The 1st Volt: Off the Assembly Line Today

My feeling is that GM is committed to large cars, SUV's and truck, and the true value of the Volt to GM is to off-set the CAFE average so they can continue to make large cars, SUV's and trucks.

There has been talk about separating Cadillac .... but they cannot meet CAFE requirements as a stand-alone entity.

One favorable reason for GM to NOT return the bailout $$ too quickly, is this congress has demonstrated they just use returned money to give it away to another "unfinded" project rather than returning it to the treasury.

 

If Chevy wants to be competitive, they'll need to make the price close to the leaf.

 

I was just trying to say this is the first time in GM history that they needed a bailout, so lets/ our goverment already has gave them another chance. They do make good trucks, and these are needed by construction companys, ect. The corvette is a nice sportscar and can get almost 30 mpg. I know other sports cars from europe are better but they seem to get 12mpg city 18mpg hwy. The chevy malibu has done good in the press/auto reviews. Maybe the chevy cruse will give the corolla a run for it's money. And we will see what the future will hold for them and their volt.

 

Selling that many Volt would be amazing!

35 MPG for a fleet average coming from a massive number of vehicles delivering efficiency only in the 20's is going to need quite a few plug-ins to offset the difference.
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I've looked at both electric offerings and have registered on Nissan's site to plunk down a refundable $99 to reserve the right to lease/purchase the LEAF when it is offered later this year.

For my commuting/driving habits, the LEAF suits me perfectly. I need to drive 2.5 miles each way to park my car at a suburban transit stop then ride public transit the rest of the 12 miles to my office. In the winter, my car won't even warm up by the time I park it. Driving almost in this mode has got to be hard on the car/battery and fuel economy is horrible. An all-electric offering would be perfect. Just plug it in overnight and it's ready for the 5 mile round trip plus any local errands I need to run.

On the weekends, it would take me to any local venue. I've heard Nissan will ramp up emergency services to get you a quick charge in the event you deplete the main battery. The LEAF will also come standard with a NAV system I'm sure Nissan will use to help you find roadside charging stations.

 

Someone break open the bottle of champagne!

:tea: :drum: :clap2::clap2::clap2:

:usa2:

 

The reason I am so interested in the Volt is that it will propel us one step closer to the "real" solution of Hydrogen fuel cell cars. A pure EV would be ideal, but I do not see this being an option for the next 20 years. Until then an EV with range extender is the obvious choice. Start with gas extender and move over to Hydrogen as the infrastructure is established, and the every day American "gets" what cars like this can do for your everyday life on this planet.

With the leaf, volt, or a Hydrogen car, having a home charging kit would be a must. These should come with the car, not as a $2,000+ lease. Throw in the option of a solar+/-wind (for those that can use) and you can have an emission less car, and best of all cut out your cost at the pump.

I am a realist and do understand that taxes of gas pay for our roads, and very quickly uncle sam would realize they are missing out on that piece of the pie, so some form of taxation for the above car drivers would have to be put into place.

My vision of where I would like to be in 5-10 years, Myself in a Volt and my wife in a plug-in Prius. Solar array and 3x turbine wind farm in the back yard. $0 spent on gas and electricity per month, all without the stigma of being a hippy-econut.

 

i see the Volt as one possible solution and until these emerging options are out in the wild, it will be difficult to determine our best course of action. but the specs on the volt are just not that impressive, the price makes it out of the mainstream by quite a bit.

the leaf, is also priced a bit out of the mainstream, but its closer and its 100% Electric which i think is the direction we need to move in. charge storage technology is improving and there are already reports of new chemistry that has a potential to get range approaching 1000 miles .

if looking at just straight stats, for many, a Prius would be a better option than the volt

 

the volt is worthless unless you can plug it in.


you just lost most apartment dwellers

 

Just out of curiosity, why do you consider hydrogen fuel cell cars as the real solution?

Tom

 

hydrogen is a joke for cars! evnut.com. almost 4X the energy is needed compared to pure electricity for the same number of miles driven! What, are we that crazy? why would we waste that energy when we do so well wasting it now with 20% efficient internal combustion? the math does not compute when comparing the energy-suck hydrogen versus charging a battery directly. skip the "middle" step with hydrogen and go battery-electric...NOW. not 20 years from now. Heck TEN years ago, a RAV4 EV and an EV-1 did 100 miles on a single charge using NiMH cells. actually it's going on 14 years and they still run. Well, the ev-1 does not, for obvious reasons. see the movie who killed the electric car.

How can you "fix" the math to make hydrogen more efficient? defy laws of science?

 

Another reason the Volt is a good thing: It will get other automakers thinking more about Plug-Ins (like the Plug-In Prius) and EVs (like the Leaf).

This thread is not about the Leaf (nor hydrogen), but the Leaf will inherently have range problems (not for city dwellers, but surely the media will blow it out of proportion), and of course GM will exploit this by mentioning the Volt is an EV that has a backup generator. They will likely show commercials with Leafs (Leaves, haha) on the side of the highway and the Volt driving by. Oh, and Toyota will [indirectly] exploit it also with the Plug-In Prius.

In the near future (next 5 years), I think EVs with backup generator's are going to prevail. Whether it's a Volt or a Plug-In Prius, the general idea is the same.

 

Right now the technology is not available to get 400 miles of city or highway driving on an EV. Yes it would be the best choice for all, considering most people are not locked into what would be a "coal powered vehicle" if they wish not to be.

Hydrogen is the ONLY zero emission available right now, and easily integrated into daily life for Americans.

Most of the studies saying Hydrogen -> electricity is inefficient are put on by companies with a heavy oil based bias. Even if they are true, 4x less efficient vs 100% less emissions is a trade off I would take any day.

If I am powering my car 100% from wind/solar energy, can regenerate 400 miles or more of said power, and doing so with little to no cost past the initial investment, I am going to take that choice when the time comes, weather it be Hydrogen or EV.

What it would take to make Hydrogen a reality is a major bill from the government subsidizing "one pump" per station at a reduced cost. Could you imagine the instant independence from over seas oil we would have? Hydrogen would cost pennies to produce on site, per pump, and the rest would be pure taxes. Everybody wins. Before anyone starts the "fox news" spin of where would the money come from in this situation, it would obviously come from the taxes on the fuel itself. Instead of $95 per barrel of oil, shipping across an ocean, piping to a refinery, then trucking to your local station, where every middle man gets his 5-30% you would buy hydrogen made on site for nearly nothing. Ask any business if they could cut out their supply chain and still make 10% if they would take the option and most would say yes without a thought.


Anyway, I am off of my soapbox. I see the volt as a pure EV with gas extender... I do not plan to drive more than 20 miles a day in my commute to work, so it would be a pure EV for me. I don't want to be nailed down to the 100 miles of the leaf, and most of all I want to reward GM with my $$ for producing technology that others have ignored.

 

On a separate note from my above post. After owning a Prius, I realize a plug-in is not as cut and dry of an idea as I previously thought. The idea of converting a current prius to plug-in is no longer an option for me, as I would be putting the electric motor under much more strain than it was designed for, killing the reliability that I purchased the car for in the first place. Something like taking a reliable Honda Civic and modifying it to have 350HP and racing it, the reliability is completely gone at that point.

Toyota would have to design a whole new power system including batteries and electric motor to make this a reality. I would bet this is the reason they have not put one out yet.

FYI I have been a military mechanic for 10 years and have worked with large diesel, gas, and electric motors. If you were wondering who this crazy man is LOL!

 

Only zero emission? You forgot the energy input (electric current) needed to separate hydrogen from water via [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water"]electrolysis[/ame]. Screw the notion that there's some "heavy oil bias". The point is, why lose more of that electricity due to inefficiencies in the process rather than have the electricity go straight into a EV?

How much do hydrogen fuel cell powered cars cost now?

On your last statement, that's a big if. Use How clean is the electricity I use? - Power Profiler | Clean Energy | US EPA to lookup where your electricity comes from. Since I don't know where you are in AK, I picked 72201. Only 3.4% of the electricity for that zip comes from renewables. From reports that I've seen, solar and wind power aren't very competitive in terms of cost per kwh vs. non-renewable sources.

 

Electricity in my area is nuclear and hydro, but personally my house is powered from the sun and wind.

My point is there is an option of renewable source, rather than the option of oil or bio fuels.

You could charge the EV part of a hydrogen fuel cell car, but you can not charge for a 400 mile trip, then quickly recharge and go another 400 miles. The technology just is not there right now. You can however charge your car, drive, use cleanly produced hydrogen to recharge on the go, then fill up at a station and keep moving.
The important thing is that the driving experience would not change for most Americans, and that is the key to having new technology catch on.

Also I am sure with the amount of plug-in arguments on this board someone has brought up the solar/wind and off peak offset of electricity would equal 0 pounds more of coal being burnt in the US if everyone plugged in their cars at night, that also goes for daytime hydrogen fuel pumps. It does not take a lot of electricity to produce hydrogen, I even did a small experiment with my son using a 9V battery, we filled up a balloon and barely touched the charge.

 

Actually, Toyota does have a Plug-In Prius. There are (one hundred?) currently being tested around the United States, Europe, and Japan right now. Toyota has plans to launch this Plug-In Prius as a (2012?) model. Considering Toyota's reputation for reliability and dependability, I'm sure they'll make sure the PHEV Prius motor is capable of what they program the computer to allow it to do.