Introducing the 2016 Chevy Volt (2.0)

justin's funny, i'm just the straight man.

 

Thanks. If they want ehr all they had to do is buy the denso parts for cooled egr/ehr used in the camry hybrid and prius c. Cooled egr is the more complicated part. I look forward to seeing bsfc curves and real world mpg.

 

GMs have an oil life monitoring system that goes way beyond a simple odometer timer. From lab testing, the engineers know the consumption rates of common oil additives in the engine under a range of conditions. From that data, the car's computer can calculate a percent life left to the oil from the engine's operation. For those that perform used oil analysis, the system results tends to be close to the chemical tests prediciton. The cars I had with it went around 7500 miles between changes. In a mild climate, with light cruising, going over 10k miles isn't unheard of.

And why does this feel like I just typed out a similar post not too long ago?

 

sorry, 10,000 hv miles, or overall? and what if you don't do 10k in a year, do they recommend time?

 

2016 Chevrolet Volt LT & LTZ Trim Levels, Color/Interior Choices - Gallery

 

Pretty sure they do time. My car said it's time for an oil change right around 2 years and there were less than 5k miles on the engine. I think at 2 years it recommends a change no matter what.

 

The oil life calculation is a combination of engine usage and a 2 year max time interval.

I drive too much so I got caught by the engine use rather than time. It seemed equivalent to about 15000 to 18000 miles max.

 

There are two ways of viewing that statement

Viewpoint 1: Yes, only 1% of the US driving population would have the Volt as the best fit for their needs.
Viewpoint 2: A niche market of 1% of 220 million vehicles is 2.2 million vehicles. That is one heck of a niche. Well worth pursuing.

 

+1

Yep. US market is about 16 million per year. If the volt's niche (can fit in a 2+2, drives less than 50 miles a day typically, has a garage with electricity, doesn't need to haul or tow in this vehicle, has money, likes this type of car) is 5% and the volt could get 1% that is 160,000 a year close to the the peak of the prius (181,222 in 2007). It could happenin 5 years with the gen III, I don't think this one is that good, but a good oil shock we could get to 100,000 ;-)

 

I've never heard of a showroom for a lease...but have "heard of" such a thing for a one-night rental.

Mike

 

LOL, i'm into long term investments, 'buy and hold' as it were.

 

that's pretty sweet! i've used up my two free oil changes. hmm, maybe i'll wait two years, i only have 8,000 hv miles.

 

i owe you a hundred bucks!

 

Not a day trader for quick hit and run profits, Gold or Silver.

 

When most car buyers have 20 - $25k to spend, they go buy an Accord LX or Sport, Camry SE or Altima, etc ... When they're looking at something the size of a Corolla or Civic, they expect to pay under $20k. Volt 2.0 at $33k plus credits ... 25k units per year sold in US

At $4 gas, Accord Hybrid saves merely 4.4 cents per mile over an EX Whoopee. And most buy the cheaper LXs anyway
Need Gen 4 to help boost hybrid numbers.

 

Yep.

It DOES buy owner convenience. I pickup juice 2x as fast at public and workplace charging. I can start charge much later and still get to full w/o hogging the stations (many folks will have gone home already or finished charging).

L2 is already kinda slow (when trying to opportunity charge or go on a long trip)... even w/a 6 kW OBC, esp. compared to 44+ kW DC fast charging. Nissan Quick Charger - CHAdeMO DC Fast Charging for Electric Vehicles is 44 kW. Tesla Superchargers I hear have output of 90 kW to 120 kW, to individual cars.

As I posted elsewhere (my daily driver is a '13 Leaf SV):
When people TRY to use them as BEVs (like at my work and amongst some Volt friends of mine) and utilize L2 30 amp workplace and/or public charging, it DOES matter.

At my work, besides our EV valets (which have only easy access to 6 J1772 handles dedicated to them), we have 8 self-service J1772 handles, 4 Tesla HPWCs and a couple 120 volt outlets. I haven't counted recently, but I know we're north of 50+ EVs/PHEVs. For people who go home earlier, it DOES matter how quickly the spots can be turned over. And, for me, see my use case. I like being able to start late and achieve 80+% charge. 80% no prob. 100% including the bounces at the end? Is no problem w/an almost dead Leaf w/6 kW OBC given 5 hours.

and in another post:
I've seen some pricing for some workplace charging (mine's free). For the ones that charge by time (assuming 30+ amp EVSEs), people w/6+ kW OBCs have a decent deal while those w/3.x kW OBCs have a not-so-good deal.

One friend of mine (possibly at the same company as gg_got_a_tesla) w/o any EV/PHEV sent me their pricing of $1/hour for the first 5 hours and $5/hour for each additional hour. I had to explain to him the good/bad deal depending on the OBC, encouraging turnover, preventing blocked spaces, costs of charging @ home, etc.

The pre-'16 Volt guy on a 208 volt (common commercial power) 30 amp EVSE will be paying ~$0.32/kWh. My Leaf would be paying betweeen $0.167 and $0.175/kWh.

 

A volt owner can just leave without charging. It saves him/her a little bit of gas (or money if billed by charge time), but not time. A Volt uses 35kwh/100 miles or 2.7 gallon of gas. So that's about 13kwh/gallon. Even at 6.6kw, charging at $1/hr is a bad deal, let alone $5/hour. And that's assuming the trip home would be on gas completely. The Volt is really designed for round trip commute less than 38 miles. It's not suitable for 76 miles commute (or 100 miles for Gen 2). GM seems to believe that the vast majority of people's commutes would fit in 38 miles, which is probably true.

Having said that, I would totally support a DC port and external chargers.