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Detroit, 4:34 AM
Sun Nov 22
11 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/11/09
C'mon guys! Chill out for a sec will ya?? Enough of "ECO" already? Even Putin agrees!!
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08/11/09
Then with the mpg average of Nissan Ghosn can build V8 GTRs with race exhausts.
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08/11/09
Yes, many women know nothing of and have no interest in cars, but that doesn't make them the only ones capable of screwing up minor details. I'm sure every Jalop here has some story to share of their own gross stupidity. I know I do.
I taught my girlfriend how to drive stickshift, rotate her tires, change her oil, and am slowly teaching her everything else. She's an English major. Women who are willing to learn things about their cars are just as capable as men.
I know it's easy to poke fun at women on such a guy-centric site, but that was just unnecessary.
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[www.jezebel.com]
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Yes.
, what happens when you're on the highway and completely drain the battery?
The combustion engine generates electricity to keep the battery at 30% State of Charge. So you drive around battery-only, then as the charge gets below 30% the ICE spins up to keep the battery somewhat juiced; but just like a hybrid the ICE can shut off when regenerative braking charges the battery. Eventually you'll run out of gasoline like other cars, even though the ICE is not connected to the wheels.
To my knowledge GM has never let anyone drive the car when it's in this state, so no one knows how the ICE pulses on and off, whether there's a limp home mode that discharges the battery more than 30% SOC, etc. The killer conditions will be driving up a long steep incline with a heavy load.
Yay GM!
08/11/09
08/11/09
While a single-speed turbodiesel would be way more efficient, there's still serious adoption problems with diesel in The States.
Electric and hybrid tech have positive buzz these days, and I don't think GM wanted to risk being to "weird" with the Volt by going with diesel.
Long-term, there's nothing to suggest that you couldn't run an oil-burner in place of the gas motor.
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If GM can stick with it, this tech platform could be a killer long-term solution.
08/11/09
We coulda shoulda woulda, read Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, the Clinton-era program in which all three domestics developed 80mpg diesel hybrid prototypes around 2000.
"On track to achieving its objectives, the program was cancelled by the Bush Administration in 2001 at the request of the automakers, with some of its aspects shifted to the much more distant FreedomCAR program."
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... means it works for a lot of people. Choice is good.
t doesn't make much sense to own a vehicle if it is going to cost you more in electricity charges than if you were driving on gas
But it's cheaper to power a car by electricity than by gasoline. It'll take ~13 kWh to fill your Volt to go 40 miles... go look at your electricity bill to see the price you pay per kWh (and it might be cheaper at night).
GM hasn't given the Volt's "highway mpg after battery has depleted to 30% charge". It may well be worse than the Prius' 48mpg highway, but the crossover point at which the Volt costs more to run than other cars will probably be after you drive for hundreds of miles each day.
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Now, cars like the Volt (that generate more electricity as needed) could work, as could a standardised system of battery replacement/charging as we have now for small propane tanks.
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If you use the car to drive to work each day, and own it for ten years, that is 2,000 working days. a $2 charge every night, then means that you will have increased your electric bill by $4,000, or $400 each year, Or around $35 additional per month - assuming that the price of electricity does not fluctuate.
Don't forget that the additional purchase price of a Volt is money spent up front, and likely financed. So that $15,000 winds up costing you more like $30,000. Plus you can't invest that money, which might also have doubled in value over ten years, so you're more like $60,000 down in your opportunity cost over the life of the car.
08/11/09
Lots of folks playing fast and loose with numbers here... so I might as well too :D
[gm-volt.com]
states that the first 40 miles should cost ~ $0.80 with average electrical rates.
Assume a new car gets 35mpg and an average gasoline cost of $2.80 ([www.fuelgaugereport.com]) then it would cost $3.20.
So energy costs for the Volt after 150,000 miles (assuming never using the ICE) is $3000, vs $12,000 for a car getting 35mpg or a difference of $9000.
The points about the time-value of money are correct... but no way would it amount to $60,000 under a reasonable interest rates.
Today, when gas is relatively cheap, this car doesn't really make sense. In a couple of years when the car costs $30,000 and gas is $4/gal then it does.
08/11/09
08/11/09
Only New England and Hawaii pay $0.20 a kWh. DOE says "The average retail price of electricity for April 2009 was 9.69 cents per kilowatthour (kWh)"
Regardless of the math, all car features cost money; "less gas/less-polluting" is about the only one that's partly offset by reduced operating costs. It would be nice if this one feature magically paid for itself, but economics suggests that will never happen.
The bigger point is anyone who buys any car other than a used Geo Metro XFi is a moran, economically speaking. Every car fan should be wearing a dunce cap with a $ sign on it.
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08/11/09
drive 30 miles to work - plug in with portable unit
drive 30 miles home - plug in at home = unlimited city MPG
drive it on the highway and drain the battery in 40 miles, switch to gas and you got your +/- 43MPG
with a combined of 250 MPG!!! give or take a MPG
clever, very clever
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Generating power in a power plant still requires coal or oil. 80% of all power in the US is generated by Oil burning.
Clean diesels can regularly achieve 70+ MPG in Europe having far more range than the Prius and Volt together.
I bet when all is said and done, the energy used to *create* a Volt (manufacturing every component) and the energy used by the car (and the cost and pollution of generating it) when added to a given service life of the vehicle is FAR GREATER than that of a comparable vehicle with a clean diesel.
If you were to make pure electric vehicles and all your power to make them and feed them was from a green source (hydro dams, solar, wind, wave, etc...) then you would have a point.
Anyone suckered into buying one of these will never, ever recoup the investment for a comparable milage/pollution cost of ownership stand point.
One more tiddbit... As an example, if the State of Florida had 30% or less of electric plug in vehicles, their power grid would completely collapse due to power demand. Do you think other states are in better shape...? Think again.
08/11/09
So yeah, I'm right, you're wrong.
08/11/09
Also I think a Triple-Hybrid is also something that should be interesting in the future.
Electricity, petrol (diesel or gas), and hydrogen, since hydrogen can be centrally created as well, using (from what I understand), electricity and water (again infrastructure/delivery we already have implemented)
One thing all of this doesn't bring into account, is the significantly higher drain on our electric grid to residential, in comparison to now.
Kind of like how the mobile infrastructure for cellphones sucks balls but is usable. Significantly underestimating, and not planning ahead, utilities companies need to plan ahead, and invest, they will be critical to all of this.
Also investments and planning ahead by individual consumers in generating power at the source, via solar panels and as alpha mentions heat recovery.
My next house WILL have solar at the least, if not put in by me, it will already be there by the builder. And if I don't move from my house for some time I will invest in solar, and increase the value of my home.
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Please note I am specifying thermal efficiency.
The largest diesel engine in the world PEAKS at 51.6% thermal efficiency.
08/11/09
Now a certain previous poster commented on oil being the source of 80%, which is ridiculously wrong, unless he happens to run primarily on a gas generator out back of his house (neither coal or natural gas are oil based, but so he probably meant fossil fuel burning). A slightly more reliable poster up a ways posted a DoE figure of around 50% coal nationwide (for me its 60), 15% NG (me 20%) and the rest Nuc/Renewables (I don't remember their efficiency, but it is not enough to move the national average outside of the 21-25% range just yet).
So, optimal efficiency in the now should be roughly in the 23-24% range for BEV, and ones TDi gets 20% say.
...Yep, Alpha, you're still right, and will continue to be more so as power plants shift away from fossil fuels.
08/11/09
Power plants are more efficient than ICEs. There's no way around that fact.
08/11/09
Yes, Power plants are more efficient. But not all achieve 96% efficiency.
Many do have excelent scrubbers but not many have all the heat recovery they could, so they are not 96%.
Clean Diesels on the other hand, usually reach 45% or better efficiency from the theoretical 75%.
My point is that the energy used to create a car (such as the Volt) and operating it during it's lifetime and disposal after, might be equal if not greater than a much cheaper comparable car with clean diesel technology.
It's the same as Solar cells. Zero pollution in power generation, but the pollution to create them, maintain them clean (water usage, soaps, cleaning aids and the pollution they create to make them) and disposal of cells after their average 10 yr life span DOES NOT clearly justify the cost of implementation for the average home owner. They are good for some applications, but not the average user.
Same thing as Hydrogen for cars. Hydrogen is not a fuel, it is a currency. You need to make hydrogen to burn it. It's not a fuel source by itself.
08/11/09
And as noted above, I was off on my numbers. The UT power plant operates at ~73+% efficiency. I need to check my report on it to see where I got the 96% from. I was sure I'd seen it somewhere. That may include the heat extracted to heat water for the campus as well.
You're right though, solar cells and and hydrogen are typically not efficient for many applications.
08/11/09
All studies of lifecycle energy use but the laughable CNW Marketing report "conclude the vast majority of energy is consumed during "vehicle operations," with lesser quantities used during materials acquisition, fabrication, and vehicle disposal." Besides the WWF report, there's a list of independent reports in the footnotes on p.3 of this report.
Re: solar PV pollution it hasn't been true for over 10 years. From 1999 "the energy pay-back time was found to be 2ยท5-3 years for present-day roof-top installations"
So you add in cleaning aids and the pollution to make them
Are you serious? A bucket of soapy water and a reusable cloth vs digging up and burning tons of fossil fuels?
Re: average 10 yr life span
You're living in the past. Here's the warranty from BP Solar for my 170W PV modules
"This warranty assures 80% of minimum warranted power output after 25 years of service, and 90% of the minimum warranted power output at 12 years."
Cite your sources.
08/11/09
The car energy lifecycle footnotes are in [www.pacinst.org]
;
the solar PV lifecycle analysis is
[www3.interscience.wiley.com]
08/11/09
can i figure that out by 120V x 6-to-8 hours, or something like that?
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08/11/09
If as Wikipedia claims, the ICE keeps the battery from depleting below 30% and the recharge takes it back up to 85% SOC, and if you assume a charging efficiency of 95%, recharging the Volt's 16 kWh battery pack takes 16 x (.85 - 30) / .95 = 9.2 kWh. (That would cost me $1.11 at PG&E's summer all-electric rate.)
I'm sure GM is still tinkering with the details as they learn about long-term battery characteristics.
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