It sounds all very promising, the only problem will be the price, especially if some foreign brand van introduce the same kind of car for half the price.
@Chuckie_A: For a series hybrid, the ideal power plant would precisely provide the mean power required over the entire trip - including periods where the vehicle was not being driven at all - and be set to run at WOT (its most efficient operating mode) to charge up the battery bank with programming that would recognize a basic start-stop "top-off" mode for in-city driving versus an "oh $#!+, we need to pour power back into the system now; we're going to be at freeway speeds for some time" highway mode. If the system were perfectly prescient you might well get away with a smaller capacity engine for the electrical generator, and for a commuter car which spends more time parking than moving around under its own power, the generator can recharge the system even while parked, which would reduce average power requirements even more. Compared to many compact car engines of the 70s and 80s, 1.4L is not especially tiny, but today's cars are bloated porkers in comparison, with a "compact" car often carrying as much weight as a late-70s G or Fox body. In this market, a 1.4L engine is a small fry; even Toyota's tiny Yaris and Honda's Fit sport larger ICEs under their hoods. I'll assume the engine is of higher displacement than might be absolutely, perfectly necessary in order to provide a comfortable margin over mean power requirements for extended highway cruising.
Ben, that has me wondering if the engine was cycling at all during your test drive - and what were your impressions of it? I've felt the parallel hybrid systems were created specifically to be familiar to drivers who want to hear an engine spin up when they push the go-pedal, versus the "out of my hands" cycling of an independently controlled recharging system for the linear hybrid layout.
@felis_concolor: The system was well within it's 40 mile range, there was no engine cycling for this drive.
And you aren't exactly correct on your assumptions on the way the generator works. It does not run at steady state and charge the batteries. In fact, once the batteries are depleted the engine doesn't charge them at all, it powers the motor and nothing more, responding to energy demands by revving up or down to meet the required load. The idea is to arrive home with an empty battery to take advantage of the cheapest possible energy source. Since electricity is so cheap compared to gas, using the generator to charge the batteries is a waste.
Kinda sounds like the review that Jeremy Clarkson just did for the Honda Insight, but he ripped that car to shreds.. even more so than the Chrysler Sebring.
I don't think the auto companies are doing too much R&D on these cars, just put a basic concept together and rush it to market.
@Mike Delozier: On the contrary, that it is unremarkable is a testament to the amount of engineering they've put into it. Drive a Prius or an Insight around and it's a terrible, terrible car. The Volt mule here is just a normal, every day car with a very extraordinary drive train.
@GV_Goat: Re: Diesel, yes. One of the advantages of this platform is that over time they can swap in different generator powerplants (or just more batteries) as needed.
I'd say they probably didn't go diesel as it's still not as widely accepted in the US. They want to minimize the wierdness of this car to the general consumer.
I believe it gets ~45mpg when running on generator power.
But the real question is, will they recall all of them and crush them? cause if so then shame. If only people had listened in the mid 90's to the EV-1 and Ford's electric Ranger.
@PowerTryp: sigh. the EV1 was not recalled. It was a leased vehicle with a limited field life. that was always the plan. GM did it to collect usage data for the next generation of the car... the Volt. They were crushed because leaving them in the field would have put GM at a tremendous liability risk.
"mer·kin (mûrkn) n.: (first use, according to the OED, 1617) a pubic wig, originally worn by prostitutes after shaving their genitalia to eliminate lice or disguise the marks of syphilis. "
GM gets (somewhat legitimate) green cred and props from the Feds their beholden to.
All those people out there driving appliance cars that get ~30mpg can start driving these (or their competition) and get the equivalent of 50mpg or more.
Less fuel consumption and emissions from the masses opens things up for the enthusiasts. Fuel prices will go down as demand decreases.
As the air gets cleaner, people will be less stressed about whatever emissions are coming from assorted classics, sports cars or 4x4s driven the 5-10% of the population 10-20% of the time.
@Joe-Btfsplk: Not the way the government is regulating it. The 2010 emissions regs for diesels are damn near insane. The tech to make them clean is very expensive and americans still haven't bought into diesel. the voltec system is a good solution which is incredibly flexible in it's fuel source.
@Tiberiuswise: IIRC, the Volt platform was supposed to be easily scaled to a lot of different vehicles (I seem to remember a rolling chassis that could be used for almost anything). So I'd expect a small SUV and sports car to show up pretty soon, spread the costs around, hopefully net the General a profit on the line.
Whenever I hear the words "appliance-like" to describe a car I imagine a microwave in the glove-box, a blender in the armrest, and a vibrator mounted in a trap door in the passenger seat for the Misses.
I asked this question sort of yesterday. What happens with those Lithium batteries when this thing gets in a bad wreck and those batteries have an internal short? Regular lead acid batteries can be very dangerous in a situation like that. It is my understanding that Lithium batteries can be even more destructive. I guess we will let the lawyers decide that when the first person survives the wreck, but not the batteries.
There's something wickedly cool about surging acceleration with no roar to back it up. I ran out of gas in my car once and, while I had a bit of a freak-out (they don't exactly ease you into it: you get the Red Triange of Death along with an empty (no dots at all) fuel gauge and a screen that just says "Problem"), I had a fun little drive to the gas station about half a mile away.
So the Volt was pretty much what it's supposed to be. No surprise there. It's still a really rad system, something that could sensibly see common use not far in the future. Not that many people drive more than forty miles in a day, after all, and this car gives them the choice to do either.
@A stʁolling playeʁ: Is this wickedly cool like getting caught by your girlfriend with her mom, or wickedly cool like finding a $20 in your coat pocket from last year?
@MustangMike: More like getting absurdly drunk, blacking out, and waking up the next morning in Prague. No idea how you got there, but hey, you're in Prague!
@Dhillaz: they need a vette volt, so you can roll up on the kids in silent electric mode, then rev the mother up to red line right behind em with open headers on it... that would be glorious.
@pj134: But it wouldn't do that. It would just go, silently. The gas engine would kick in, and charge the system, but it would also work at peak efficiency, which one only hopes is also fairly quiet. It would not, however, go to the red line.
Good stuff. I hope it's got the goods on the consumer end of things, since Toyota's been doing the "eco" branding thing for a decade now. GM has some catching up to do, but this might well do it.
There are no more large elephants in the room, only hundreds of small ones
I love seeing cynical Germans tweak English idioms.
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Ben, that has me wondering if the engine was cycling at all during your test drive - and what were your impressions of it? I've felt the parallel hybrid systems were created specifically to be familiar to drivers who want to hear an engine spin up when they push the go-pedal, versus the "out of my hands" cycling of an independently controlled recharging system for the linear hybrid layout.
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And you aren't exactly correct on your assumptions on the way the generator works. It does not run at steady state and charge the batteries. In fact, once the batteries are depleted the engine doesn't charge them at all, it powers the motor and nothing more, responding to energy demands by revving up or down to meet the required load. The idea is to arrive home with an empty battery to take advantage of the cheapest possible energy source. Since electricity is so cheap compared to gas, using the generator to charge the batteries is a waste.
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I don't think the auto companies are doing too much R&D on these cars, just put a basic concept together and rush it to market.
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I'd say they probably didn't go diesel as it's still not as widely accepted in the US. They want to minimize the wierdness of this car to the general consumer.
I believe it gets ~45mpg when running on generator power.
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[en.wikipedia.org]
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@robai: So, we're talking about the aesthetics of a Volt/Cruze mule versus a mid-90s science project?
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More 'Merkin
Less Smug
This means I'm allowed to like it.
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"mer·kin (mûrkn) n.: (first use, according to the OED, 1617) a pubic wig, originally worn by prostitutes after shaving their genitalia to eliminate lice or disguise the marks of syphilis. "
Yup, that sounds about right...
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It gets more blah everytime I see it.
That being said, I hope this works, because if they put a Cadddy body on this chassis, I would buy one.
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Very cool then.
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I just glanced right over the "volt-in-a-chevy-cruze" line.
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GM gets (somewhat legitimate) green cred and props from the Feds their beholden to.
All those people out there driving appliance cars that get ~30mpg can start driving these (or their competition) and get the equivalent of 50mpg or more.
Less fuel consumption and emissions from the masses opens things up for the enthusiasts. Fuel prices will go down as demand decreases.
As the air gets cleaner, people will be less stressed about whatever emissions are coming from assorted classics, sports cars or 4x4s driven the 5-10% of the population 10-20% of the time.
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You mean the bottom of the canyon.... after they go over the cliff? They will never make a dime on this POS. Diesel is the way.
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If it is raining, I wouldn't want to be near it as there is a chance of a boom....
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General wetness is too resistive to be a problem.
@Flathead Smith: I dunno, but they managed to work out that whole 10-30 gallons of highly volatile and flammable liquid gasoline issue.
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So the Volt was pretty much what it's supposed to be. No surprise there. It's still a really rad system, something that could sensibly see common use not far in the future. Not that many people drive more than forty miles in a day, after all, and this car gives them the choice to do either.
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"There's something wickedly cool about surging acceleration with no roar to back it up."
Or wickedly cool like sneaking up on kids and running them over.
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I would think the acceleration would be better. It is fairly torquey, no?
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$35,000 POS.
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There are no more large elephants in the room, only hundreds of small ones
I love seeing cynical Germans tweak English idioms.
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