MinisterofDOOM wrote:No, we're NOT missing the point. Everyone else IS missing it by focusing on the electric part of the car. The car has a VERY short range in electric-only mode. Which means, if you use it under ultra-ideal specific conditions, you're getting 36kw/100mi. But once the gas engine takes over, it becomes an average economy car. For $41k. And an average econocar you have to replace batteries in down the road.
Actually, despite the methodology of math being pointed out to you quite explicitly, you ARE still missing the point. Lets use a different example than previously provided. Say your commute is 45 miles. 93 mpg * 0.88 + 37 * 0.12 = 86.28 mpg. Now you might even look to where the future is heading and realize that as the numbers of plug-in vehicles grow, many employers will begin to provide charging stations at work. Given most people are likely to be working at least 8 hours a day, it would be easy enough to fully charge a battery before you have to head home. That would provide an effective electric range of about 80 miles roud trip. Or, if your distance to work is 45 each way, you could still achieve some 87 mpg on a regular commute. And from what I can find, the average commute distance in the US is about 16 miles each way. So most people would likely fall in under the 40 mile mark even without a charging station at work.
As for replacing batteries, GM guarantees the battery components for 8 years or 100,000 miles.
I will agree the $41K is steep, but that aspect of electric cars is likely to drop over time as production methods get better and economies of scale start to kick in. If it helps the $7500 tax credit certainly doesn't hurt.
MinisterofDOOM wrote:Sure, you can argue that "the point" of this car is the ability to choose between efficient, no-vehicle-emissions short commuting and long-distance practicality in one car. But the reality is GM could have done SO MUCH MORE with this electric drive, IC-generator setup. Like I've said all along, if they had gone with an always-on, peak-tuned IC engine (gas or diesel) and used that to constantly generate a certain wattage, while using the battery as a ballast, it could have returned excellent fuel economy throughout a much more varied array of driving circumstances. Diesel locomotives work this way. There's no reason you can't retain the electric only mode as well.
Maybe, but that ignores one aspect of these designs. Emissions. The point of all this is to try and reduce emissions figures overall. Surely, the Volt and electric cars in general aren't an end-all solution so long as our primary methods of generating electricity depend on burning fossil fuels. But that's also a big part of the change that will occur over the long run. In the end, regardless of where you stand on environmental issues, we will have vehicles that no longer burn gasoline on the roads. Why? Because at some point, we will run out of fuel.
MinisterofDOOM wrote:But instead, GM decided to use the IC engine on-demand, which is beyond idiotic. At that point it merely becomes a "regular" car. Give the car a 2 liter I4. Tune it to run at 2000rpm constantly, optimized for torque. Yes, you'll be making "too much" power at times, but that can be used to charge the batteries. Then, at other times, you won't be making enough power, and you can rely on that battery charge to make up the difference. You end up with a car that needs plug-in charging less often, but still offers more consistent and better fuel economy than a straight internal combustion powered car. And you get a LOT more versatility out of the car in terms of fuel economy, because it isn't so drastically dependent upon current driving conditions.
Just to reiterate my prior two points, the point of running off of a plug-in source is to reduce emissions and save money on propelling the car for the most often used portion of a car's drive cycle.
MinisterofDOOM wrote:MPG is an AVERAGE. Spread the load out and it'll improve. It's very basic math.
But its a weighted average based on how it is used. And most people on daily commutes will use such a vehicle far more in the electric mode than in the engine running mode.
MinisterofDOOM wrote:So go ahead and argue that the Volt is "good for what it does." I'll counter with "it should have done MORE.
So should every car. But like every car there are indeed going to be compromises. Want a fast sporty car? This isn't it. Just like a sports car isn't going to be the kind of car a hyper-miler is going to want to start with. Every car that is sold is a rolling test bed of engineering and design. Manufacturers try and address some issues each model year and tackle as many as they can from the ground up as each new generation comes out.
MinisterofDOOM wrote:GM completely rearranged the mechanical arrangement of the hybrid car only to end up with a car that works the same damn way.
I agree there is, for the most practical part, only a semantical difference in how one would differentiate the volt from existing hybrids. But from a practical viewpoint, one must look at the most practical aspects of the car. The volt can get an equivalent to 93 mpg for most people most of the time. Unlike a pure electric, it can handle long trips at a still reasonable and perhaps good 37 mpg. Since we don't yet have a working solution for running an all electric car all the way across the country in reasonably similar time frames that we are enjoying now, this is a pretty good compromise.
As for the drivetrain, according to all I've read, the IC engine can be coupled to the drivetrain directly via a clutch when it is needed. So it converts itself from a series hybrid to a series-parallel hybrid as needed (which I assume means it provides charge power in addition to mecahnical power simultaneously). An example of when this will tend to happen is on steady grades at higher speeds.
