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Chevy volt fail, production halted for now.

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the DRIZZLE said:
I'll give GM some credit because the volt does have some pretty neat technology. However, the fact that people always miss is that there are diminishing returns to improving mileage. For example, a car that gets 20mpg will cost you $2400 a year in gas (@$4/gal) if you drive 12k a year. A 30mpg car will cost you $1600, and a 40mpg will cost you $1200. Considering that there are a number of very good ICE cars that get over 30mpg, mileage just isn't that big of a factor once you reach that threshold.

I do understand the appeal of these plugin and series hybrids if you mostly make short trips but the most you can possibly save under optimal conditions is around $1000/year once you factor in the cost of electricity.
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A lot of towns and cities have installed FREE charging stations for electric cars and plug in hybrids. You park there when you go to work and you can charge the car for FREE. So if you do that, then their is no cost to the electricity.
 
DCal430 said:
A lot of towns and cities have installed FREE charging stations for electric cars and plug in hybrids. You park there when you go to work and you can charge the car for FREE. So if you do that, then their is no cost to the electricity.
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First of all that is only part of your charging, you will probably want to charge it overnight at home as well. Second, I doubt they will do that in the long run. Third it doesn't really matter because the cost of electricity was a small factor in the analysis I presented. Even if you assume 100% of the electricity is free and that you never use any gas you are only going to save $1200 compared with a 40mpg car.

Of course that is a pretty unlikely usage patter. 12,000 miles per year is 32 miles day which is very close to the Volt's electric range. None of this is a knock against the Volt, it's simply pointing out how little value the plugin hybrid is getting you in general even when you assume a best case scenario.

Realistically you are looking at $600-1000 year in savings. I'd rather save the $15,000 and buy a Ford Focus that doesn't handle like the Queen Mary.
 
I thought about getting a VOLT in 2012, since RUMORS has it that the 2012 Volt will get the California HOV sticker and that is worth good amount of money to me.
 
sold in Belgium as the Opel Ampera, cost 43k euro!!!!!!!
for that money you have a fully loaded Peugeot 508 rxh diesel hybrid or the new BMW 320d

will not sell well here also
 
Originally Posted by dmcowen674
The only fail is on the part of the OP.

What oil company do you work for or represent?

gsaldivar said:
🙄
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Your rolling eyes suggests a disingenuous post which is now banned.

It is a legitimate question because his Avatar is the logo for the Chicago Board of Exchange.

He most likely personally gains in the rise of the oil and gas and the demise of the electric car.

Are you really that bad at the Internets as your post suggest?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBOE
 
dmcowen674 said:
Originally Posted by dmcowen674
The only fail is on the part of the OP.

What oil company do you work for or represent?



Your rolling eyes suggests a disingenuous post which is now banned.

It is a legitimate question because his Avatar is the logo for the Chicago Board of Exchange.

He most likely personally gains in the rise of the oil and gas and the demise of the electric car.

Are you really that bad at the Internets as your post suggest?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBOE
Click to expand...
On Monday I recommend you find a mental health professional to consult. Your post to the OP is asinine in the extreme and you should be glad you were even given an eye roll over it.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Doppel said:
On Monday I recommend you find a mental health professional to consult. Your post to the OP is asinine in the extreme and you should be glad you were even given an eye roll over it.
Click to expand...

Quoting yet more insane personal attacking and harassment by Doppel
 
DCal430 said:
A lot of towns and cities have installed FREE charging stations for electric cars and plug in hybrids. You park there when you go to work and you can charge the car for FREE. So if you do that, then their is no cost to the electricity.
Click to expand...
Really??? So nobody is paying for the electricity?

Amazing...
 
werepossum said:
Except it isn't new technology. Toyota has been making the Prius since 1997 and is on the third generation. One of the advantages of coming late to the party is avoiding the cost mistakes of pioneers, allowing you to make a superior product at a lower cost. Instead, Government Motors made an arguably inferior product at a much higher price.
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GM made a car that almost exactly fits the needs of a huge portion of the commuting population. It is truly cheap to operate over normal commuting distances. It has no range limit, and decent mileage on gasoline, so you can't be stranded by not charging it, and do not need to rent/own another vehicle for weekend/long trips.

The only downside to the car is price, which is why they should have built something 'cool' for the early adopters to buy instead, and followed up with something like the volt in 3-5 years once their costs were under control. It's not 'all-new' technology, but it's a new implementation, with substantial design and production differences from any similar product.

As for folks being upset about the charging thing, it's not practical to blame GM (or Toyota, or Nissan) for the average garage not having 220V service, or for the inability of 120V/20A to charge a car overnight. If electric cars are going to be a thing, 220V/30-40A is going to be the standard for them, because it's generally the most powerful circuit available in North American homes.

Very good analysis.

Personally I'm holding out for an American-built plug-in hybrid 5-passenger 4WD SUV capable of towing 1,000 lbs and offering a five year pay back. Preferably a Ford.
Click to expand...

Normally I'd just say something sarcastic here, but seriously, what good is 1000lb towing?

OTOH I would imagine electric vehicles could deliver mind-blowingly good 4WD intelligence and performance to the road.
 
boomerang said:
Really??? So nobody is paying for the electricity?

Amazing...
Click to expand...

Seriously, if thirty-bajillion dollars in supply-side support, and purchase incentives isn't enough to move electric cars, it's time to give up on them, not pay for people's 'gas' too.

Of course the flip-side is we're likely to soon have 'conveniently located' charging stations that will charge $0.40/kWh (rounded up to the next 10kWh, naturally), thus allowing your electric car to move at only twice the price of gasoline😉

I say this as a strong supporter of gasoline-reducing technology, and a long-run believer in electric cars.
 
The-Noid said:
I wrote this a couple of weeks ago. Doesn't seem shocking what is happening with the volt.

From the Environmental and Science Technology Journal (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es903729a) a study was done by the American Chemical Society. FTA: a diesel car that uses less than 3.9L per 100 km (which many do, Volkswagon Polo, Skoda, Subaru, etc.) has less environmental impact than a FULL electric car, let alone the Chevy Volt, which obviously has an internal combustion engine. This was also done with European power plants which obviously have significantly more nuclear and hydro electric generation. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation which aggregates the CIA world factbook.)

Based on the difference in power generation in the United States (more fossil fuel based) and the fact that the Volt is also internal combustion, this would put the needed MPG much lower (30 or 40?) to have a lower environmental impact by using a Diesel.

The battery mining/processing in itself is extremely detrimental to the environment (note: the study only estimated the end of life disposal of batteries, it could be much worse). My point all along is that more efficient cars is a better way than creating the Volt product.

There is a future in electric cars but it relies around a major change in the grid in the United States and also the ability to recycle and mine Li-Ion batteries needs to be improved immensely. In the mean time the sales numbers are a manifestation of the fact that the Volt needs a major overhaul.
Click to expand...

I'm impressed that a P&N post includes an article from a reputable journal with a high impact factor in the discussion!
 
soccerballtux said:
really?
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Yes, really. If you use 1000 gallons/year of fuel at 25 mpg and go to 50 mpg you're now using 500 gallons--500 saved. If you increase your MPG to infinity MPG you'll never again save MORE than 500, so anything less than infinity saves less than that original 500. Although when you double your MPG you halve the cost of whatever gas you're paying for, as mentioned it's diminishing returns. Eventually your MPG gets so high you're just paying so little for gas it barely matters to try and save more.

BTW closest thing to that AWD hybrid SUV mentioned above is a toyota Highlander Hybrid. It's rated at 28/28 IIRC, seats 7, tows 3500 lbs. This is insane mileage if you consider it's about 1 mpg worse than a subcompact in the city--and yet it seats 7, tows, and has AWD.

Of course, it also starts around $38k. Unfortunately these systems still add a massive premium cost. Toyota has brought the hybrid premium of its Prius lineup close (or in some cases at) the point they can be argued on economic terms. In the past they couldn't be defended economically and were sold for other reasons (buyer enjoyed the technology, was an environmentalist, etc.).
 
Oh, right.
If you speak in percentages though it still makes sense to keep going.
25->50 costs half as much in gas
50->100 costs half as much in gas
100->200 etc.
though by this point you're at 12.5% your previous consumption.
 
The Volt has 2 main problems. It looks just like a much cheaper Cruze, and as others have mentioned, it's too expensive.

I remember watching stories about the development of this car, and being quite disappointed when it went from something that looked like a Camaro to the current body style. Oh well.

Also, I think electric power has a long way to go, but it has come a long way. Plus, many of the power stations used to make electricity for this car are petroleum-powered, so it's owners are still paying for the same thing as a regular car, just in a more indirect way.
 
3chordcharlie said:
GM made a car that almost exactly fits the needs of a huge portion of the commuting population. It is truly cheap to operate over normal commuting distances. It has no range limit, and decent mileage on gasoline, so you can't be stranded by not charging it, and do not need to rent/own another vehicle for weekend/long trips.

The only downside to the car is price, which is why they should have built something 'cool' for the early adopters to buy instead, and followed up with something like the volt in 3-5 years once their costs were under control. It's not 'all-new' technology, but it's a new implementation, with substantial design and production differences from any similar product.

As for folks being upset about the charging thing, it's not practical to blame GM (or Toyota, or Nissan) for the average garage not having 220V service, or for the inability of 120V/20A to charge a car overnight. If electric cars are going to be a thing, 220V/30-40A is going to be the standard for them, because it's generally the most powerful circuit available in North American homes.



Normally I'd just say something sarcastic here, but seriously, what good is 1000lb towing?

OTOH I would imagine electric vehicles could deliver mind-blowingly good 4WD intelligence and performance to the road.
Click to expand...


That requires long term planning and thinking, something that has become anathema in todays corporate culture of revolving door ceo's that worship the quarterly report and wants immediate profits so they can move onto their next adventure.

Remember the EV-1 that General Motors killed because they said it was not profitable especially next to the big trucks and suvs that allowed them to clear 10,000-15000 in profit depending on model and options and that didn't include financing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXDGpkcoJhE&feature=player_embedded
What these hotshot executives didn't realize at the time was that they killed an idea which could have been further developed over time leading to lower costs and higher acceptance by the regular consumer.

Wagoner has said the biggest mistake he ever made as chief executive was killing the EV1, GM's revolutionary electric car, and failing to direct more resources to hybrid gas-electric research. This admission is acutely painful for green-car advocates who know GM squandered its early lead in electric-hybrid technology.
Click to expand...
 
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dmcowen674 said:
If it pisses Republicans off like it seems to have on here then it is a 110% success. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

It doesn't piss me off, I never thought the Volt was going to succeed in this economy as the only people that could afford them were going to be in the 1.5% to 2%.
 
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