Posted on 08/11/2009 5:35:29 AM PDT by navysealdad
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Chevrolet Volt, GM's electric car that's expected to go on sale in late 2010, is projected to get an estimated 230 miles per gallon, the automaker will announce Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Right. Power is power, and it has to come from somewhere. If it doesn’t come from fossil fuels, it’ll come from the generation of electricity, which in itself takes power to make.
Energy isn’t free, no matter how pretty it’s packaged. Too bad so many people can’t comprehend that simple fact.
My dentists has an H2, that big sorta real Hummer thing. He does the same dance ...
Unless, they get their electrons from nukes, I won’t touch one.
What a fraud. I suppose the electricity used to power the batteries for the first 40 miles comes from pixie dust.
Who is making this engine ? Honda ? Who is really making the car ? Honda ?
I had a CRX HF that touched 60 mpg, in 1991 with no batteries. This news isn’t news. The cars are being released with voodoo math, veiled claims and as usual since the early 90s - I’m sure it’s a different car altogether.
Even Saturn stopped re-badging the Opel Vectra. They don’t care anymore. US Car companies haven’t been “U.S.” at all in years.
Farce.
At a top speed of 45 MPH??
GM will need *and will get* the big tax incentives required to move these cars, in the interest of "saving the planet" from the phantom menace of climate change.
I don't believe the compromises the Volt requires are outweighed by the potential but *as yet unconfirmed* overall decrease in operating costs as compared to an efficient IC alternative.
To be fair, the Volt was designed and built before the Communists took over.
The Volt is a serial hybrid, essentially just a tiny little gas generator recharging an all-electric car.
It's much better than a Prius parallel hybrid---a combination of the worst of both worlds----which has to have a heavy transmission which can transfer electric power or gas power to the road: but the electric car half can't produce enough power for acceleration, and the gas half has to drag the unused batteries around when it's running.
Parallel hybrids are a ridiculous compromise.
The generator in the serial hybrid can even be more efficient than an ultra-lean turbo diesel, because it only has to run at a single, tuned RPM for maximum efficiency and minimum emissions. The ultra-lean diesels run very hot and create very high NOx emissions (don't ever believe someone who tells you there's a free lunch out there from the Germans, if only big oil would let them in....it ain't big oil, it's BIG EPA who won't let the ultra-lean diesels in!!!)
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.
All that said, I can't buy a Volt without money going into Obama's criminal UAW machine....so GM is dead to me too.
What a sad, sad confluence. Imagine being an engineer there who brought this thing to fruition.
Yes, if you end up travelling on mostly gasoline. I think I would end up doing that, on average, about a dozen times a year.
But that Honda spewed out way more Nox than a new Honda does.
All for a lovely sticker tag of $40K +........
There’s no reason to leave the Volt’s engine running while parked. Why would you do that?
Obama will subsidise it to make it a “success”.
$10K tax credit if you take one off our hands!
Batteries are for starting engines, flashlights and portable radios. There is no reasonable transport battery out there.
The complexity of the equipment for battery powered cars to work, makes it a ridiculous exercise in ‘just because you can, doesn’t mean you should’ engineering.
If the government financed stupidity, we would have lots of it. Come to think of it, isn’t that the problem?
The breakthrough in this stuff is going to be that EESTOR super capacitor, and that should be out late this year or early next.
Roadtrip beyond 40mi battery range, with no plug handy.
The car needs battery power to move, so if you don't recharge... it won't.
You get it.
What a sad, sad confluence. Imagine being an engineer there who brought this thing to fruition
At least one Freeper I taked with off line was on the program.
I know someone on the program, but naturally talks in generalities to my technical questions. When I see them, we often talk about the industry from a macro large fly over view. A very sharp, sharp engineer.....
Spot on on Diesels.
Go over to GreenCarCongess and look at Yesterday's Post on Ricardo's and Ford's Ethanol Direct Injection efforts because odf the technical hurdles that Diesels still posess from an emissions standpoint.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/08/sidi-20090810.html#more
IMHO opinion Diesels are dead, It is just that the diesel heads just don't know it yet......
Sounds like getting it out of his hands would be like pulling teeth.
Wonderful post, thank you.
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