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Comments
http://www.motortrend.com/features/auto_news/2008/112_0809_2011_vw_golf_twin_dri- - - ve_preview/index.html
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/10/twin-drive-is-g.html
Huh? More maintenance than what? Doesn't your current car's engine "work daily"?
I understand there will be a program to run the engine occasionally, so even if you never drive past battery range you'll go through a tank a year.
That's essentially what the Prius 1.5L rates on the highway under the old EPA testing cycle. That's also what most drivers get in real life if conditions are perfect and speed is not too high.
50 mpg is very attainable with a combination of ICE and battery for an extended period....the current Prius is driving proof.
Essentially what GM has is a vehicle that will be equivalent to the Gen 3 Prius and prolly the new Insight for extended trips with no recharging. However it will also have the flexibility to be a gas-free vehicle for times around home ( or a recharging infrastructure ) where trips are short.
the vw engine would run after reaching 30 mph while the volt only kicks in after 40 miles driven. Therefore, the VW engine would run daily, while for a lot of people (me) the volt engine would run only a fraction of use days.
my current car isn't a Volt.
Not necessarily, if you look at other articles of golf twin drive, it has 82 hp electric motor that can move the car at highway speeds. If the trip is more than 30 miles, the ICE steps in around 30 mph (within the optimum efficiency range of ICE) to mazimize range.
However, it is ideal to use all the battery juice before the next recharge to the grid where the energy source is cheapest. That is why the integrated navigation comes into play to calculate to deplete the battery just in time for next recharge.
With battery depleted and the ICE being the sole motive force, the VW will likely beat the Volt in fuel efficinecy by a significant margin.
However, a current prius with Hymotion add-on lithium battery which is already in the market can run on pure EV up to 30 miles range of up to 52 mph. A more aggressive right foot will quickly summon the ICE for additional power. This thing is already in the market and a number of people (actual owners, not R&D staff) are driving them.
My understanding of that article is that the ICE will not be the sole motive force even after 30 miles. Acceleration up to 30 mph will still be provided by the electric motor. If the ICE is directly powering the electric motor up to this speed then that is no different from the Volt. Now once the speed get's past 30 then the ICE will be directly coupled to a one gear (high) transmission. I've driven small cars with small engines. If you shift them into high gear at 30 mph the acceleration is terrible and it's hard to believe it's all that efficient. Probably more electric motor assist going on here that eventually has to be returned by the ICE. In city driving I doubt this VW configuration will provide much, if any, better mileage than the Volt. After battery depletion.
With this single gear transmission what do you expect the rpms to be at 30 mph? Let's say around 1500. That means at 80 mph the engine would be turning at 4,000 rpms. It's hard to believe that using a single gear throughout this wide range represents efficiency. If it did you wouldn't have seen the evolution of automatic transmissions and CVTs resulting in more speeds that produced higher mpg ratings.
Remember, the twin drive has a simple start-stop system that can act as generator for low speed driving (series hybrid like the volt). Regarding RPM 1500-4000, you're probably at the ballpark but that's with the use of 1 L turbo gas engine.
I still stand by my assumption that once the battery is depleted, the VW will have a more fuel efficient arrangement.
Just like the depleted Volt, both will keep the charge + - 30%, get some juice on acceleration and give it back on steady speed or regenerative braking when slowing down.
The VW has the adventage of having a mechanical drive for better transmission efficiency from ICE.
The Volt has the advantage of having longer battery range by 10 miles.
Both are not yet on the market, the big question is how much will be the purchase price?
"The electric motor provides sufficient torque to get the car moving up to 30 mph, at which point the engine takes over with a single gear ratio roughly equivalent to top gear in a conventional car.."
That was from your second link. I don't know if other articles dispute this point. If it can get 30 all electric and better petrol mileage by a decent amount than a Volt thereafter, it is a very close Volt competitor..
This vehicle will probably weigh about the same as the Volt, which is estimated to be around 3200-3300 lbs. A vehicle this size with an 87 hp motor as it's sole source of power would have anemic performance. So I'm sure the ICE would have to supplement this power occasionally even during the first 30 miles, which would make it difficult to burn zero gas. I wonder how seamlessly this would work. Let's say your driving down the highway at 65 mph powered solely by the electric motor. Now you hit the accelerator to pass. The ICE, possibly cold, will have to start and get up to 3000+ rpms before it can provide additional power. There'd have to be a lag involved and I'm not to sure how good it would be for the ICEs longevity.
From the first link:
"The Golf Twin Drive's electric-only range is targeted at 30 miles."
So never mind. Though 30 EV does further limit the desirability...or where the bother (complexity and price) meets the utility.
There plenty of people in the Southeast who had a gas-free vehicle in recent days.
Unfortunately they couldn't go anywhere!
If I were in GM marketing, gas stations with "no gas" signs would certainly be part of my ads in that part of the country...
That is not correct. If the battery is low, the gasoline engine starts up and you can continue to drive the car -- you are just using expensive electricity generated by the gas engine, rather than cheap energy generated by the grid and then stored in the battery.
If you can't recharge from the grid, the Volt just needs gasoline in the tank like any other car.
The volt may be more or less efficient than other cars, but the idea that I can avoid sending my money to Iran, Putan or Chavez makes all the difference in the world to me. Most USA electricity is created by Coal (not too clean, but from the USA), natural gas (USA, Canada and Mexico) or nuclear. Even if I don't save any money, those options sound better to me. And remember, most of us would recharge our cars at night, when the grid isn't being overtaxed. So, there is not likely going to be the need to upgrade the grid anymore than we have to already.
Now, GM, how about building it really really well and not disappointing us who are willing to put our faith in you again? I'm game, if you are!
I suppose there will be a bailout.
I just wonder if lower gas prices will kill the viability of the Volt, and that will be the end of GM. Or, will they start to sell SUVs again and be able to make some money?
The Volt is a hatchback.
"From the non-enthusiast perspective, there's no way I'd buy any car of any brand at $40K. I'm someone who wants to spend as little as possible on my transportation, and a person shouldn't have to pay through the nose for several years just to save the Earth. The Earth belongs to low and middle-income people, too"
Congress has passed a $7500 tax credit on the Volt, it's a done deal. You may pay $40K up front but then you will get a big chunk of it back.
I expect early adopter types and well-to-do greenies will quickly snap up the available Volts and those who want cheap will just have to wait until the price comes down, like they did with plasma TVs and Blu-Ray players.
"Chevrolet is traditionally the poor man's (and woman's) car in that we get reasonable quality at a reasonable price."
For a number of years Chevrolet was the #1 "true luxury" brand... true luxury being defined as a vehicle with an MSRP over $40K. People don't have an aversion to paying $40K for a Chevrolet as long as it's a good one.
Huh? When?
What I find most interesting here is that there really hasn't been much news about BMW's EV program yet they seem like they'll be the first to have a sizeable test fleet here in the US. You listen to talk from GM and Toyota and they both seem to state that significant engineering hurdles are still left to be cleared before even 40 mile electric range can be offered.
The Volt isn't going to be a money maker for GM for quite some time, if ever. IMO they would have been far better off getting it on the road as soon as possible through a very limited number of leases like what BMW plans to do. Or what GM is doing with it's fuel cell Equinox. From a PR perspective it would have been valuable and you'd minimize your liability, After a couple years GM would have gathered a lot of real world data allowing them to work out the initial bugs and have a better sense of the battery pack's longevity before going into full production.
I think that's the kind of thing that got GM to this point in the first place
A: It’s clear the thing is going to cost many thousand dollars more than we had hoped for the first generation technology. So what do we do about that?
Initially there will be enough demand from rich people, so there won’t be a worry for the first year or two. But if we want to generalize the technology the price has to come down.
I agree
Q: Assuming the Volt delivers on expectations and is well-received by consumers, what else could derail GM’s efforts?
A: Let us say that over the next 18 months the world goes into a major recession, car sales and fuel use drop dramatically, the steel companies produce less steel and therefore use less energy, China finds its main export markets drying up, so they are into a contraction and use less steel and aluminum and plastic. And at the same time Canadian tars sands come on stream, and coal-to-liquids come on stream. All of a sudden there is a reduction in primary demand in petroleum plus all these additional new supply sources, which were started at the time of $140 a barrel, suddenly coming on stream. And oil drops to $25 a barrel and we’re looking at gas pump prices at $1.25 a gallon. I personally don’t think that’s going to happen, but that would be a dramatic event for the Volt because everybody would say, 'Ha! Why
should I bother?’
I agree
If I recall they were talking about 6k cars in 2010. I guess that makes sense and the production continues into 2011 where they hopefully meet the 50k or whatever the initial targets were.
http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/501213
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?idx=135644&cat1=auto&cat2=cutt- ingedge
Color me skeptical, but what the Volt looks like isn't nearly as important as how it performs.
The article was a bit more substantive as well. The engineering team is already looking to simplify and reduce costs of the battery pack. Kinda makes you want to wait for the next gen. Especially since I don't have 30-40k to throw around. I still think in the next several years we will have a good chance of a gas rationing situation. Those few with Volts may well have gotten their money's worth.
Of course, if you see things differently, I'll respect that!
That's the real hurdle isn't it? The Volt sure seems like an experiment right now. And an expensive one at that.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/12/03/uk_govt_blesses_volt/
WASHINGTON — General Motors Corp. will press a Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid prototype into service Thursday on Capitol Hill, where GM Chairman Rick Wagoner will use a prototype to emphasize the company’s technology.
GM spokesman Greg Martin said Wagoner will drive a prototype Volt wearing the sheet metal of the upcoming Chevrolet Cruze to the Senate committee hearing on the company’s request for $18 billion in emergency loans.
How much does this help the Volt? Does it not help that it will be a Volt in Cruze's clothing??
Sales of hybrid cars and SUVs took a worse beating than the industry as a whole in November, plummeting 50 percent from a year earlier and off 24.8 percent from October
This is part of the reason I have trouble seeing the Volt as a savior for GM. I don't see throngs of people flocking to buy a $40,000 vehicle.
Now to look on the brighter side, the declaration that the recession started in Dec 2007 could be looked on as good news as the average length of a recession is about 14 months, putting us closer to turnaround times.
It doesn't take much to start the emotional pendulum swinging. If it starts being reported or projected that there IS a light at the end of the tunnel, the mindset of consumers will start to change. Will be interesting to see how specific GM's plans are as far as when they see a return to profitability.
This could still be a significant number of customers.
While GM used information indicating that ~80% of people have a 40 mi. or less commute to work, does anyone have a more targeted criteria that might take into account how many folks might have access to a recharge station or how many might be be expected to have an income that would allow them to afford this vehicle.
I would speculate that a significant portion of the population live in apartments/condo's, without access to a plug, and without sufficient income to afford the vehicle. I think it's more likely that folks with sufficient funds and access to a plug (garage) probably have a longer commute, meaning that GM could increase it's target audience by having a greater electric only range battery as an option.
Maybe the next generation does have options for larger batteries. The trade-offs in cost for this probably don't work at the moment. Most families have two or more cars. If the option costs less than say $7k...it will probably make financial sense as well as foreign oil or greenie sense..
http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16769
Anyone who has kids that do anything is not going for a Volt. Picking up from practices, running around to games and activities, there's no way I could use an electric vehicle with limited range. And I'm certainly not going to shell out $40K for a second car to use it as a grocery getter.
It may be fashionable to be gung-ho on electric vehicles, but enthusiasm alone doesn't make them practical.
I think the plan is to build them in the US for American buyers, and in England for European buyers. Make sense now?