degrees F (-18 C). Enough for 75% of american drivers to drive gas free even in cold weather on most days. That should give it a leg up on sub 100 mile bevs. Ofcourse americans do take multiple over 100 mile trips. Here the first 50 are electric, the rest are probably around 40 mpg. Dropping 0-60 time to 8.3 sec should help it feel fast enough, although a power blended mode would have been nice (but .might have offended CARB).

Exterior, bleh, but compared to the mirai, leaf, i3 I think it looks great. I don't understand why designers are making the exteriors look like this. The tesla S, i8, porsche 918 are great looking, but these start way higher than the volt.

This is a 2+2 hatch, with a bench that can take a child seat. The best selling car is a 4 door sedan, so form alone with keep sales from zooming to high levels. That will wait for an improved fussion energi, tesla 3, or whatever other companies can produce.

Still good job GM. If they Price it at $33,000 and actually hit those numbers and these should sell well with the tax credits. Ofcourse pricing or actual numbers could be disappointing.

 

This can be avoided by blended EV powered, warm-up of the gas engine:

Our 1.5L, 03 Prius takes ~5 minutes to reach hybrid-mode temperature. If the plug-in (and future hybrids) use a blended mode where maximum use of EV is used while the engine warms up at the lowest possible fuel consumption rate, it would be a game changer. No, I haven't tested this, yet, but my data suggests this is the case.

Personally I would like to see the target SOC go to 50% on a cold-start. Then as the engine reaches more efficient operating regions, the SOC would increase to the nominal 60%. Then when the speed after a turn drops to under 30 mph, have the SOC target rise to 65-70% to gather charge needed for the next cold-start. The idea is to have, best case, 70-50 ~= 30% charge available on the next cold-start to run the car while the engine warms up.

Bob Wilson

 

Absolutely this should work on a blended mode phev running more efficiently with the ice on in the cold. Hopefully it will be adopted in the 2017 prius phv design.

The volt though is trying to act as a bev though, and the hit comes from less efficient battery in the cold (either battery is too cold or in the case of the volt power is used to warm the battery) but also from the extra power for the heat and increased air resistance (drag increases because cold air is more dense). The best things you can do is liquid conditioned pack that the volt has, and heat pump for hvac which the leaf and tesla S have but the volt uses resistance. It was likely less expensive to add more battery than to add a heat pump to the volt ;-) I think its great that they added enough battery to over come the cold penalty. That extra battery helps even if it is not cold, so a good engineering solution.

I think ERDTT is a feature not a bug. It is more efficient to burn a little gas to heat the car and battery when it is very cold. There should be driver control though, where the driver, can over ride this. It is bad news that chevy didn't give the driver an over ride.

 

Hummmm, something the Leaf handles without a problem. <GRINS>

Bob Wilson

 

what kind of cold are we talking about? i can keep my pip off down to 14 degrees according to the manual, athough there are a few situations that will trigger the ice above that temp.

 

okay, that's not too bad, unless your living in john1701 territory, frostbite falls.

 

While the new Volt looks good as an incremental improvement on last year's model, it still has a number of strikes against it in my opinion. First of all, there's no direct coupling of the engine to the drive-train. The engine is basically a generating plant to charge the battery. Despite GM's numbers, there's no way to avoid conversion losses that directly impact fuel economy. The battery has been improved, but there's no getting away from the 3-way triangle of power-density vs. longevity vs. cost. It also impacts directly on the interior space of the car.

Although the Volt promises to be all things to all people, it still occupies a fairly small niche in the market. For someone who drives less than 50 miles to work, where they can get free charging, it makes sense. For someone who wants to save money on long trips, not so much; a lot of energy is wasted charging the battery along the way. For someone who stays fairly close to home, a Leaf might be a better choice, (however I maintain that a bike might be an even better one).

Personally, I think the Prius is actually the best of all worlds. No better combination of fuel economy, ride comfort, interior space and reliability can be found on the market today. With the Gen 4 Prius just around the corner, the last thing I'd consider right now is buying the new Volt.

 

The ice can act as a pure generator, or be attached in a similar way as the prius. The car is heavier and less aerodynamic than the prius, that is where the big efficiency hit is now. It is 16% heavier with 8% higher drag and higher rolling resistance tires. Chevy claims it will now close the hybrid mode efficiency gap with a combined 22% less efficient - most of that coming at city driving with those bigger tires and higher weight. At sub $3 gas, and probably 70% of miles electric and most gas miles highway, that is not bad. It should only use about 37% the gas as a prius a big improvement over the current generation volt.

The 2+2 + child area on bench is the result of battery packaging. The prius is a better form factor, the camry, fusion, accord even more desired. That definitely hurts sales, and gm needs to move voltec to other cars. A phev cute ute (cr-v, escape, rav4 sell 900,000 a year) might sell well.

90% of the us popultion drives less than 25 miles to work. Most because of time, weather, safety can't bike to work. A leaf falls further behind for american needs with this improvement. Never fear, in 2 years Nissan expects a bigger battery to be able to go on longer trips that current owners use a different car for.

I hope the next generation prius is a good improvement. gen II volt will not sell nearly the units of the prius, but Toyota may bleed owners to the volt, leaf, i3, tesla 3 if they don't get a better plug-in out there. I think the peak for the American peak for prius liftback was in 2007, and I doubt we will hit that level again. Gen III voltec should be able to work in a wider variety of vehicles, and battery costs and size are falling.
Toyota Prius Sales Figures - GOOD CAR BAD CAR

 

Apparently, there's a law somewhere saying that ERDTT is mandatory for cars with a gasoline engine. Then again, I am not sure how Volt would perform in -20C temperature with the engine comes on first.

 

It probably would perform like a geo metro, and the driver would likely need to drive in a jacket, but why not let them do that ;-)

I definitely think having ice heat in the cold is an advantage not disadvantage, but the driver should be able to turn it off.

 

I drive a Prius C, but the numbers are increasingly not in Prius's favour. A 2015 Prius would only win for trips over 300 miles (50 MPG for both) and the Volt has better drive characteristics. According to GM, the vast majority of people have a two way commute of less than 40 miles, my commute is certain within that range. The Prius is a great machine, but I worry that Toyota is missing the EV train.

 

if the volt was the same size as the prius, i would be in one. i don't think there are any other real negatives unless you regularly drive well over 50 miles.

 

Does the Volt..

• use an Atkinson-cycle engine?
• use an exhaust heat recovery system?
• use an electric air-conditioner pump?
• have a drag ratio less than 0.25?
• use aluminium parts to save weight?

Feel free to add to the list.