Chevy Volt mileage.

[Vibe_dude]

Dont know if this was discussed yet or not but the numbers are out.And they are sweet.Updated Tue. Aug. 11 2009 11:49 AM ETThe Associated PressWARREN, Mich. -- General Motors Corp. said Tuesday its Chevrolet Volt rechargeable electric car should go 100 kilometres on a litre of gasoline in city driving, more than four times the mileage of the current champion, the Toyota Prius. The Volt is powered by an electric motor and a battery pack with a 64-kilometre range. After that, a small internal combustion engine kicks in to generate electricity for a total range of 480 kilometres. The battery pack can be recharged from a standard home outlet. GM came up with the one litre per 100 kilometre (230 miles per gallon) figure in early tests using draft guidelines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for calculating the mileage of extended range electric vehicles, said Tony Posawatz, GM's vehicle line director for the Volt. If the figure is confirmed by the EPA, which does the tests for the mileage posted on new car door stickers, the Volt would be the first car to exceed triple-digit gas mileage, Posawatz said. GM has produced about 30 Volts so far and is making 10 a week, CEO Fritz Henderson said during a presentation of the vehicle at the company's technical centre in the Detroit suburb of Warren. Henderson said charging the volt will cost about 40 cents US a day. "The EPA labels can and will be a game changer for us," he said. Most automakers are working similar plug-in designs, but GM could be the leader with the Volt, which is due in showrooms late in 2010. Toyota's Prius, the most efficient car now sold in the U.S., uses 4.9 litres of gas per 100 kilometres (48 miles per gallon). It is a gas-electric hybrid that runs on a small internal combustion engine assisted by a battery-powered electric motor to save gasoline. The first-generation Volt is expected to cost near US$40,000, making it cost-prohibitive to many Americans even if gasoline returns to $4 per gallon. The price is expected to drop with future generations of the Volt, but GM has said government tax credits and the savings on fuel could make it cost-effective, especially at a litre per 100 kilometres. "We get a little cautious about trying to forecast what fuel prices will do," Posawatz said. "We achieved this number and if fuel prices go up, it certainly does get more attractive even in the near-term generation," he said. Figures for the Volt's highway and combined city/highway mileage have not yet been calculated, Posawatz said. The combined mileage will be comparable, he said, but both combined and highway will be worse than city because the engine runs more on longer highway trips. The EPA guidelines, developed with input from automakers, figure that cars like the Volt will travel more on straight electricity in the city than on the highway. If a person drives the Volt less than 64 kilometres, in theory they could go without using gasoline. The mileage figure could vary as the guidelines are refined and the Volt gets further along in the manufacturing process, Posawatz said. GM is nearly halfway through building about 80 Volts that will look and behave like the production model, and testing is running on schedule, Posawatz said. Two critical areas, battery life and the electronic switching between battery and engine power, are still being refined, but the car is on schedule to reach showrooms late in 2010, he said. GM is simulating tests to make sure the new lithium-ion batteries last 10 years, Posawatz said. "We're further along, but we're still quite a ways from home," he said. "We're developing quite a knowledge base on all this stuff. Our confidence is growing." The other area of new technology, switching between battery and engine power, is proceeding well, he said, with engineers just fine-tuning the operations. "We're very pleased with the transition from when it's driving EV (electric vehicle) to when the engine and generator kick in," he said, GM also is finishing work on the power cord, which will be durable enough that it can survive being run over by the car. The Volt, he said, will have software on board so it can be programmed to begin and end charging during off-peak electrical use hours. Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co. and Daimler AG are all developing plug-ins and electric cars, and Toyota Motor Corp. is working on a plug-in version of its gas-electric hybrid system. Nissan Motor Co. announced last month that it would begin selling an electric vehicle in Japan and the U.S. next year.Wow sounds very impressive. way to go GM!

[ramenboy...]

230mpg...

[03VibeOttawa]

I'll start buying into all this Volt hype when they're actually in showrooms and on the road, in my area.

[star_deceiver]

That's based on the price of gas vs. the price of electricity. But can you afford the initial purchase price and still be able to pay your electric bill, especially if you live in California!

[joatmon]

I've already bought in (to the hype). I want one

[ColonelPanic]

230 MPG, but who the heck can afford it?People shopping in the $40k+ price range generally place fuel economy at the bottom of their list. Good luck with this one, GM. I hope they can find enough tech-savvy, environmentally conscious buyers to make it worthwhile.

[NoviDriver]

I read somewhere that there's a $7500 federal tax credit for Volts so that knocks the price down a bit.

[Kincaid]

Actually, a lot of people were paying over $35k for the Prius not long ago.If the Volt was a hatch or wagon I'd want one too. I expect gas to be $5/gallon in the next few years and I don't think it will ever come back down very much. I commute 30 miles round trip and all current electric cars either seem to be like the Tesla or like a golf cart with a 35 mph top speed. The Volt would do the trick and even if it took eight years to realize the savings, I like that there are two options for power.

[jake75]

I wonder if the 230 mpg includes the oil (or oil equivalent) that it takes to produce the electricity that powers the Volt.If a car were totally electric would it then get infinite miles per gallon since it uses no "gallons"?I wonder what the human miles pr gallon is if you consider the oil equivalent of the calories we use to generate the energy to walk a mile. Of course that would vary depending if the calories came from beef, sugar, fat etc.Is it fair to let a Volt owner drive on the highways via electric power that unlike gasoline bears no federal or state "road tax"? It is true that a 20 mpg SUV pays more road tax per mile than a Vibe, but that heavier SUV probably also is responsible for more roadway wear and tear.

[scherry2]

we were informed at work that the price will drop considerably if/when the battery in the Volt becomes a lease.

[scherry2]

Quote, originally posted by Kincaid » I like that there are two options for power.there isn't 2 choices for power. only electric. the gas motor only runs to recharge the battery. layman terms ahead:the volt will go 300 miles on a full charge. when the voltage/amps in the battery gets low, say "x", the small gas engine will start and recharge the battery while driving.

[Kincaid]

You are technically right about the power source, what I meant was that if you could not charge the batteries you could run around with the gas motor juicing the batteries and the electric motor running the car. Or you could make short trips and charge it from an outlet and never use gas. You got two options.Regarding gas taxes - I checked out buying a Honda CNG car (compressed natural gas) and the state required you to report your mileage so that they could charge you the equivalent gas tax.

[star_deceiver]

Quote, originally posted by Kincaid »Regarding gas taxes - I checked out buying a Honda CNG car (compressed natural gas) and the state required you to report your mileage so that they could charge you the equivalent gas tax.Somehow I see this applying to the Volt as well, and eventually all cars in general!

[TONY TAT2]

I cant get the recharagable batt's in my sears drill to last longer than a year.

[jake75]

Quote, originally posted by Kincaid »You are technically right about the power source, what I meant was that if you could not charge the batteries you could run around with the gas motor juicing the batteries and the electric motor running the car. Or you could make short trips and charge it from an outlet and never use gas. You got two options.Regarding gas taxes - I checked out buying a Honda CNG car (compressed natural gas) and the state required you to report your mileage so that they could charge you the equivalent gas tax.Well you are still free from federal gas tax. For now at least. Are they applying this to electric assisted cars?

[Kincaid]

I don't think anyone is charging Hybrid owners extra, although there's been talk.

[zionzr2]

this is why "Big Brother" wants so badly to put a "Black Box" in your car so that you can be TAXED by the mile and know your vehicle's exact location at any given second!

[jake75]

Another article - USN&WRHow the Chevy Volt Will Transform Fuel EconomyAugust 11, 2009 04:42 PM ET | Rick Newman | Permanent Link | Print[This story was clarified to indicate that when the Volt's battery runs low, a gas engine willpower a generator that propels the car, not provide power to the wheels directly.]It’s an eye-popping number: 230 miles per gallon. General Motors says that’s the mileage itsnew plug-in car, the Chevrolet Volt, will get in city driving, assuming it goes on sale asplanned in late 2010.It’s also misleading. The Volt will get astounding gas mileage because it won’t exactly bepowered by gas. At least a lot of the time it won’t, if drivers use the car the way GMenvisions. That’s the whole point of an electric car: To propel a vehicle with something otherthan petroleum. If the Volt were powered mostly by a windmill or a nuclear reactor, it wouldalso get great gas mileage, since the fuel would be coming from some other source.The 230 MPG figure is GM’s estimate, and it’s a good bet that the government will nevermake it official. GM knows this. The automaker has been working with the EnvironmentalProtection Agency, arbiter of fuel-economy figures for American cars, on new ways tomeasure fuel economy for cars like the Volt that run on more than one fuel. Technically,hybrids like the Toyota Prius (which averages 48 MPG) fall into this category, but the MPGformat still works for hybrids because the electric battery pack mainly assists the gas engine.For all the innovation in hybrids, there’s no power cord and the car basically runs on thesame gasoline as every other car. It does so more efficiently, but its fuel economy can still beexpressed effectively as miles driven per gallon of gas consumed.The Volt and other alternative-fuel cars will be different. The Volt will have a huge batterypack charged through a power outlet. So a good chunk of its power won’t come from gasolineat all, but from the electrical power grid. Electricity is typically metered out in kilowatts, notgallons. We tend to measure electrical usage over time rather than distance, and we pay for itthat way too, with rates based on a kilowatt-hour of electricity, for example. So in terms ofenergy usage, the Volt will be more like a refrigerator than an automobile. A refrigerator thatcruises down the highway. To measure its efficiency, we’d really want to know how manymiles per kilowatt it averaged. MPK. Or perhaps it would be kilowatts per mile, KPM.But the Volt will only run on battery power until the battery's charge runs low on power.Then a gas engine will kick in, powering a generator that runs the car. (GM calls the enginean alternative power source. Get it? It’s the gas engine that’s the alternative .) GM saysthat under normal driving conditions, the battery will power the car for about 40 miles until itneeds to be recharged. So if you never drive more than 40 miles between charges, your gasmileage will be the same as somebody on a bicycle--which is either 0 or infinity, I’m not surewhich. But your MPK (or KPM) rating will be quite measureable and hopefully better thana refrigerator.My guess is that GM’s figure of 230 MPG is based on a driving profile that’s dominated bybattery power. That’s probably why they only released a figure for city driving. Highwaydriving, or a combined average of city and highway, implies trips of more than 40 miles, atwhich point the Volt’s battery would run low on power and you’d start burning gas.GM hopes you don’t do that, because the Volt’s performance will be less impressive when thegas engine is powering the car. The huge battery will amount to a lot of dead weight whenit’s not in use, and we don’t know yet what kind of mileage the car will get beyond the40-mile all-electric range. Buyers shelling out $40,000 for the Volt the expected stickerprice might be underwhelmed by the car if they end up doing a lot of extended driving.Burning gas also complicates the whole fuel economy equation, since a single trip could entailbattery power drawn from an outlet, which is measured in kilowatts, along with gas from thepump, measured in gallons. The EPA needs to boil that down to a single set of numbers thatdoesn’t sound like a science lecture.Then we have to figure out if this will all cost more or less than a car powered by gas. GM issure it will cost less to operate the Volt than a gas-powered car, and the higher gas prices go,the less the Volt will cost by comparison. But how much less? GM says a 40-mile charge willcost about 40 cents at current electricity rates, which means you’d spend $1.20 to drive 100miles. In a gas-powered car averaging a healthy 30 MPG, by comparison, you’d spend $10 ingas to go 100 miles, if gas cost $3 per gallon. That’s 8 times more costly than driving on theVolt’s battery power alone, but the real cost to drivers will depend on how much driving ispowered by each type of fuel.If we’re lucky, there will be more conundrums like this, since a lot of promising gasolinealternatives can’t be effectively described in terms of miles or dollars per gallon. Hydrogen,for instance, is usually measured in liters or kilograms, and some hydrogen-powered Europeanprototypes measure their fuel economy in kilograms consumed for every 100 kilometerstraveled. For Americans, that takes some mental adjusting, since a lower number isbetter the opposite of miles per gallon. New kinds of hybrids and bi-fuel vehicles, likediesel-electrics and hydrogen-electrics, could further complicate the math if they ever getproduced.Up till now, there have been just a few niche vehicles that required some workaround tomeasure fuel economy, and the government has typically relied on some kind ofMPG-equivalent. The Honda Civic GX, for instance, which runs on natural gas, gets theequivalent of 36 miles per gallon in combined driving even though natural gas is typicallymeasured in cubic feet, not gallons. The EV1, GM’s first electric car, got the equivalent ofabout 60 miles per gallon. It stands to reason that the Volt will also be rated as anMPG-equivalent, although there may be a corresponding kilowatt-based measure we’ll have tostart getting used to. Maybe the Volt will even earn an Energy Star rating, making it one ofyour most efficient appliances. And the only one with room for four.

[Whelan]

Think of the Volt like a Diesel-Electric Locomotive. The diesel engine (i.e. Volt's gas powerplant), runs the generators and charges the batteris which power the drivetrain (i.e. the generator for the wheels and batteries). The car runs 40 miles before the engine kicks on and starts charging things up. It runs at a constant RPM and possibly fluctuates given the demand (A/C, lighting, etc.). Plug it in when you get to work and drive home as well to save on electric. Basically here is how a Volt would work in my daily routine.For the sake of argument we can say that I WONT be able to charge it at my office:50 mile round trip commute x 5 days a week = 250 miles/week100 miles on weekends in short trips (25-30 miles) = 100 miles/weekend.Now that is 350 miles per week and I will add on and say 400 for measure. My car will only be using the engine to charge up for about 10 miles of my daily commute. So that is 50 miles a week of gas usage. Then on weekends lets overestimate and say I drive 50 miles a day Friday night, all Saturday and Sunday. So again that is 10 miles a day gas charging. Thus far I have used 80 miles of gas driving in one week.If I used 80 miles a week of the gas engine (again it's a different calculation as the engine is a constant through time and distance) I could go pretty much an entire month with only filling up once. Right now I fill up every week and weekend. As for electricity, it costs less than fuel does. And if your concerned about the price of electricity that is a simple solution, start drilling in the US and stop with this 100% alternative energy stuff. A good mix is healthy, but why waste time not using our own stores underground.

[Its_Dave]

GM has already been down this road with Saturn EV and I think thank this technology should be far more advanced then it is now. The Volt is neat but I think that GM screwed us with the Saturn Electric car. The Volt is a car that could have been out already.

[Kincaid]

Battery technology has made great leaps and bounds - but even right now it is not quite where the automakers want it to be.As noted above, most batteries can't last more than a few years of draining and recharging. I believe the target for the Volt is to go 15 years before the battery needs replacing.

[jake75]

I predict that Ford will soon follow with a model they will call a "WATT". Then Chrysler/Fiat will bring out theirs and will call it an "AMP".The common thread with all of these models is that given the price they will meet a lot of consumer "RESISTANCE".

[star_deceiver]

Quote, originally posted by Whelan »Think of the Volt like a Diesel-Electric Locomotive. Too bad they didn't use a diesel generator. It would've lasted twice as long as a gas generator and have even better mileage!

[joatmon]

Quote, originally posted by jake75 »I predict that Ford will soon follow with a model they will call a "WATT". Then Chrysler/Fiat will bring out theirs and will call it an "AMP". Chrysler already is working on a minivan and a Jeep SUV that use similar technology as the Volt, but their really cool looking Dodge EV is just electric, no on board generator