They aren't building more of these because of cost and environmental
concerns
What's going to happen when MORE people turn to the ELECTRON to
power their car?
... ...
The cost per kWh will go up, as will EVERYONE'S electric bill:
Posted on 08/11/2009 5:35:29 AM PDT by navysealdad
Assuming you plug it in every night, it would never use any gasoline.
Of course, that’s not free but as far as gasoline goes, it is infinite mpg, since you’d never use any.
On the other hand, if you never plugged it in, after the battery went flat, it would use gasoline all of the time and you’d have a 60mpg car lugging around a heavy dead battery pack.
Basically, if you buy a Volt, you will need to plug it in every night for it to make any sense to own it.
My wife's hybrid Mercury Mariner goes about 20 miles on level roads mostly on battery power especially in stop and go driving. However, battery power drops off sharply in cold weather ...about a 20% reduction in gas mileage at temperatures below 35 degrees. I would assume the Volt will have the same problem.
My question is what type of electrical hook up will consumers have to provide for this recharging? If the Volt is parked in a public garage then what? How long can the vehicle sit uncharged before becoming undrivable?
I hardly see the Volt as being a big seller.
As long as you put gasoline in the tank, you need never plug it in.
Of course you would be inefficient, but not stranded.
per gallon of electrons?
Let’s see that thing make it more than 3 miles with the heater, lights, and rear window defroster running in February. That thing will be running on gasoline the entire time. 230MPG.....yeah right.
I hope it will have more zip than the Prius which I am told is an absolute dog on any steep hill.
Two important questions to all:
What is the estimated “life” of the battery?
What is the estimated replacement/disposal price of the battery?
Thanks!
Make no mistake, this is an awesome car.
Two drawbacks:
* Government Motors (sigh)
* $40k price tag would buy LOTS of gas.
You can recharge it via any household plug(!). I was seriously thinking of getting one before the government bailout.
I could go to work and back without a single drop of gas! I wanted to have our parking lot at work have a couple of plugs where you could (for maybe $1) charge your car for the 8 hours you are at work. It’d be sweet.
I think it came out to about $0.40 (40 cents for those in Rio Linda) to recharge the batteries according to GM. For $1.00 a day I could drive to and from work. That’d be $20 a month!
I’d spend about $40 a week in gas right now.
But that $40k price tag? I could buy a whole lot of gas for that. If the price hit $29k I’d start to get interested. No sooner.
But this is one very sweet drivetrain. Serial hybrids like this one are the way to go.
Even in electric mode the system is not 100% efficient. The batteries get warm and so do the motors. A smart design would channel this waste heat into the cabin and through defrosters when desired.
The Volt is driveable with a discharged battery. If the engine is running, then the battery is dead and it will stay dead until you plug it in.
Remember, the onboard gen will not recharge the battery pack above the 30% design level. Only plugging it in will recharge the battery to it’s “full” 80% design level.
If you went on a 640 mile trip in the Volt, the last 600 miles would be with a fully discharged battery pack.
Hey! Do you work for the MSM? Taking things totally out of context to make your point! =)
The Volt is a serial hybrid, essentially just a tiny little gas generator recharging an all-electric car.
So to answer your question: "And where does the electricity come from that charges those batteries?"
It comes from "a tiny little gas generator". ergo, same place it does now, just more efficently.
Now, as for your grid suggestion, you forget that capacity is fixed, load is not. Total capacity available has to meet peak afternoon (in summer) or morning (in winter) load, after that, the gap between load and capacity gets very, very wide. The potential for electric cars to utilize all that wasted night recharging resource is why some power companies are eager for their development.
The battery’s design life is 10 years/150K miles. This is why they keep it between 30% and 80% charged.
We don’t know the cost of the pack or disposal yet.
I heard it was $60,000.
"Not very long," and "expensive!"
They certainly won't last more than the optimistically advertised 10 years, but should last at least 2 years. And they will be expensive.
Makes it even more convincing and compelling that the Volt will become a hot mainstream every-American-has-one item.
They aren't building more of these because of cost and environmental
concerns
What's going to happen when MORE people turn to the ELECTRON to
power their car?
So if we all go out and buy one of these, what is our government going to do about the short fall from the huge drop in gasoline TAX revenue? Nothing is free my friends.
Lets see how far that POS goes in February.
Parked and plugged in, in my driveway at -20 degrees F
22 miles one way to work.
6:30 departure time.
Are you suggesting that the car be kept heated while parked outdoors and plugged in?
Kind of like a printer. Printer costs $29.00 refill cartridge
$39.00
“Energy isn’t free, no matter how pretty it’s packaged. Too bad so many people can’t comprehend that simple fact.”
A lot of people want to believe in “magic crystals.”
Energy conversion is a dirty, dangerous business and it offends their delicate sensibilities.
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