Chevy Volt could get 230mpg

[Rey C.]

Several caveats about the mpg, and it's not for me, but still pretty interesting. So who here would buy something like this?


http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57A3GJ20090811

 

[tartanterrier]

Surely if they want this to take off,they will have to sell them cheaper

 

[cartman24]

Interesting concept in that car, too bad they veered so far away from the prototype body style, I used to like that a lot.

I am still not sold on hybrids at all, especially the price. The batteries on these are bound to crap out eventually, and when they do you will have to spend a ton to replace them.

Who knows, maybe this will spark a push to bring GM back into making profits, though that seems all but impossible.

 

[gunslingingbird]

This is just like the Tesla Roadster. It's a great concept, and a major step for environmentally-friendly transportation, but everyday people, who account for the vast majority of car users, can't afford something that expensive. If they REALLY wanted to make an impact they'd price it so it was accessible to more people. :2 cents:

 

[Hot Mega]

This is just like the Tesla Roadster. It's a great concept, and a major step for environmentally-friendly transportation, but everyday people, who account for the vast majority of car users, can't afford something that expensive. If they REALLY wanted to make an impact they'd price it so it was accessible to more people. :2 cents:

The pricing will come down, the technology will be much improve across the board in merely 2 more years IMO and this is the reason why "drill here, drill now" was and is a childish, ignorant mantra.

Batter technology is out of the bottle..And to think it would be a worthwhile proposition for oil investors and explorers to spend the capital over the 10 or 12 years in order to begin to realize product without any assurances battery technology won't be shelved is not realistic.

One thing that the US must be wary of is dragging our feet with this innovation because the Japanese don't share our sensitivities towards stifling technological progress. US auto makers can't afford to get passed up at this point.

It's not likely to happen since there is an administration keen on promoting this kind of transformation.

 

[Rey C.]

Even if it initially loses money, I feel that it's vital that GM develop this technology and stay ahead of its competitors in this area. For one, the more of these that GM builds, the better they can take advantage of economies of scale... and that in itself will bring the price down (or the profits up). The more components they order from suppliers, the more they can push for price concessions. The other side of it is just like with racing programs. Outside of Porsche (with its customer cars and trackside support), there's never really been a major racing program that's consistently made any sort of profit. It's about developing and selling an image to the public. Personally, I think that GM should have continued on with development of the EV1 years ago. By now, they'd be ahead of the game (at least in that area).

In the early period, Toyota lost money on the initial Prius. But now, they have the "face" of the hybrid market in their stable.

Kudos to the smartest gearhead, who still works for a car company, for backing the Volt: Bob Lutz.

 

[CunningStunts]

Great idea... it's about time the American companies had one!

 

[Hot Mega]

Great idea... it's about time the American companies had one!

Agreed. Too often nowadays some US manufacturers get dragged along into innovation as opposed to leading like we used to.

 

[shayd]

This is just like the Tesla Roadster. It's a great concept, and a major step for environmentally-friendly transportation, but everyday people, who account for the vast majority of car users, can't afford something that expensive. If they REALLY wanted to make an impact they'd price it so it was accessible to more people. :2 cents:

The Roadster certainly looks great, if only they'd set the standard and make it affordable.

 

[Member2019]

Thanx for reminding me why ...

Thanx for reminding me why I, among other engineers, don't listen to you'all. The combination of electronics and microeconomics are a reality in the world I live in. Way too many other people do not.

These technologies are not cheap. Over time, they will become cheaper. Volume and resulting supply will drive that, likely within the next decade, if not many of them over the next few years. GM cannot afford to subsidize literally hundreds of billions in car sales today (I know some of you are bad at math, but try multiplication .

However, fossil fuels are still the mainstay for power generation, even for electric cars, for the next few decades. I know that seems illogical to a lot of tree humpers think electric cars don't need anything but electricity and that grows on trees. But the power grid still needs to be renovated, and that's been a political nightmare with the same humpers blocking wind farms and nuclear power. That's why continued search and drilling for petroleum is required. Because the US is still two decades away from renovating the power grid (assuming the humpers stop fucking around).

As far as solar power, if you want to obtain an electrical engineering degree, I'm ready to debate. Otherwise, I've honestly given up on even recognizing those who talk about it for mass power generation. Those who believe in it should put the panels on their roof and maintain their own batteries and feed the power grid. Do that for 5-10 years and then tell me what you think.

 

[ChefChiTown]

The Roadster certainly looks great, if only they'd set the standard and make it affordable.

Exactly. This country already had it's chance with electric cars, but we (as a country) already fucked it up.

Watch "Who Killed The Electric Car?" to see what I'm talking about. It's a good watch, but it's more eye opening than anything. We already have the technology and the means to make it extremely affordable and easily accessible to the public, but the government, along with big car and oil companies, don't want it to happen because they would all lose a bunch of money.

This car will fail, just like the rest of them. But, wait...it's a Hybrid, so all the trendy assholes in the US will probably buy them up fairly quickly. SUCCESS!!!

 

[D-rock]

Ummm...this isn't a standard hybrid. Most hybrids just use energy that would normally be wasted to help keep the battery charged. This needs to be plugged in. In essence aren't people just going to trade not having to buy gasoline with sucking up huge amounts of power from an outlet somewhere, which I'm sure will make their electricity bill balloon? It would also put that much more stress on the nation's electrical grid.

 

[ChefChiTown]

Ummm...this isn't a standard hybrid. Most hybrids just use energy that would normally be wasted to help keep the battery charged. This needs to be plugged in. In essence aren't people just going to trade not having to buy gasoline with sucking up huge amounts of power from an outlet somewhere, which I'm sure will make their electricity bill balloon? It would also put that much more stress on the nation's electrical grid.

All people will see is the word "Hybrid" and instantly want to buy it. I'm willing to bet that most people who own a car know hardly anything about the mileage, fuel consumption, emissions (etc) about the car that they drive. They just know that "Hummers are sweet!" and "Mustangs are fast!". Just like "Hybrids are environment friendly!"

 

[STDiva]

I'll get this car.

 

[Member2019]

Watch "Who Killed The Electric Car?" to see what I'm talking about. It's a good watch, but it's more eye opening than anything. We already have the technology and the means to make it extremely affordable and easily accessible to the public, but the government, along with big car and oil companies, don't want it to happen because they would all lose a bunch of money.

That an all of us Electrical Engineers are idiots. We took several decades to come up with lightweight Lithium battery technology, which still has its reliability and safety issues.

Sigh ...

 

[Rey C.]

I'm not sure what the good Professor is so wound up about, but his claim that "GM cannot afford to subsidize literally hundreds of billions in car sales today" is accurate, for the most part. But since the Chevy Volt's battery technology is not being proposed for GM platforms across the board, I don't quite undestand his rant. Having a healthy product mix, built with lean, flexible manufacturing is what the plan is... how well it's implemented is a different question. But there is more to the Volt than just the car itself. The R&D and validation of this platform and the manufacturing process is unlike anything attempted by GM before. What he doesn't seem to understand is that GM has already implemented a policy whereby new platforms must be designed and spec'd to turn a profit in Year 1 - although the Volt has been exempted. Before, GM's truck divisions would generate the profits, and the car divisions would seek to break even or possibly generate losses, just to maintain market share. With GM now being the incredible shrinking egg, market share is a, but not THE, key goal at this point.

Other than stealing, there are two ways to acquire technology:
1) Develop it
2) Buy it.

You cannot turn on a faucet and the magical, needed technology just pops out instantly.

The first gen Volt is going to lose money. The goal is to build roughly 100,000 of these cars. The projected development cost is roughly $1 billion, which will be amortized over the life of the platform. The second and third generations are already under development. As long as the basic platform is shared between generations, much of the initial development cost will be rolled forward.

Why would GM want to develop a car which will lose money in the first generation, when all other platforms are being required to make money? The answer is simple: GM's (and Ford's and Chrysler's) great failing in the 1970's and last year, when gas prices shot to $4+/gallon, was a lack of platforms that met the demands of the market. And even if they'd had the platforms, they didn't have the manufacturing flexibility to build the right cars at the right time. GM, Ford and Chrysler's businesses were based on push manufacturing (recently disguised to look like pull manufacturing: old style MRP systems, etc. included). The Japanese models tend to be based on pull manufacturing (the market/the customer demand drives what is built). The Volt is not a magic bullet. It doesn't have the power, by itself, to truly make or break GM. But just as with the $160 million that GM spends on racing each year, or the time and effort that have gone into the Corvette over the years, the Volt has a PR mission as well as an R&D mission. Many people who buy cars are buying an image. Whatever improves the image has some amount of value... how much, I wouldn't want to guess. The ad and PR guys take care of that.

Is this strategy going to work? Anyone who knows that for sure should be ready to either go long or short on the new GM shares next year. :dunno:

But as the market recovers and develops (which it will), and customer demands change (which they will), if you don't have the technology available to build what the market demands, when the market demands it... you will fail. From proposal to launch, it takes roughly 18-24 months to get an auto platform to market. It doesn't matter if the car is going to be a winner or a loser. It doesn't matter if it's a hybrid or diesel powered, that's how long it takes.

So while I'm not a huge GM fan, I do commend the company for getting ahead of the curve, instead of being where it's been for the past couple of decades: behind the curve.

 

[Hot Mega]

Thanx for reminding me why I, among other engineers, don't listen to you'all. The combination of electronics and microeconomics are a reality in the world I live in. Way too many other people do not.

These technologies are not cheap. Over time, they will become cheaper. Volume and resulting supply will drive that, likely within the next decade, if not many of them over the next few years. GM cannot afford to subsidize literally hundreds of billions in car sales today (I know some of you are bad at math, but try multiplication .

However, fossil fuels are still the mainstay for power generation, even for electric cars, for the next few decades. I know that seems illogical to a lot of tree humpers think electric cars don't need anything but electricity and that grows on trees. But the power grid still needs to be renovated, and that's been a political nightmare with the same humpers blocking wind farms and nuclear power. That's why continued search and drilling for petroleum is required. Because the US is still two decades away from renovating the power grid (assuming the humpers stop fucking around).

As far as solar power, if you want to obtain an electrical engineering degree, I'm ready to debate. Otherwise, I've honestly given up on even recognizing those who talk about it for mass power generation. Those who believe in it should put the panels on their roof and maintain their own batteries and feed the power grid. Do that for 5-10 years and then tell me what you think.

Ummm...this isn't a standard hybrid. Most hybrids just use energy that would normally be wasted to help keep the battery charged. This needs to be plugged in. In essence aren't people just going to trade not having to buy gasoline with sucking up huge amounts of power from an outlet somewhere, which I'm sure will make their electricity bill balloon? It would also put that much more stress on the nation's electrical grid.

Wouldn't a model integrating some grid affecting factor analyze two things (in the cases you raise...grid impact and costs), what impact typical usage has on the grid and energy cost? Since these particular vehicles are not designed to pull up at some station and re-charge in a couple of minutes, the likely scenario is they will be impacting the grid while it's usage and rates are at their lowest.

Since there is no shortage with fossil fuels, the lower consumption of them represented by the near future of the these types of vehicles should make it illogical for oil explorers and entrepreneurs to invest the capital and time in new exploration. After all, that was the problem in getting them to invest in new exploration on leases they're already entitled to. The price of oil wasn't high enough to justify the investment in more exploration.

 

[Vanilla Bear]

Sorry, I cant ready the article and your posts right now, so I dont know what this is all about, but I just want to say that Ive seen the picture and that car looks pretty cool, doesnt it?
And it looks way cooler than the Prius. So if I had to chose between these two Id take the Chevy.

Most electric or hybrid cars dont look that cool.

Actually it looks even better than many "normal" cars. :thumbsup:

 

[Hot Mega]

Sorry, I cant ready the article and your posts right now, so I dont know what this is all about, but I just want to say that Ive seen the picture and that car looks pretty cool, doesnt it?
And it looks way cooler than the Prius. So if I had to chose between these two Id take the Chevy.

Most electric or hybrid cars dont look that cool.

Actually it looks even better than many "normal" cars. :thumbsup:

If you like that, you should love this...Raser Technologies advertises this innovation in the Hummer H3 but it ultimately is intended to be a cross platform technology capable of being integrate in any vehicle.

http://www.rasertech.com/media/videos/the-electric-h3

 

[Member2019]

I'm not sure what the good Professor is so wound up about

I was referring to the "conspiracy theories" on the electric car.

Also, most people don't realize that energy is always a safety issue. There's no way around that.

Same deal with heat and exchanges. Solar is the sun. The sun takes hours to burn you. A real flame, or gamma radiation for that matter, will roast your cells really quick.

From proposal to launch, it takes roughly 18-24 months to get an auto platform to market.

Actually, its more like 5 years typical. Tooling takes 18-24 months on its own, only a year if you really push it through hard, typically when bringing up additional plants for an existing product that is selling extremely well.

One of the fastest ever concept-to-market vehicles was the Dodge Viper, only 3 years, and it showed (all sorts of overlooked details in the design).

It doesn't matter if the car is going to be a winner or a loser. It doesn't matter if it's a hybrid or diesel powered, that's how long it takes.

That's how long it takes just to get the technology from 5 years ago into a vehicle. So what we're seeing in 2010 models was the technology in 2005.

So while I'm not a huge GM fan, I do commend the company for getting ahead of the curve, instead of being where it's been for the past couple of decades: behind the curve.

GM has a massive amount of R&D and technologies. The problem has always been the foresight in the market.

Since there is no shortage with fossil fuels, the lower consumption of them represented by the near future of the these types of vehicles should make it illogical for oil explorers and entrepreneurs to invest the capital and time in new exploration.

It's this exact, ignorant attitude that resulted in the rolling blackouts and some of the worst air pollution an costs per KWH generated in California. The state stopped building new power plants at the start of the '90s, so capacity could not meet demand while the existing plants were dirtier and cost more to utilize to generate the same KWH.

Again, power generation is still reliant on coal, natural gas and petroleum in the US. That is going to be the case for the next 2 decades. Furthermore, the latter two still require regular exploration to replace depleted deposits every year. One cannot simply "stand up" new nuclear and wind power plants to replace just the existing energy needs of the US, much less the added consumption for electric vehicle (partial or full) requirements.

I don't know how many electrical engineers in the US (although we're quite few these days) have to remind people of this reality. We should have been converting to nuclear and wind back in the '70s. Instead, nuclear died altogether and wind underwent a coordinated attack as an eyesore. The "not in my backyard" is the continuing issue for both.

Solar is a joke and will always be a joke for mass power generation. It is a limited, point generation solution with horrendous ROI. Anyone who has run panels of their own more than 10-15 years knows this. It will never, ever compete for mass power generation.

After all, that was the problem in getting them to invest in new exploration on leases they're already entitled to. The price of oil wasn't high enough to justify the investment in more exploration.

Nope. Oil profits are not what everyone assumes them to be. Heck, even at the record prices for barrels of oil, profit margins were significantly down. Total profit was up, but margins were way down.

Most US petroleum companies are starting to diversify. The immediate is always natural gas, but others have gone in other directions. Wind is always a big seller because of its efficiency, although farms don't happen overnight and ROI is not realized for another decade. But investments are being made, although some (in select states) have been inhibited by regular lawsuits.

Until the power grid is renovated, this is going to be a continuing issue. The amount of petroleum it takes to generate the electricity, as delivered to the car over transmission lines, relays, originally coming from the generator turned by a turbine that is the result of steam heated by the actual burning of the petroleum is crossly inefficient "total system." It actually costs 2-5x (depending on the loss through that system -- especially relay/transmission) the amount of petroleum versus refining it for an internal combustion engine (ICE). So the 230mpg is a farce overall.

However, the emissions of a fossil fuel power plant over an ICE is over an order of magnitude cleaner, so even with all the waste in petroleum, it's still better overall when it comes to NOx and SOx. CO2, however, isn't.