Motortrend article: 100 MPG+ Chevy Volt, GM's "Moon Shot"

It's an interesting article about how the car with a possible 100MPG+*
rating come into being.

"It was the equivalent of an Apollo moon shot: The company was going
to invent a propulsion system and design an entirely new vehicle at
the same time. "We don't normally let people do that," notes GM CEO
Rick Wagoner. But despite those misgivings, Wagoner and his team had
now set a goal of unveiling a new design-not a fanciful concept car,
but a real car that could go into production-at the January 2007
Detroit auto show, only nine or 10 months away. By the standards of
the automotive industry, that would require blazing speed."

Full article:
http://www.motortrend.com/features/c...ory/index.html

* EPA Closer to Giving the Chevy Volt at Least a 100 mpg Rating:
http://gm-volt.com/2008/10/13/epa-cl...00-mpg-rating/

My hat's off to GM if they can make it a success. The Volt, slated to be the
first commercially available serial hybrid (an electric car with an on-board
charger), could be a major landmark in automotive history.

The second article underscores the rapidly shifting ground our current fuel
economy ratings are built on. They were intended to be "for comparison
purposes only" but the public has come to expect precision. That was never
possible - MPG is a calculation based on operation, not a design
characteristic - and now the entire concept is becoming poorly defined.

Mike

> wrote in message
...
> It's an interesting article about how the car with a possible 100MPG+*
> rating come into being.
>
> "It was the equivalent of an Apollo moon shot: The company was going
> to invent a propulsion system and design an entirely new vehicle at
> the same time. "We don't normally let people do that," notes GM CEO
> Rick Wagoner. But despite those misgivings, Wagoner and his team had
> now set a goal of unveiling a new design-not a fanciful concept car,
> but a real car that could go into production-at the January 2007
> Detroit auto show, only nine or 10 months away. By the standards of
> the automotive industry, that would require blazing speed."
>
> Full article:
> http://www.motortrend.com/features/c...ory/index.html
>
> * EPA Closer to Giving the Chevy Volt at Least a 100 mpg Rating:
> http://gm-volt.com/2008/10/13/epa-cl...00-mpg-rating/
>

"Michael Pardee" > wrote in message
...
> My hat's off to GM if they can make it a success.


Promise them anything, but sell them a SUV?

Yeah, right, only problem is, it can't run on batteries only, it will run
for a few miles and then become a regular hybrid, it is expected to cost
about $40,00-$48,000 and apparently, really only get about 40 mpg. OOPS
sorry folks, did we waste your bailout money.

> wrote in message
...
> It's an interesting article about how the car with a possible 100MPG+*
> rating come into being.
>
> "It was the equivalent of an Apollo moon shot: The company was going
> to invent a propulsion system and design an entirely new vehicle at
> the same time. "We don't normally let people do that," notes GM CEO
> Rick Wagoner. But despite those misgivings, Wagoner and his team had
> now set a goal of unveiling a new design-not a fanciful concept car,
> but a real car that could go into production-at the January 2007
> Detroit auto show, only nine or 10 months away. By the standards of
> the automotive industry, that would require blazing speed."
>
> Full article:
> http://www.motortrend.com/features/c...ory/index.html
>
> * EPA Closer to Giving the Chevy Volt at Least a 100 mpg Rating:
> http://gm-volt.com/2008/10/13/epa-cl...00-mpg-rating/

Michael Pardee wrote:
> My hat's off to GM if they can make it a success. The Volt, slated to be the
> first commercially available serial hybrid (an electric car with an on-board
> charger), could be a major landmark in automotive history.
>
> The second article underscores the rapidly shifting ground our current fuel
> economy ratings are built on. They were intended to be "for comparison
> purposes only" but the public has come to expect precision. That was never
> possible - MPG is a calculation based on operation, not a design
> characteristic - and now the entire concept is becoming poorly defined.
>
> Mike

Seems to me the serial hybrid is easier to make than something like the
Prius hybrid hybrid. In the series hybrid you do not need to have any
fancy transmission with mechanical torque or rpm sharing. The only
drawback I see is that it requires a larger electric motor. But it lets
IC run at constant rpm and power output, for best efficiency.

In a parallel hybrid you need a way to mechanically combine the electric
and IC power. The downside is that the IC has to run at variable speed
and power output, which destroys efficiency.

The hybrid hybrid applies both IC and electric power to wheels
simultaneously, while letting IC run at constant rpm and power output.
hard to do!

You mean like Toyota, Honda and every other manufacture has been doing for
the past ten years, selling the vehicles buyers wanted to buy? Honda even
tried to make a "truck" out of a car, because THAT is what buyer wanted to
buy LOL

"HLS" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Michael Pardee" > wrote in message
> ...
>> My hat's off to GM if they can make it a success.
>
>
> Promise them anything, but sell them a SUV?

A guess we can assume you know nothing about the Volt, right?


"Justbob30" > wrote in message
...
> Yeah, right, only problem is, it can't run on batteries only, it will run
> for a few miles and then become a regular hybrid, it is expected to cost
> about $40,00-$48,000 and apparently, really only get about 40 mpg. OOPS
> sorry folks, did we waste your bailout money.
>
> > wrote in message
> ...
>> It's an interesting article about how the car with a possible 100MPG+*
>> rating come into being.
>>
>> "It was the equivalent of an Apollo moon shot: The company was going
>> to invent a propulsion system and design an entirely new vehicle at
>> the same time. "We don't normally let people do that," notes GM CEO
>> Rick Wagoner. But despite those misgivings, Wagoner and his team had
>> now set a goal of unveiling a new design-not a fanciful concept car,
>> but a real car that could go into production-at the January 2007
>> Detroit auto show, only nine or 10 months away. By the standards of
>> the automotive industry, that would require blazing speed."
>>
>> Full article:
>> http://www.motortrend.com/features/c...ory/index.html
>>
>> * EPA Closer to Giving the Chevy Volt at Least a 100 mpg Rating:
>> http://gm-volt.com/2008/10/13/epa-cl...00-mpg-rating/
>

There are several ways to figure the economy of the Volt, but perhaps
the most realistic is to forget about published MPG (really intended as
a comparative datum) and consider $ per 10k miles. Such a calculation
will include your local rate for electricity, and will consider your
driving habits over a period of time.

I did that for my Prius, and discovered that it costs about 5c a mile
for fuel. Remember, 100% of the Prius propulsion energy comes from
gasoline. There is no other source whatsoever, but the hybrid system
permits the use of a highly efficient ICE that has poor acceleration
characteristics, supported by an electric motor which has maximum torque
at zero rpm. The Volt, on the other hand, can be 100% plug-in for
average days (for me), with the ICE entering the equation only when I
drive further than, say, 40 miles between charges.

If GM's Volt project delivers its promoted configuration, it will cost
ME less than 3c per mile.

Neither figure includes maintenance, depreciation, (in)convenience,
etc., but an ICE that is designed to run at constant rpm can be
amazingly durable, and electric motors are usually good for hundreds of
thousands of hours. I won't talk about the battery...

Does it make sense to pay $40k to save $0.02 per mile? At 20k miles per
year that's $400, or 1% of the car's purchase price. So, the answer is
NO. But it's an engineering wonder that fascinates this early adopter -
which is why I bought my '04 Prius in Oct '03 when it first hit the
market. $$ benefits over time were secondary but gratifying.

I'd order a Volt today if my local Chevy dealer would accept the deposit.

Ike

On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 07:22:30 -0800, "Justbob30" >
wrote:

>Yeah, right, only problem is, it can't run on batteries only, it will run
>for a few miles and then become a regular hybrid, it is expected to cost
>about $40,00-$48,000 and apparently, really only get about 40 mpg. OOPS
>sorry folks, did we waste your bailout money.

40 mpg? Not really. In the worst case scenario the Volt could only
get 40 mpg if the battery was discharged and you were forced to run
the gas engine continuously to charge the battery while driving.

I am surprised with your negativity that you didn't say that the Volt
got less than 1 mpg. That would be possible if you parked the Volt and
used the gas engine to re-charge the battery.

Realistically you could get unlimited gas mileage if you never went
beyond the 40 mile limit of the battery that 78% of Americans fall
under.

So when GM says 100 mpg they mean that if you drive 66.7 miles
the combination of unlimited mileage and the defined 40 mpg mileage
will equate to 100 mpg. Similarly if you took a trip of 80 miles you
would get 80 mpg.

On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 07:40:20 -0600, "HLS" > wrote:

>
>"Michael Pardee" > wrote in message
...
>> My hat's off to GM if they can make it a success.
>
>
>Promise them anything, but sell them a SUV?

Just what do you want? Nobody forces anyone to buy
a SUV. GM attempts to sell what the consumer wants.

Do you want to be forced to buy a puddle jumper?
Or would you like to make your own decision?