Here are the rules that it uses - the "new EPA" rules that haven't been passed yet. Figure a 25 mile round-trip commute. Figure that the Volt will be able to run on pure electric for that 25-mile commute. Use miles per dollar at a specific price point for electricity (7.5 cents per KW hour IIRC?) Plug in vehicle overnight.

This is the MPG equivalent they will be using. This is why the Volt will do so well.

The Nissan Leaf is more like Nissan's version of the plug-in Prius and will reportedly go further on a charge and when using the all-gas portion of the fuel spectrum will also get better mileage. The Volt is about the size of a Malibu so don't expect huge efficiency ratings there.

My bill says I pay 15 cents for each additional kW hr, so that'd cut it to 115 mpg for my area. There's a small initial part that's at a lower rate, but pretty much everybody with a refrigerator exceeds it.

An American company releases a marginal product prompting Japanese companies to produce much better ones. Yep, definitely sounds like modern automotive capitalism. :p

Whatever gets the product to the customer at the right price, is a success as far as I'm concerned.

What product? A Chevy Volt.

The Volt always seems to be just another year away, year after year.

The efficiency of the generated electricity and the means by which it is generated seems to be lost in the equation, intentionally.

Last winter I was driving for 2.5 cents a mile in fuel cost, in a car that cost 25% of the price of a new Volt, that does not exist to be bought.

The 230 MPG is only for the 40 mile all electric range. After that you see it drop to 40 MPG, or less.

Maybe it will cost less to operate an all electric car, until you have to replace the battery, which would buy me 180,000 miles worth of fuel. Hybrids are much more complicated that conventional vehicles.

Also look at the depreciation on any current hybrid when its odometer is reading 150,000 miles.

Lithium batteries are the current rage. Consider that fact that they have a rating of 20 KWH, but only half of that is usable.

My last computer lost 35% of the battery capacity after 3 years. You want to buy a 10k battery every few years? The deterioration means less range, so the max range drops as soon as the battery starts to deteriorate, maybe before 2 years you 40 mile range is 28 miles.

I like the Leaf, but here is something you should try. Put just enough gas in your car for a 100 mile range. Every time you need to refill the car you must wait 8+ hours before you can drive it again.

Today I drove 100 miles. Could I make that in any all electric car that cost less than $30k today?

The Echo at 53 MPG is less than 5 cents a mile at today's gas prices here.

When the electric car becomes something I can buy and drive, they way I drive a car today, at a price that is competitive, I would be the first to consider one, but the real cost comparison is not even close today.

We are still decades away from electric cars becoming cost competitive, and that is assuming battery technology advances at a much greater pace than it has in the last 150 years.

regards
gary

Other points that are ignored.

Adding a 10 KW daily demand from every household in the country to the electric grid, even more form two car families. That power comes from the present mix of generation ability, but when peak demand becomes continuous then the inefficiency and pollution expands exponentially.

Do you think the govt is going to give the electric car owner a free ride on highway taxes. The comparison and claim of 230 MPG takes neither of these factors into consideration. We calculate mileage INCLUDING significant federal and state gasoline taxes. My fuel taxes are close to 20% of my cost per mile quotes. Theirs is 0!

Do you take those taxes out of your mileage calculations?

Is the much higher rate your utility company will charge you when peak demand disappears into the 24-7 daily demand of an all electric fleet. You will see electric rates double at least.

Turbine powered electric generators are only 35% efficient at energy conversion, but the fuel they consume is not a part of this calculation. The emissions are not either.

Taking the other side of the argument, you could easily state ,truthfully, that your electric car would actually be running on coal. A significant amount of current electric production is from coal, and that percentage increases as demand increases. I live just a few miles from a nuclear power plant, so I guess I could claim my energy is carbon free and go buy an electric car.

The problem is when my monthly kilowatt usage doubles or trebles using my electric car. Someone else will have to get their power from another non nuclear power plant, and that means basically one of three choices.

Hydroelectric-great power source-but the greens hate it for the environmental damage.

Turbine powered plants-35% efficient with plenty of pollution.

Coal fired plants- carbon monsters.

Finding unbiased truth these days is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Reading this kind of crap (230 MPG claims) is about the same as me claiming my Insight gets better mileage than that, by only claiming the energy consumption is calculated after the losses of the Internal Combustion engine. So since my engine is only 35% efficient then my mileage should be 3 times what it currently is. Running my car in a specific cycle of my choice it would be 230 MPG as well, but the dishonesty in such a statement should be obvious to all of us.

regards
gary

One of the "upsides" to your downsides, however, is that even though you'd be adding considerable demand to the electric grid, much of the recharging could be done in the overnight (non-peak usage) hours.

And in the off-topic category, one of the things Obama has mentioned is to increase nuclear electric generation. I live a few miles from a nuclear plant which was originally designed to have two reactors, but right now only has one which was completed (due to cost overruns for legal reasons due to huge protests). Obama said that he'd like to see the second reactor completed, and I support this. (Of course he said this several months ago, and he's probably forgotten by now)

Of course I'd like to see some intelligence added to the "carbon" discussion, there are different types of "carbon" - some worse than others (i.e. carbon monoxide vs. carbon dioxide, "ash/soot" carbon which is basically emitted as fine dust which settles harmlessly back to the soil, etc.).

-Bob C.

I think turbines are much more efficient than that in plant installations, I'm thinking more like 80%.. there's no weight penalty so they just keep adding stages to get every erg out.

Okay, 60% in combined cycle, up to 90% with cogeneration....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_tur...cal_generation

The thing to remember about electric motors though, is you can switch them on and off and they can work at peak efficiency all the time. So... if an avid hypermiler gets 70 mpg out of a 60KW gasoline motor from driving in "linear momentum hybrid" mode all the time, at low BSFC burns, he might be getting all 35% of the maximum practical efficiency out of that motor. Now, with about 20% lost in charging the battery and 20% lost at the electric motor, a 60KW electric would be about 65% efficient from energy input, so the same hypermiling should nearly double the maximum efficiency to just about 130mpg... regen braking will be less efficient than rolling freely (But is better than friction braking) should reduce the extra efficiency by about 40% in an EPA gas-brakes-gas-brakes-gas test. Which I make to be about 106mpg all electric...

Now if we take a 30KW electric, we might be at 212ish all electric... dunno what size motor is in the Volt but if it's up to 40kW they might actually be close to the truth on all electric mpg equivalent, if they get good efficiency.... but then of course that plummets when the IC kicks in.... Although I would presume they'll use a modified cycle for that and get 40-45% efficiency out of it, and get about half of that back at the wheels (-20% to convert it, -20% to charge the battery with it, -20% to use it in the motor)