The Chevy Volt is just another hybrid?

[Bignate603]

Will you just get the FUCK over the bailout?

He will as soon as he figures out how to edit posts rather than replying to his own multiple times throughout a thread.

 

[LTC8K6]

Will you just get the FUCK over the bailout?

What did the bailout have to do with the Volt? I'm not counting the GM bailout.

 

[LTC8K6]

He will as soon as he figures out how to edit posts rather than replying to his own multiple times throughout a thread.

I'm used to boards with a short time limit for edits. :biggrin:

 

[MikeMike]

What did the bailout have to do with the Volt? I'm not counting the GM bailout.

Then you do understand that...

FORD, VWAG, Tesla, Fisker Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Chinese Manuf's, all have been given government money to bring electric vehicles to market?

 

[LTC8K6]

Then you do understand that...

FORD, VWAG, Tesla, Fisker Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Chinese Manuf's, all have been given government money to bring electric vehicles to market?

None of their vehicles are the subject of this thread.

 

[MikeMike]

None of their vehicles are the subject of this thread.

holy shit, did i just ever get beat into submission by an idiot... guess it is true not to argue with an idiot, they will just beat you down with idiocy

 

[LTC8K6]

The reason I brought up the subsidy in this thread was not because I object to the subsidy for the Volt, it was because it now seems that we did not get the totally new design I was expecting with the expenditure of all that money on development.

We got a fairly ordinary tech hybrid.

 

[ShawnD1]

All the hype I have ever heard about the Chevy Volt said it was a series hybrid. That means the gasoline engine does not directly power the wheels in any way. All power to the wheels come from the electric motor, and the gasoline engine acts as a gen set.
What makes that such a cool idea is that the majority of your power would then come from the electric motor. You know what that means. Huge low end torque. Incredibly good 0-60. The car would rely on burst charge-discharge cycles. That would mean something like using 100HP while accelerating, but the battery is only charged at a rate of 30HP; the car would rely on you stopping at lights or cruising at a constant speed so it can charge the batteries up for the next burst.


To hear that it's just another parallel hybrid breaks my heart. The article on wikipedia about hybrid vehicles explicitly says the Chevy Volt is a series hybrid. That's because that's what GM said it was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vehicle_drivetrain

Series-hybrid vehicles are driven only by electric traction. Unlike piston internal combustion engines, electric motors are efficient with exceptionally high power to weight ratios providing adequate torque over a wide speed range. Unlike combustion engines electric motors matched to the vehicle do not require a transmission between the engine and wheels shifting torque ratios. Transmissions add weight, bulk and sap power from the engine. Mechanical automatic shifting transmissions can be very complex. In a series-hybrid system, the combustion engine drives an electric generator instead of directly driving the wheels. The generator provides power for the driving electric motors. In short, a series-hybrid is simple, the vehicle is driven by electric motors with a generator set providing the electric power.
This arrangement is common in diesel-electric locomotives and ships. Ferdinand Porsche used this setup in the early 20th century in racing cars, effectively inventing the series-hybrid arrangement. Porsche named the system, System Mixt. A wheel hub motor arrangement, with a motor in each of the two front wheels was used, setting speed records. This arrangement was sometimes referred to as an electric transmission, as the electric generator and driving motor replaced a mechanical transmission. The vehicle could not move unless the internal combustion engine was running
...
The electric transmission is currently viable in replacing the mechanical transmission. The Chevy Volt claims that without using energy from the battery running on gasoline only, fuel consumption is expected to be 50 mpg-US (4.7 L/100 km; 60 mpg-imp) on the city cycle of the EPA's test.[3] For such a size of car this is notable fuel consumption. However, the modern series-hybrid vehicles takes the electric transmission to a higher plane adding greater value.

(picture of Chevy Volt on left side)
caption: The plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt, due on the market in late 2010, is a series hybrid.

 

[darkswordsman17]

This is a lot of fuss for what amounts to GM made a smart design change, and the media going crazy over technicalities.

 

[Bignate603]

All the hype I have ever heard about the Chevy Volt said it was a series hybrid.

It is a series hybrid below 70 mph. It only acts as a parallel hybrid at high speeds and that was because they found they could get more efficiency out of the car that way. Why are people complaining about a design change that makes the car more efficient?

This is a lot of fuss for what amounts to GM made a smart design change, and the media going crazy over technicalities.

Exactly. GMs main problem with the Volt is that they made the development very public early on. They started talking about what the final design would be like before they had actually worked through all the engineering challenges. Things ended up needing to change to turn it from a car on paper to a car in a showroom.

 

[LTC8K6]

This is a lot of fuss for what amounts to GM made a smart design change, and the media going crazy over technicalities.

Except it's not a design change at all. It was always this way. We just weren't informed of it.

 

[jaydee]

Wow, the press overblowing a story, what is this world coming to!

So there is a mechanical linkage between the engine/generator and the wheels at speeds higher than 70 mph during charge-sustain mode... If you think this makes it no more than Prius than you can equally say that a Dodge Viper is really just a Sebring with a bigger engine.

As far as the cost vs savings go, there's nothing you can say about the Volt that does not apply to any other hybrid out there.

 

[Bignate603]

Except it's not a design change at all. It was always this way. We just weren't informed of it.

1. How do you know it was always this way? By all appearances it was a change they made when they were looking for ways to get more efficiency during high speed cruise.
2. It increases efficiency, why are people griping about it?
3. Why do you think you have a right to know every detail about a car before its released?

 

[lurk3r]

Looks like they made some smart engineering changes to make the car more viable. Oh well a few of the stupid hippies are going to be annoyed that "its not a pure electric", and "ZOMG we were LIED to", ya it was GM's plan to deceive you from the start and they haven't just been making improvements as they go.

 

[Bignate603]

Looks like they made some smart engineering changes to make the car more viable. Oh well a few of the stupid hippies are going to be annoyed that "its not a pure electric", and "ZOMG we were LIED to", ya it was GM's plan to deceive you from the start and they haven't just been making improvements as they go.

Also, everything I've read is that the engine only connects to the wheels over 70 mph during charge sustaining mode. That means that it will still go over 70 mph on pure electric power if the charge in the battery pack is above where the engine turns on.

 

[ShawnD1]

Also, everything I've read is that the engine only connects to the wheels over 70 mph during charge sustaining mode. That means that it will still go over 70 mph on pure electric power if the charge in the battery pack is above where the engine turns on.

Lovely. So it's still 99% within the publicly announced specs

 

[LTC8K6]

There were folks in the green community early on who had studied the Volt's design and spoken to some designers and seen some paperwork, who said that the Volt operated this way. They were dismissed as being wrong. They are getting credit now. That's how I know it was always that way.

I've read that it's between 60 and 70mph when the battery is depleted. It seems that the genset cannot handle a heavy load such as a hill or hard acceleration by itself. In such situations, the battery has to assist the genset, that's why only half the total battery capacity is used at all, and it's kept with 25-30% charge on it. The battery is needed to assist the genset with heavy loads. What's new is that the ICE can also directly assist.

I'm not really griping about it. I'm not buying one anyway, so it doesn't matter much to me how it operates. It's been fairly big news in the green car community that it's not actually pure electric, but not so much in the mainstream media.

My concern is that for the money spent, we didn't get what I thought we were getting. It makes the $41K seem even worse somehow.

 

[desy]

Exactly
To decouple this engine and make it all electric would be VERY simple.
To pulll the engine out of a Prius not so much
Much ado about nothing

 

[LTC8K6]

Not sure how else to interpret these statements from GM:

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/06/30/repeat-after-us-the-chevrolet-volts-gas-engine-does-not-drive/

However, the basic architecture of the Voltec powertrain has not been changed since it debuted in 2007 and the engine is only connected to the generator. There is currently no mechanism to drive the wheels even if the engineers wanted too. If they felt that was the best solution, they would have to re-engineer the entire drive system. Having said that, there are control strategies originally developed as part of the two-mode hybrid program that are in use in the Volt and lessons learned from other development efforts have been applied to this new car.

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/06/28/chevrolet-volt-to-be-powered-by-engine-at-high-speeds/

Earlier today, we heard a rumor from The Telegraph about a possible dramatic change to the drivetrain that will be used in the Chevrolet Volt (and the Opel Ampera) and though we put it to bed. The UK paper is doubling down on the story, though, writing a separate article about how General Motors is set to make some drastic changes to the Ampera by redesigning the extended-range-electric-vehicle's powertrain so that the gasoline-fueled engine can and will power the wheels under certain high-speed conditions.

If true – and we're still filing this firmly in the rumormill folder for now – this change would completely alter the entire ethos of the Volt idea. GM has gone to great pains to ensure that its green halo vehicle can be called an electric vehicle with a range extender, not a hybrid.

Semantics perhaps, but the distinction has been made clear and driven home by The General. Further, we know that the machine is well into its final development phases, and any changes of this magnitude this late in the game would be darn near impossible to implement in time.

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/06/28/chevrolet-volt-will-not-have-direct-engine-drive-electric-only/

While GM's two-mode hybrid system does exactly this with a pair of clutches, there are no plans to do this for the Volt. GM spokesman Rob Peterson told GM-Volt.com that the Volt's drive architecture remains the same as always with the engine only driving a generator.

 

[PricklyPete]

I thought about this some more and this is where I stand:

From an engineering perspective, I think it is great that GM realized they could do better by coupling the engine to the wheels when going over 70MPH and when the battery is "depleted". This is what engineering is about. You go in with an initial design, see where you can do better, and improve...don't set make believe boundaries that sacrifice the product.

From a marketing perspective, I am disappointed. They should have said what it was as soon as the design changed. If there were patents involved, they didn't need to spill all the beans, but don't continue to repeat a lie.

All that being said, I'm glad some executive didn't make what would have been a bigger mistake and forced engineering to stick with a strictly series design just so that the "marketing" that was started too early was consistent. I'd rather the executives allowed engineering to produce the best car they could instead of neutering them with "marketing" restrictions.

 

[desy]

worry about money spent? cast your eyes over to the hydrogen car

 

[Ktulu]

Except it's not a design change at all. It was always this way. We just weren't informed of it.

I dunno, looks to me like it does everything it set out to do and now just a tiny bit more. This last little addition was I'm sure always there but GM probably did not want the competition to know about it. You can argue semantics all you want but the fact of the matter is for someone like me 99.9% of the time it WILL BE like an electric vehicle and will probably almost never need to engage the engine directly. But if I'm ever in the situation where i do need that to happen I'd be happy to know its there.

 

[Ktulu]

http://www.chevroletvoltage.com/index.php/Volt/clearing-up-confusion-about-the-chevrolet-volt.html

Right from the horses mouth............

There is no direct mechanical connection (fixed gear ratio) between the Volt’s extended-range 1.4L engine and the drive wheels. In extended-range driving, the engine generates power that is fed through the drive unit and is balanced by the generator and traction motor. The resulting power flow provides a 10 to 15 percent improvement in highway fuel economy.

So can everyone just STFU about it already.

 

[LTC8K6]

I dunno, looks to me like it does everything it set out to do and now just a tiny bit more. This last little addition was I'm sure always there but GM probably did not want the competition to know about it. You can argue semantics all you want but the fact of the matter is for someone like me 99.9% of the time it WILL BE like an electric vehicle and will probably almost never need to engage the engine directly. But if I'm ever in the situation where i do need that to happen I'd be happy to know its there.

Sure, but the point all along, stressed by GM, was that this was new and electrically powered only. It wasn't a hybrid at all. It's what was innovative about the car. It's why a lot of people wanted it.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://www.chevroletvoltage.com/index.php/Volt/clearing-up-confusion-about-the-chevrolet-volt.html

Right from the horses mouth............



So can everyone just STFU about it already.

The commenters have it covered. That doesn't clear much up at all.