Posted on 08/11/2009 5:35:29 AM PDT by navysealdad
“The small engine is used only to generate electricity for battery charging. when you are away from home or parked at a restaurant for lunch, in order to recharge the battery and get 250mpg you have to leave to engine running while parked.
In that case you get 0mpg, how do we calculate the average millage then ?”
You plug in the car overnight to charge the battery. That’s why it burns less gas.
The gas engine comes into play only to extend the range past 40 miles.
First forty miles comes from home grown coal, hydro or nuclear. After forty miles then you have to start using tyrant-financing gasoline.
What’s wrong with coal?
Sure, tell the people what they want to hear so they will give you another chance\, right? NO THANKS!
Government Motors can go jump off cliff.
Its real power source is electricity generated by burning hydrocarbons in the form of coal.
Its real power source is electricity generated by burning hydrocarbons in the form of coal.
Are you kidding?
Zenn started selling cars with Eestor PSU’s in late 2007, or at least that’s what they said in early 2007.
Sorry, I’ve been watching Eestor since about 2006, every year, they are going to ship product later that year. We’ll see if they keep the promise in 2009.
What about air conditioning? Here in Texas if you are driving in the Summer your air conditioner is on.
I don’t know what you are talking about.
I would like to reduce my gasoline usage, why you ask?
1. Importing oil, exports our wealth.
2. Importing oil props up anti-American zealots.
3. I would like to save a few bucks on my daily 90 mile commute.
I don’t care about GM. They made their bed, then set fire to it and made us pay for it. I will probably never buy another GM car.
I am interested in new technology and willing to look at it with a non jaded eye. Serial hybrid technology is a great way to build a car. Without the political BS about the environment, it would be built with a battery about 1/10 the size, which would decrease the weight and cost while getting all the benefits of the serial hybrid design.
Remember that every train you see is diesel electric drive for a reason.
And if someone made a car the size of a 63 Caddy, that got 80 mpg, there’s no damn way it would be allowed on the market.
A pure electric car would be a poor choice in extreme heat and cold. The fact it has a gasoline generator means that you can run AC or a heater.
That’s too bad because I would buy that car.
I am all for the technology advancements and benefits, however, I am DONE with GM, period!
People I’ve spoken with who’ve seen the thing at MIT tell me it’s real enough, and that the only question has been manufacturing it in quantity. I’d be surprised if we don’t see it this year.
I hope so. I just read a couple of updates on Eestor this afternoon. Zenn is moving the release date of their Eestor powered car to 2010. Just as I feared.
I’ve been following supercaps, SOFC and battery tech for most of this decade. I believe we are on the cusp of a dramatic change in how we move ourselves around, I just hope I’m still alive to see it.
The President has a free electricity plan too?
Since he’s blocking all new energy production, I assume the electricity will come from skittles that unicorns poop.
It is a damn Shame we are not building Nuclear Power plants like gangbusters.
“Now the 40 miles has to be recharged, and 230MPG is stupid, but this is how it’s going to be with govt run companies advertising themselves.”
Honestly, I don’t understand all the negativity about the 230mpg rating. EVERY vehicle gets an MPG rating that makes assumptions about the driving habits of the owners. That seems very reasonable to me. MPG should not be measured over the span of any single trip, but over the span of all the driving you do over a year period. The FACT is that the majority of drivers drive LESS than 40 miles per day, but have occasional longer trips. Therefor, if we simply divide the number of miles driven during a year by the number of gallons consumed, the result is a VALID MPG number. In the case of a Prius, that number might be 50mpg, for a Suburban 14mpg ... and for the Volt 230mpg. Heck, there will be Volt owners that get 1,000mpg because they ALWAYS drive less than 40 miles per day, except for one 500 mile vacation per year, and therefor needed to buy only 10 gallons of gas when they drove 10,000 miles during the year !
There is nothing bogus about the MPG number here. It is no more “stupid” than using the 50MPG Hwy number for a Honda Fit when the average driver REALLY spends 90% of their time in stop-n-go driving and will actually get HALF that MPG.
All the other issues of the government ruining the credit markets, which in turn ruined the auto industry, and the Feds jumping in to save the UAW rather than allowing GM to BK and reorganize, are SEPARATE issues.
True...but only if GALLONS of gas are the only fuel used!
With Volt, the first 40 miles they use in this equation are "cheated" from charging plugged in overnight.
Ok, sure. If we want to play this way, then the EV-1 electric-only vehicle got INFINITE MPGs!
I think some kind of new metric beyond MPG is going to have to be created for these serial hybrids, and of course, all-electrics as they begin to show up.
If for nothing else, for efficiency comparison. If they up the battery capacity to 45 miles, then by this current definition, you only burn
MPG = M / G = 230 = 50 / G ... G = 50/230
So this 50 miles test uses 0 gallons for 40 miles, then 0.217 gallons in the last 10 miles. That means, really, the gas engine is getting 46 MPG when it's running.
So suppose that they just increase the battery capacity to squeeze 45 miles out of it. Then you only use 0.1085 gallons in 50 miles, uh... 460 MPG!
See the problem? Eventually MPG has no relative meaning anymore. I would like to know how much the electricity charge costs really factor in overnight.
Let's guess it's a 15A/115V plug.
Let's use Chevy's number below that "8kWh will get you 40 miles."
Let's allow for the low electric prices and use $1 (btw, utilities add surcharges for fuel, so when gas goes up so will electricity.)
At $3 gal, let's just say 1/3 equivalent gallon. So let's say that's 120 Equivalent MPG. The average of those more real numbers is STILL 105.2MPG, which is very impressive and informative about the relative efficiency.
All of those numbers are true. As long as people understand what the number means, all is good.
There are only two real reasons for people to even care about a mpg number — how much will it cost me to drive ‘X’ miles, and how does it affect our need to buy oil from foreign sources.
Very little electricity is generated from foreign fuels, and the cost per mile for the all-electric miles driven is much less than the gasoline miles driven.
So I am happy to see the 230 mpg rating being advertised for the Volt.
As long as we all used the same fuel (gas) then MPG was a universal comparison from Smart Cars to pickups, and it didn't change during oil price spikes.
If I got 12mpg and you got 24mpg, you did twice as good for the same trip no matter what the price of gas was.
But with mixed fuels, the Volt method breaks that comparison.
Even if we try to choose MP$, now that measure is locked into the daily price fluctuations of gas and electric (electric grid prices are seasonal too).
Anyway, if the Volt method is going to set a trend----where they IGNORE the total fuel cost, then I expect to see in no time astronomical claims of 1000's of MPG, and the whole thing will be useless.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.