Posted on 10/19/2010 4:28:35 PM PDT by Kaslin
I noticed that too - decent city mileage, but highway appears to be rather poor. The VW Jetta TDI Diesel are getting around 40-45 real-world combined MPG in a decent-sized car with great driveability.
I suppose that if you wanted a small runabout city car to park next to your larger vehicle, this might fit the bill. But, there are a few present-day conventional gas-powered small cars that can do the same, without the complexity of the hybrid - the Ford Fiesta, for example.
It’s interesting to note that the small, light cars aren’t as small and light as they used to be. This is due to the safety nazis pushing side air bags and all that crap, whether we want them or not. I’d love to see today’s engines in a 10-year-old car that weighs 400-500 pounds less.
The Ford Escape is one example - back in 2003 which was the model year I owned, they weighed around 3200-3300 pounds. A couple of years later, they were in the 3600-3700 pound range, due to required safety gear. That extra weight takes its toll on mileage.
Oh HELL YEAH!
And there is no such thing as “sluggish response” to the throttle, either!
"I think we're gonna need a bigger Volt."
Apparently good intentions are plenty in your eyes.
Personally, I don’t care if the Volt is the best car on wheels. It is produced by a company who donated all of its bad debt to the American taxpayer. This same company was then wrapped up as a gift to the labor unions. These same labor unions are now looking to cash out, exchanging my tax dollars for money in their pockets.
GM and Chrysler are dead to me.
You make a good shill, though. I have to give you that.
truthguy, are you saying that IBD lied about the true MPG in testing? I don’t care how gee-whiz the technology is; it’s the MPG which matters, and that MPG sucks and is nothing like what was claimed for this car.
You can spin it any way you want, but you can’t change the fact that the car is a fraud.
How come there is a charger if they went with a small gas engine? Why not just use that to replenish the batteries?
Ping
And after paying a premium of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, you're stuck with a car where replacing the batteries when they wear out will cost thousands or tens of thousands. Here in AZ, conventional lead-acid batteries fail in about 2 years, and I know they're trying to develop more durable battery technology, so it's not entirely apples to apples, but any battery will wear out eventually. I don't want to have to in effect replace the engine on my car every few years. My truck is 15 years old, has 200K miles, and is showing no sign of slowing down.
Everything associated with the Imam’s Regime and this thug Congress is fraud, don’t ya think? Proven fact!
Don't know if it's an urban legend or not, but I heard a story about a group of very young government weenies meeting with car execs and engineers about car design. Well, the car guys told the goobers that what they wanted to do was "against the laws of physics". The goobs immediately started scratching in notebooks to research whatever law this was and get it repealed!
You should be happy to learn that GM is using the test track at Yuma for their Volt testing and is confident that AZ drivers will get at least 10 years from their Volt battery.
The primary benefit that I can see of electric cars is that it will reduce the American demand for Saudi oil. Let’s burn American coal dug by American workers to supply the electricity needed for these cars!
The battery is good for about 40 miles. The engine will get you further. There goal is for the commuter that can recharge overnight and not need the engine on a normal basis.
Don't foget nuclear.
That IS better than I expected. Still not good enough for me to want one.
Ahh! Nothing like the feeling of feeding liberal cars nuclear electricity!
And gasify coal! That's what the Seffricans did when the rest of the world was trying to tell THEM what to do.
South Africa: If the rest of the world is unhappy with you, employ a shitload of engineers, compete with technological innovation, and tell everyone to mind their own damn business.
USA: If [you imagine] the rest of the world is unhappy with you, elect Barack Obama, flip over on your back, and bow to every tin pot dictator you can find.
now youre sounding like a gubmint motors shill...FoMoCo was slashing and reorganizing and has turned it around the hard way...gm and chrysler were runnin along dumpin millions on green while probing for bailouts...
the tech will come when the market needs it...IF we were producing our oil, we wouldnt even be talkin about golf carts for commuter vehichles...
You do well to mention the battery wearing down, and that’s why I am fully for going into capacitor development, capacitors, as you may have experienced with a self-charging LED flashlight or hopefully were able to save a life with portable defibrilators, are different from batteries in being able to accumulate charge (Coloumbs) faster than batteries, as well as wearing down quite gradually over time. EStorr’s (Texas-based battery producer)promise may not have come true, but capacitors could be promising in many ways. Overall, I believe that that capacitors may be something worth pursuing right now, given how much we’ve spent on developing just the chemical batteries.
Ahh! Nothing like the feeling of feeding liberal's cars nuclear electricity!
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