Willidog

Is the Chevy Volt??? Anyone see one of these driving around yet? I think they get 40 miles to the charge. Great car (not).

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2...17/506895.html

joe_padavano

How quaint. You really think that the Motor Trend COTY selection is based on merit. I guess you must still believe in Santa Clause, too. Here are some prior COTY winners:

2002 Thunderbird
1995 Chysler Cirrus
1993 Ford Probe
1983 AMC/Renault Alliance ()
1980 Chevy Citation (double )
1976 Aspen/Volare (who needs front fenders, anyway)
1972 Citroen SM

and who can forget...

1971 Chevy Vega

Need I say more?

The whole list is here:

http://www.motortrend.com/oftheyear/...ers/index.html

jaunty75

What?

442much

I haven't seen the Volt yet...but I think I like it. I wouldn't need gas to drive back and forth to work. That would save some $$$. But I worry that with electric cars you are limited to where they can be fixed and that will cost you $$$. So is there a savings?

As for the environment, no emmissions and that's great, however what do you do when it's time to junk the car or replace the battery? So the environment pays there. Looks like there are pros and cons to these cars. It's not so black and white. Like the Fram commercial "Pay me now, or pay me later."

Lady72nRob71

And if a regular 'cheapie' 12V lead acid battery costs 80 bucks, and you have to change it at least every 5 years, what is the cost to replace these batteries?
I do not think the local parts house will sell them to DIYers, either.

The Volt is a nice concept (quiet, no gas fillups), but I would not jump on it.
They might save on gas, but it will cost consumers in the end. I will stick with dino.

jaunty75

This is one of the greatest fictions about these cars. The electricity you charge it with has to come from somewhere. For about 80% of the country (U.S.), that somewhere is a coal-fired power plant. We're not eliminating emissions with this technology, where just shifting the point at which the emissions occur.

442much

He said "I GUESS YOU MUST STILL BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUSE, TOO!"

jaunty75

Doesn't everybody?

Run to Rund

There is so much environmental damage from mfg. these batteries that they are made in Canada--EPA won't let them be made here.
COTY for 2012 will be the Ford Ampere, right? lol

Run to Rund

That's Santa Claus, aka Saint Nicholas, Catholic bishop of Myra many centuries ago.

442much

True, but that resource is there whether we plug in the car or not. People will use electricty, electric car or not. You could say that to make roads for these cars to run on causes polution and you'd be right. However that is already part of the infrastructure and not just for these cars. The cars "footprint" would be smaller than current vehicles.

442much

Greek-Orthodox.

442much

We make something? I thought they were made in China. Now watch for them being made in Afghanistan after they found that huge deposit that rivals Bolivia.

jaunty75

No no no! You don't get something for nothing. Just because the power plant is already there doesn't mean the pollution is already there! The smoke that the plant emits to make the electricity to charge this car wouldn't be made if the car didn't need to be charged.

Electric cars WILL increase the demand for electricity. If that electricity is made by burning fossil fuels, emissions from those power plants WILL be more than they would otherwise be. You can't get around this. It's called the first law of thermodynamics.

Emissions WOULD be reduced if the electricity to charge these cars came from a non-emitting source, such as solar, nuclear, or hydroelectric. But the electricity demand increase would still be there regardless.

citcapp

Heck just hook an alternator up to a bicycle frame and connect it to the car then have the wife pedal it while she does the ironing or other household chores free electricity, can't get any better then that and she has to do her chores anyway

The batteries are a landfill nightmare, the best hope is a capacitor bank storage of some kind. That's supposed to be the next storage break thru.

Bluevista

My 55 furd that I dropped a 390 in when I was in high school had no gas gauge, owner with little cash, and it was a gas-electric hybrid. When I ran out of gas I'd put it in first and crank the starter and easily get to a gas station if it was within a few blocks.
When I was a kid there was an old lady in the better part of our neigborhood with a 1908? Baker Electric, looked like a black phone booth and had a tiller, she dressed in all black with a veil and only took it to church and the cemetery on Sunday.
I've worked in several old mansions that still have old electric car charging stations in the coach houses, they look like something Dr.Frankenstein would of had in his Laboratory.

My '68 GTO was Motor Trend Car of the Year.
The Endura front bumper put it over the top, also has one of the most beautifully designed bodies to ever come out of Detroit.

Why not nuclear powerered turbine cars like TV's Batman? They could run non-stop for 500 years before they would need fuel again and wouldn't pollute a thing, spent fuel should be sent to the sun via Arthur C Clarke' space elevator now. Think of all the jobs that would be created to build one of those things. The cars could also be used as electric generators and no more coal power plants would be needed...problem solved.

jaunty75

Nuclear-powered military aircraft were seriously considered back in the 1950s. Problems with having enough shielding of the crew from the reactor killed the idea. But think of this: no enemy would ever want to shoot one down over their territory...

cutlassjoe

I just think it's funny that they announced the coty the same day that GM does the ipo for the stock......

Willidog

Joe, I don't think you understood what I meant. I meant that I couldn't believe that this car was picked as car of the year, how many have they sold? 44,000 sticker price. Motor Trend is crazy in my opinion. Where did I say anything about merit???

joe_padavano

We're in violent agreement. That was the point of my post. The COTY selection is usually based on advertising revenue or other idiotic criteria.

Aron Nance

Gawd, I love the way Joe P says things: violent agreement! Now that says it all! Makes my day, Joe. Hope all's OK up in the Virginia countryside, especially the '62 wagon. Any thing new on it?

Red Delta

The nice thing about the Volt is that it has a gas engine so you aren't limited to range. I find it astonishing that Americans constantly criticize the Volt without understanding the amount of engineering that was put into that car and how fast it was done.

The electricity used to recharge the car is far cheaper than gasoline. If you only drive 40 miles round trip, you will never use gasoline, except for the time when the car will fire up to keep the fuel in the lines fresh and the engine lubricated. If you never use the gas engine, you will burn a tank in about a year, hence the premium fuel requirement.

The Volt wont be for everyone but I think it should be marveled at for the amazing amount of technology and good old American ingenuity that was put into it.

When it hits the showrooms, take it for a spin. I'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised.

In the meantime, I will be awaiting this to come off of backorder....



http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/de...keyword=121gmf

jaunty75

I understand perfectly well the amount of engineering that was done, but I would still not buy one of these now or likely ever, and here's why.

I also want to put food on the table.


Do the math.

The current MSRP for a 2011 Chevrolet Volt is $40,280. Subtract the current tax credit you get for buying one of these (which is another peeve of mine--why should I as a taxpayer have to help someone else buy this car?), which is $7,500, and that leaves a price of $32,780.

Now go out and find a comparable, gasoline engine car in terms of size and market segment. I choose the Chevrolet Malibu. The MSRP for a 2011 Malibu ranges from $21,975 to $27,015. Let's give the Volt the full benefit of the doubt here and choose the highest-price Malibu.

The difference in price between the highest-price Malibu and the tax credit-discounted Volt is $5,765.

Now look at gas mileage. The Malibu ranges from 17-22 in the city and 26-33 on the highway. Let's take an average of these and call it 25 mpg overall for the gas-powered Malibu.

Now what about gas mileage for the Volt? Well, the Chevrolet website itself addresses the gas mileage issue for this car by saying that the mileage is "infinite" if you never go more than 40 miles between recharges. But if you do, Chevy gives a formula to calculate the mileage. This is based on Chevy's own data showing that the Volt's gas engine gets between 35 and 40 mpg when it's in use. Thus, the mileage you get depends on how far above 40 miles you drive.

So we have to choose some basis for comparison. I'm going to choose 200 miles. The Malibu gets its standard 25 mpg. The Volt's mileage is calculated from the following equation:

mileage = (37 x miles driven)/(miles driven - 40).

So if "miles driven" is 200, then the mileage is (37 x 200)/(200-40) = 46.25 mpg.

Now consider the price of fuel. Based on what we're seeing today, where unleaded regular has been at $2.99 per gallon for the last week or so, let's use a round value of $3.00 per gallon for gas.

For the Malibu, the cost of fuel per mile driven is $3.00/gallon divided by 25 miles/gallon, which equals $0.12/mile, or 12 cents per mile

For the Volt, the cost of fuel per mile driven is $3.00/gallon divided by 46.25 miles/gallon, which equals $0.065/mile, or 6.5 cents per mile.

So it costs 12 - 6.5 = 5.5 cents/mile more to drive the Malibu than it does the Volt.

At a price premium of $5,765 for the Volt, it will take $5,765 divided $0.055/mile, or 104,818 miles of driving to equalize the cost.

In other words, I would have to drive the Volt almost 105,000 miles before the amount of money I saved in gas driving it equals the amount extra I paid for it.

Yes, lots of things can happen in 100,000 miles. The price of gas might double over the time it takes me to put that many miles on it. At $6.00 per gallon, the cost difference doubles to 11 cents per mile. With the same $5,765 price premium, the mileage needed to recover the purchase cost is cut in half to 52,409 miles. Fewer miles to be sure, but still a significant hunk of driving.

Of course, all of these figures go off the map if there were no $7,500 tax credit for the Volt. If you had to pay full MSRP for the Volt, with the same mileages and $3.00 gas as above, you would have to drive the Volt 241,182 miles before you saved enough in gas to offset the now $13,265 price premium.


The bottom line is this. Technology is wonderful, but only when it brings me a cost savings. I don't have enough discretionary income to indulge myself in flights of fancy. The Volt and the Prius and the other cars like it, like anything else, are only of interest if they make economic sense. To me, at the current price level, the Volt is not an economical choice.

Lastly, all of the above assumes that it costs $0.00 to recharge the Volt. Not true. You're plugging the car into a wall outlet at home, and that electricity it takes to recharge it is not free. That cost will only add to the number of miles you need to drive the car to recover the purchase price.

Also, remember that I chose the most expensive Malibu to make the comparison. On average, people will buy a less expensive version, and, again, the cost difference will thus be larger and the Volt would have to be driven still more miles before the increased cost is offset.


Now some people will argue that my assumption of 200 miles driven is not valid as most people who buy a Volt will use it just for commuting and thus never use the gas engine, or, at least, rarely use it.

I say poop.

Few people have the luxury of spending $40K on a car that they're going to use only for work and other short commutes. Many people will likely use it as their only car, and even those who don't will still use it for long drives because they still get better mileage than they would with whatever other car is in their driveway. So, in my estimation, most Volt buyers WILL use the car for trips longer than 40 miles.

joe_padavano

I did. That's why my daily driver is the 1984 Custom Cruiser that I paid all of $250 for (hey, it was supposed to be a parts car). Back when the gov't was giving away our tax money on the Cash for Clunkers program, I did the math. I've got maybe $1000 into this car by the time you count tires, brakes, exhaust, converter, etc. Even with the gov't handout, the additional cash out of pocket I needed to add to buy a Prius will buy me at least 75,000 miles worth of gasoline, even at $4.00 a gallon and with my crappy gas mileage. That doesn't include the interest on the loan I'd need to get, the sales tax, or the increased insurance in the form of collision and comprehensive (the beater Olds doesn't need that). It also doesn't include the cost of the gas I'd still need to buy for the hybrid, nor the fact that I can fix the Olds in my garage.

Oh, and the Olds will only accelerate when I want it to.

Red Delta

As I pointed out. The Volt wont be for everyone, in the same way a 30 year old car isn't for everyone.

Red Delta

Of course, the American media hype blew that out of proportion.

Willidog

Can't argue with facts!

Oldsguy

I don't care for the bolt, er volt or any other car representing Chevrolet purely on an emotional level and probably never will. I am not impressed with where we are heading as a motoring public dependent upon and driven by this mad-scientist like infatuation with electricity driven vehicles dominated by the 'greenie' mindset. Give me good old carbon based fuel please and a vehicle that can burn it, as well as the rubber it rides on.....................................

joe_padavano

I actually bought a used Audi 5000 right after that media frenzy since the cars were cheap due to the "unintended acceleration" fiasco. I knew that the problem was not related to the car's design, and it was a great family car. Same thing with the "exploding" Chevy pickup trucks. I've owned three of those so far, with no pyrotechnics yet.

BlackGold

But you never bought a Pinto, did you?

A man's gotta have standards!

coltsneckbob

I am not certain that it is a 1:1 exchange of pollution. Electrical plants, even the coal burning ones, usually have scrubbers for their emmissions. To the best of my knowledge if you normalize the engery output of a car with the coal plant then the plant creates less pollution. Now on top of that the pollution is localized with the plant, whereas with the car it is literally right under your nose. If we factor in nuclear, water and cleaner burning liquid fuel plants I think the story only gets better for electric in terms of overall pollution vs engery.

Now one can do a cost benefit analysis strictly on gas mileage and the price of gas, but that is probably an incomplete story. I think you need to probably factor in health costs, infrastructure costs, oil changes and disposal of same, etc. On a longer term evaluation you need to factor in the cost of dependence on foreign oil. In this regard should we factor in the cost of a war?

I guess the bottom line is that electic is novel now, but so was the gas engine when horses predominated. Lets face it all you needed was a grazing field to fuel a horse, but the car won out in the long run due to economic considerations that were probably obvious to the early innovators and investors in the car......but not so clear cut to the blacksmith.

jaunty75

You are right. It is one advantage of electric-powered vehicles. Rather than having to monitor and control millions of individual, mobile pollution sources, just a handful of power plants need to be monitored. Whether or not the amount of pollution per unit of energy delivered is the same for electric vehicles recharged with coal-generated electricity as it is for gasoline-powered vehicles I do not know. But I do suspect that there is less pollution for the electrics.

Having said the above, I would also say that, yes, power plants have scrubbers. But cars have catalytic converters. Today's gasoline-burning engines have come a long way in efficiency of combustion and in cleaner emissions, so I wouldn't automatically assume that gasoline-engine vehicles are always ultimately dirtier than electrically-powered ones.

And less pollution doesn't mean no pollution. Even with electric vehicles, there is still a pollution cost because most electricity comes from fossil-fuel sources. These vehicles are constantly being advertised as "pollution free" or "emission free" or words to that effect to a gullible, uninformed public who want to believe that such a thing is possible, and it's simply not true.

coltsneckbob

Yes cars run cleaner today then yesteryear, but my comparison was based on normalizing the energy output per pollution created. In other words lets say 10 Cal of engery from a car creates X ounces of pollution (all kinds: air, water, land, etc) and then calculate the Y ounces of pollution to produce electricity that is = to 10 Cal. It is my guess that Y<X otherwise the electric car would not be a product.

I suppose the advertising could be considered misleading in some respects. However I think it is too complicated for the general public to understand anything but the most simplistic approach. And quite frankly that is fine by me if indeed it moves the electric car forward in terms of popularity. Let the general public live in their blissful world of no pollution, we at least can breath slightly easier know there is substantially "less" pollution.

However, whether or not the public understands it or not don't forget to factor in all the ancillary costs of the gasoline powered ICE.

rroth01

I live North of Detroit and my office is 1/2 mile north of the General Motors Technical Center.My drive into work is about 22 miles away and I probably see 3 or 4 a day.I would say most of them are what GM used to call a PEP car Product Evaluation something or other.
I travel about 250 miles a day I cover 6 states.
Approximatley 4 weeks ago I was treveling west on 696 .The Walther Reuther Xpressway I was clipping at 70 or 75 in the fast lane and I was holding traffic up.
I looked in my rear view mirror to make a lane change and I saw this THING in the distance .Great lines Very aerodynamic .It passed me like I was standing still.It was the VOLT.It is a beautiful vehicle.
Like I said .I see 3 or 4 of these a day.Most of the time in stop and go trafiic.What amazes me is the look you get from these drivers .
I have 2 vehicles a 2010 Chrysler 300c and the OLD LADY my "66 Rag Top"
No matter what you are driving that day.These drivers look at you with such arrogance.Like you are obsolete.Snobby.

jaunty75

There are many things to consider here. Gasoline is about twice as energy dense as coal. Gasoline has a heat of combustion of about 47.3 kilojoules/gram. For coal, it's about 27. Gasoline engines turn about 20% of the fuel's energy into kinetic energy. That means that about 9.5 kJ/gram of gasoline actually moves the car. The rest is lost as heat.

Coal-fired power plants turn about 33% of the fuel's energy into electricity. That means that only about 9 kJ/gram of coal actually becomes electricity. The rest is lost as heat.

Once generated, there will be losses in transmitting that electricity across power lines to individual houses and then in recharging the battery. Then there are efficiency losses when that battery's chemical energy is turned back into electricity.

The list goes on. One could work through all of these steps and ultimately arrive at a mass of CO2 emitted per kilogram of car weight moved or something like that for each of these two modes of providing power. I haven't done these calculations. I'm guessing that, if anyone ever did, electric cars would come out ahead. But maybe by not as much ahead as one would think.

Then when you factor in things like the environmental impact of millions of batteries being discarded each year if electric cars ever became as mainstream as gasoline-powered cars, you begin to wonder just how much better off as a society we'll actually be.

One area where electric cars have a clear advantage is in getting us off of oil-based fuels and onto coal-based ones. The former we import but the latter we don't. Of course, some of the rare-earth metals that go into the construction of a battery come from places like China, and we will need MORE of these if battery production is to step up, so there's always a trade-off. Here it would be relying on China for rare-earth metal imports instead of Saudi Arabia for oil.

Aceshigh

Never knew that......that's funny. He's right though apparently.

coltsneckbob

Well again I am not an expert on this.....but I am an optimist. I think that the rare metals in batteries are recyclable whereas waste oil is not so much.

However, I agree it is hardly a simple formula. Comparing mileage cost for a 50, 100 or 200 mile trip is not really a valuable analysis. Even simple things like idling in traffic should be considered - how many of you have tried to use the Lincoln Tunnel in rush hour!!! An electric car cuts off......the gas powered car continues to idle, burn fuel and spew pollutants into the air.

It is true that after I think about 60-70 thousand miles a battery pack must be replaced in an electric car, but consider that the electric motor will not wear like a gas powered engine. In general your electric car's engine(s) will have a much longer life. Consider also that maintenance on such vehicles will probably be less expensive. No oil changes, no tune-ups, no filters, no coolant, and whatever.

No one likes the sound of a rumbling 455 more than I, but I do think electric will provide far more economic value then continueing with any ICE.

Willidog

Oil when properly turned in can be recycled and used for other purposes.

Redog

People are forgeting the fact that:

The Pruis, which is so great for the enviroment and the tree huggers love it so much, aside from the batteries, it emits MORE greenhouse gasses than a Hummer H1 getting 6MPG. Actually I read in one mag that the greenhouse gas emissions are pretty close to a tractor Trailer rig with 500 HP.

You all know about the argument I got in with a Pruis tree hugger one time, that still makes me

I only use the Pruis because I haven't heard any numbers yet on the Volt

I'm not totally agaisnt the electric car, I'd drive this one in a heartbeat, which is what the electric car SHOULD be:

Electric Datsun 510 Sedan

Oldsguy

I agree, and that attitude is what turns a lot of people like you and me off. Personally I react very negatively to people that look down their noses at my old beater whether it is the '99 Buick, '77 Cutlass, or God Forbid, I am driving the '46 torpedo back. These people feel they are superior because they 'CARE' for the world enough to drive what they drive and by comparison I must not 'CARE' for the world because of what I am driving. I still use plastic bags at the grocery store too.............................................