The New Chevy VOLT

[YooperDick]

There may be one or two Yoopers willing to spend $40,000 for a new VOLT to get to the post office in town. My question is, does anyone know how are they heated? It gets a little cold up here once in a while.

 

[ionbeam]

Chevy just says 'climate control and single zone climate control' and offers heated seats as an option. It comes standard with rear window defroster and AC.

The on-board 80 hp generator runs on premium fuel.

 

[tmc]

If it's anything like the Prius, there will be an electric heater in play to supplement the ICE dependent heater core.

 

[wfooshee]

I just don't understand the Volt at all. To run past its pathetic 50-mile all-electric range, it has to run the generator, and burns fuel to do so at a road-tested rate of about 30 or 35 miles per gallon.

There are a whole bunch of cars that get 35 mpg for a **** lot less than 40 grand!!!!!!!

OT, Don't know nuthin' 'bout how it's heated, but electric heat has to affect its charging system (and range) by some amount.

 

[tmc]

True, but there are a crap-ton of people that drive <25 miles each way to work every day and will use little to no fuel in those activities.

I know that I am filling up the Pious only once a month if I don't go out of town with it.........

 

[cruppelt]

Yep, The Volt is meant as a commuter first and family sedan is a far second. I really like the idea of having a purely electric for going to work and back (50 miles would easily be far enough for me), but having more range in case something else comes up. If the price tag would be any lower I'd jump on getting one myself.

You can achieve the same with a newer Prius by swapping a bigger battery pack in (lot's of service companies do that around the country nowadays), but I'd really like to support the one US company trying hard to make this work. I am hoping very much that prices will come down in another 2 to 3 years or so when the battery packs and other electrical components reach higher manufacturing volumes.

You could also get a purely electrical Nissan Leaf with a range of better than 100 miles for 10 grand less. But I for one would prefer to have a car with a backup power plant just in case.

 

[ionbeam]

Plug-in cars. Make mine a Tesla.

 

[Moosehead]

If I go electric it will be with one of these

electric motorcycle

 

[juniorfjr]

I know not buying gasoline is great, and the hybrids do a great job in a local enviroment. But with a plug in electric, who is paying for the volts. When we buy gas, it is metered and you pay accordingly. What I've seen about all the plug in stations they look to be at no charge. So we are converting coal or diesel into electricity and giving it away. Seems to me, it would then make everyones elec bill higher to cover the loss. Where is the net gain?

 

[user 213]

I know not buying gasoline is great, and the hybrids do a great job in a local enviroment. But with a plug in electric, who is paying for the volts.

Often it is subsidized by the business owner(s) at that location. Some charging stations simply charge parking fees, ($7/hr at the Seattle Library). Others are metered and you pay for the electricity by volume or time, usually with some profit built in. It's cheaper to charge at home, but if you need a top off, or a 8 hour charge while you're at work, (on a 110v outlet), it's there. Availability will ramp up as demand does. If your employer suddenly started seeing 30 plug in electric cars in the lot, they would either ban charging, or figure out how to charge you for it!

When we buy gas, it is metered and you pay accordingly. What I've seen about all the plug in stations they look to be at no charge. So we are converting coal or diesel into electricity and giving it away. Seems to me, it would then make everyones elec bill higher to cover the loss. Where is the net gain?

It's not free, someone is paying for it. :lol: Many businesses believe it's a way to get customers to their door too, so they pay for it. Right now, that's not a big number, but yes, it's going to grow, and things will change as that happens. Oregon is installing Fast chargers that will take a car to 80% charge in 20-40 minutes at gas stations along the I-5 corridor. No word on cost to charge, but you can bet there will be a charge.

 

[ionbeam]

Edit to acknowledge cross post with OCfjr.

Right now the cost of electricity for a vehicle is simply the total amount of charging kilowatts multiplied by your utility rate. Electrical charging stations or charging docks at shops and business don't exist for mass electrical fueling infrastructure. When electrical fueling infrastructure rolls out there will have to be an electrical fuel tax, the equivalent to petroleum taxes for federal and local highway and roadway funding. At that time any price gap between the two fuel sources will close. The impetus for electrical vehicles will not be the cost of the fuel, it will have to be driven (so to speak) by other factors such. Many of these factors edge in a political and environmental direction so I will leave them out.

There are too many extremely complex factors to make an easy comparison of cost between electricity and crude oil based energy sources.

Wh = watt/hour; MJ = mega-joule; Fuel source = Natural Gas is not fair, most electricity is still produced by burning coal with both lower efficiency and higher emissions.

 

[charismaticmegafauna]

True, but there are a crap-ton of people that drive <25 miles each way to work every day and will use little to no fuel in those activities.
I know that I am filling up the Pious only once a month if I don't go out of town with it.........

Yea but..., that kind of operation, <25 miles each way to work every day, is operating the I.C. engine (alot) in the worst possible way (for efficiency) -- cold start-up. Especially, the 'honkin' V-8s Americans so love...

OTOH, an electric will just take folks to the post office in town with no warm-up.

Reminds me of visiting a friend in the Frozen North one winter and we were all piling into his wife's Corolla to go to town when I saw the big Ford crew-cab diesel sitting next to the garage. I said, "Why don't we take the truck?" He said, "Oh, if we would've wanted to use that -- I would have had to plug in the block-heater last week...!"

 

[na1g]

As mentioned, electrics help the local environment but that juice is being generated somewhere, maybe not in your neighborhood, but somewhere. How? oil, natural gas, hydro, nuclear power plants, all of which have some environmental cost. Wind and solar are such minor players right now that they aren't in the mix.

Being a dedicated skeptic, I'm waiting to see how the Volt, Leaf and others do in the cold, dark winters of the north country. If it's 5F outside, you are going to want heat. Probably a defroster, too. With nine hours of daylight you probably will be driving both to and from work in the dark so you'll want headlights. And just to add to the problem, batteries don't work so well in cold temperatures. I'm going to want to own a AAA franchise to go out to rescue all the folks with dead batteries. "But the salesman said I could go..."

If and when the infrastructure is in place to recharge millions of cars every day in the US, and it doesn't take 12 hours to do it, and we haven't just transferred the polution to somewhere else, then I'll get in line for an electric car. Who knows, maybe all that will happen before we run out of crude oil.

pete

It is what it is... or is it?

 

[NMRoadRunner]

Maybe It's just me, but 40K will buy a nice car and a whole lot of fuel, go alot farther and faster, and look good doing it. :yahoo: And what about the battery when it's spent in five years? Put it in your backyard and break out another 5K for the new one, again a whole lot of fuel money.

 

[NMRoadRunner]

And another thing! There is no real oil shortage. There is a reserve under North and south Dakota larger the the Saudi reserves 10 times, and don't forget off shore and Anwar in northern Alaska, Huge oil reserves. We're just sucking up theres first. :yahoo:

 

[HotRodZilla]

And as always, driving a car that uses electric produced from a coal and oil generated powerplant is no better than just burning fuel. It is probably worse.

Of course, the real problem is that there are just too many frigging people on this planet. Humans breed like cockroaches, and although we are smart enough to address the issue, we dance around it and pretend it does not exist. As a matter of fact, we promote it: John and Kate +8, 18( or is it 19 now) and Counting. It's ******* ridiculos for people to continue to produce that many chidren and expect that this planet will continue to sustain that type of growth.

All we're doing by creating environmentally friendly cars and energy saving devices is postponing the inevitable.

 

[FJRay]

And as always, driving a car that uses electric produced from a coal and oil generated powerplant is no better than just burning fuel. It is probably worse.

Of course, the real problem is that there are just too many frigging people on this planet. Humans breed like cockroaches, and although we are smart enough to address the issue, we dance around it and pretend it does not exist. As a matter of fact, we promote it: John and Kate +8, 18( or is it 19 now) and Counting. It's ******* ridiculos for people to continue to produce that many chidren and expect that this planet will continue to sustain that type of growth.

All we're doing by creating environmentally friendly cars and energy saving devices is postponing the inevitable.

+ 10,000 well said.

 

[user 213]

And as always, driving a car that uses electric produced from a coal and oil generated powerplant is no better than just burning fuel. It is probably worse.

Of course, So move closer to work and make fun of the people you know that commute stupid distances. I live 5 miles from work. Hell, I can walk if I have to. Ride the pedal bike sometimes in the nice weather. Took the bus for a while when on day shift. Driving is a convenience, not a necessity.

Well put Ionbeam. Nice graph too. :good:

 

[Bustanut joker]

And as always, driving a car that uses electric produced from a coal and oil generated powerplant is no better than just burning fuel. It is probably worse.

Of course, the real problem is that there are just too many frigging people on this planet. Humans breed like cockroaches, and although we are smart enough to address the issue, we dance around it and pretend it does not exist. As a matter of fact, we promote it: John and Kate +8, 18( or is it 19 now) and Counting. It's ******* ridiculos for people to continue to produce that many chidren and expect that this planet will continue to sustain that type of growth.

All we're doing by creating environmentally friendly cars and energy saving devices is postponing the inevitable.

Buy a *******.. *******!

Once again a forum member is trying to be logical :blink: