Chevy Volt Gets 230 mpg City?

Do you own or have you ever driven a Prius? They are very well put together vehicles and an engineering marvel if you dig into the technology. Sure there are 50MPG diesels from the likes of VW, but easily/conveniently fueling them in the US would be a pain. The Prius is a great vehicle for what it is.

Why would I want to own that garbage? :rolleyes: I prefer a car that can do more than haul one person around, I prefer a car that I can keep to 70-90mph traffic with ease, I prefer a car with better acceleration, better efficiency, better room, better impact rating, better life span, better survivability... I could go on and on.

I also prefer a car that a bunch of nerd or stuck up pricks don't drive and finger every Hummer that they see as if their acid batteries are so great for the environment.


..... Simply put, I want a real car.


Now for your argument, I'm friends with the GM of Toyota NA, he knows how I feel about the car. He doesn't drive one either...

Pain to fill diesel? LOL, have you ever owned or driven a diesel... nuff said.
 
Volt > Prius

I could literally use the Volt to do all my weekday driving (work, errands) without ever using a drop of gasoline. Win.

Awesome then just calculate what it costs per KW in your state for electricity and see what it costs to run it. Here it would cost around $36 a month if you use nothing but electricity at current rates... less during the winter months.
 
Why would I want to own that garbage? :rolleyes: I prefer a car that can do more than haul one person around, I prefer a car that I can keep to 70-90mph traffic with ease, I prefer a car with better acceleration, better efficiency, better room, better impact rating, better life span, better survivability... I could go on and on.

Wow. Misinformation much?
 
That was widely reported, but was a mistake. Current claim is 8.5 - 9 seconds.

I don't know. I'm hoping for a surprise. The 8.5 to 9 is quite long, it certainly did not feel that long to get up to speed next to one on the highway on ramp.

One of the pluses of living in Detroit is that you get to see all the new toys way before they are out.
 
Why would I want to own that garbage? :rolleyes: I prefer a car that can do more than haul one person around, I prefer a car that I can keep to 70-90mph traffic with ease, I prefer a car with better acceleration, better efficiency, better room, better impact rating, better life span, better survivability... I could go on and on.

To expand on my last post...

The Prius can keep up with 70-90 mph traffic just fine, even when loaded with people.

So, that said, what vehicle has better acceleration, efficiency, impact ratings, life span, survivability, and more room, than the Prius?

And what do you drive?
 
I don't know. I'm hoping for a surprise. The 8.5 to 9 is quite long, it certainly did not feel that long to get up to speed next to one on the highway on ramp.

One of the pluses of living in Detroit is that you get to see all the new toys way before they are out.

Live in Detroit? I would rather have a job, not be upside down on a mortgage and have a grocery store I can buy food at.
 
To expand on my last post...

The Prius can keep up with 70-90 mph traffic just fine, even when loaded with people.

So, that said, what vehicle has better acceleration, efficiency, impact ratings, life span, survivability, and more room, than the Prius?

And what do you drive?

My 2005 Nissan Maxima SL.

It's a work of art. 3.5L fully loaded goodness. Very room, very fast, very agile, very sleek, does 24 highway, 16 city. I love my Maxima :-D

IMG00012.jpg
 
Y'all are way off on the price point. Yes it will cost $40k to MANUFACTURE. Doesn't mean that's what the consumer is going to pay. It's already been discussed the car will be subsidized. Expect at least 5k off right there (and that's conservative). Now we're down to 3500. But wait, there's more! Don't forget about the 7500 you get in tax credits! bam, you're down to under $30k.

GM isn't totally stupid. If they want to crush Toyota, expect this car to be heavily, and I mean heavily subsidized until they figure out a way to lower manufacturing costs. The Volt won't end up like Tesla, with an overpriced and underperforming vehicle. Fool the public once shame on GM, fool us twice...
 
Well since GM now = Government Motors, seeing something like this isn't all that suprising.

Actually, this isn't the first time that the EPA has 'tinkered' with MOG Ratings to 'help' GM.

Back on '73-'74, when Mazda released the RX2 and RX3 rotory engined cars, they were getting excellent MPG, especially considering the amount of power that they were producing. Ther were beginning to sell like hotcakes, and it looked like the Wankel Rotory was 'the engine of the future.

Now GM had the license for the Wankel in the States, and were close to production. In fact they had already designed a car to put their rotory in...the Buick Shyhawk. But, unlike Mazda, they couldn't come up with tip seals (think piston rings) that would last for any significant time. Rather than buy the tip seal technology from Mazda, or possibly since Ford owned a decent percentage of Mazda, and Mazda wan't going to sell it to them anyway, GM droped their rotory program altogether, and marketed the Skyhawk, with a V-6. They also marketed it as the Chevy Monza, and Olds Starfile with a V-8 stuffed in it which caused problems. Since the engine compartment was designed around a small engine, service departments, and garage owners found that in order to replace the spark plugs, it was necessary to unbolt the engine from the engine mounts, and lift the engine to get access to all of the plugs. Pretty embarassing for GM, who eventially cured it by putting holes in the under-body work for access.

Now, originally the Mazda RX2, and RX3's were "EPA Rated" at around 19 MPG, which was pretty danged good then, especially when you consider that they performed like small block V-8's. As soon as GM dropped the Rotary in '75, the EPA "revised" their rating for the RX2/3 engine, and gave it a rating of 9 MPG, which pretty much killed the Rotary engine. I owned a '73 RX3 Wagon, and I can tell you, you would have had to drive in reverse all day long to get 9 MPG. I got 19 MPG on the freeway at 70 MPH without even trying hard.
 
Settle down, spaz. Steve's talking about HIS Camaro, not the new Camaro.

iirc, he has 502cube motor in his 'maro, so that's nearly 6 times larger than the engine in this volt, and more like this volt + a ZR1 + a Suzuki GSXR600

lol arbitrary volume measurements are fun
 
You don't need a V8 with 350 HP to keep up on the highway.
Spoken as someone who's never driven one.

The volt will come in at under 6 seconds 0-60, which is rather pretty quick for that battery box.
That'd be acceptable. However I'll still personally hold my breath.

The Prius can keep up with 70-90 mph traffic just fine, even when loaded with people.
So can a Smart For Two, I'm sure. There's keeping up, and there's performing. I'd rather have something I can kick into gear and pass another vehicle quickly than feeling like I'm pushing the darn vehicle too hard to just get around someone.
 
Good. Hope it works out for them. I would love to see our American companys do good especially in these times.
 
There is a lot of problems if plug-in electric cars become a common. Our electrical infrastructure will literally melt. If you look at the electrical system today, it is old and outdated. Tax payers will be on the hook for the infrastructure upgrade. I'm not even going to talk about the problem of having all these electrical chargers running at the same time (at night). If you factor everything in, I think these cars are looking to be very expensive. You can almost guarantee that the cost of electricity will go up so now, not only will it cost more the charge the car but to do all the regular stuff like watching TV or running your 500W quad core,sli gaming machine.

I would also question if they are even environmentally sound. All those batteries can't be good and ultimately the power has to come from somewhere. Gas and coal plants FTL. I'm all for nuclear but nobody wants them in their backyard so that leaves hydro and wind. Hydro provides limited power based on reservoir levels and wind is just a joke.

230 mpg is also hugely misleading since now it's being used as purely a measure of gas consumption only and not fuel economy like it was used before. This wasn't a problem when all cars were running on gas. The EPA rating must take into account everything, gas AND electric. A killowatt per mile rating would be universal but I suppose that would just confuse people.

In summary I don't think electric cars provide the cost savings these companies tooting. The gas cost savings will be apparent and direct, but indirectly I think it will cost people more money overall.
 
When you get home and plug it in to charge it, everyday, I wonder how much your electric bill goes up. I saw a difference going from a 450 W PSU to a 1KW on my puter. Let alone the brown outs if everybody had one.
 
Y'all are way off on the price point. Yes it will cost $40k to MANUFACTURE. Doesn't mean that's what the consumer is going to pay. It's already been discussed the car will be subsidized. Expect at least 5k off right there (and that's conservative). Now we're down to 3500. But wait, there's more! Don't forget about the 7500 you get in tax credits! bam, you're down to under $30k.

GM isn't totally stupid. If they want to crush Toyota, expect this car to be heavily, and I mean heavily subsidized until they figure out a way to lower manufacturing costs. The Volt won't end up like Tesla, with an overpriced and underperforming vehicle. Fool the public once shame on GM, fool us twice...

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, the Volt still has unproven technology. We will not see the Volt in any great numbers until GM ramps up production and they will only ramp up production if there is a sustainable demand(i.e. a large permanent subsidy specifically for the Volt only). Personally I wouldn't even touch the car until it was in its 3rd of 4th generation.
 
Live in Detroit? I would rather have a job, not be upside down on a mortgage and have a grocery store I can buy food at.

wow, just wow. :rolleyes:

I'm sure that everyone here is unemployed and can't buy food and owe the banks. Amazing how ignorant people are.
 
They say "25 kW/hours per 100 miles". I have several problems with this. First kW/hr makes no sense at all, energy/time^2? That's dumb. I believe they ment to write 25kW*hr. Assuming that we still have another problem, exactly how fast are they driving? Air resistance from 40 to 75 is 3.5 times as great. But we'll ignore that for now too.

Doing a little math, a 30 mpg car at 2.50 $/gal will net you 0.083$/mile. At 0.10$/kW*hr that comes out to 0.025$/mile. A significant savings if you travel short trips.

That's great if you are only paying .10/KW. Out here in Southern California, with SCE, we have a tiered pricing structure, that varys from $.10 to as high as $.42. The more you use the higher the rate. If you drive 100 mile/week, you will be adding another 200 kW hours to your electic bill. For most people living ina house with Air conditioning, most of this "extra" power will be costing you between $.32 to $.42 per kW hour. That's about $.10 per mile.

My Camry 4 cyl. gets about 20 mile/gal (95% intown driving), so it currently cost me $3.00 to drive 20 miles.
At $.10 per mile, it would cost me $2.00 to drive 20 miles. Not enough of a savings to pay 2x the price for the car.
 
I never really understood the importance people put on 0-60 times ... I don't take my daily commuter to the drag strip.

Ya thats great you can accelerate from 0-60 in under 4 seconds ... but how are the groceries doing spilled everywhere and smashed against the rear windscreen? and what does the wife have to say after flooring it as soon as the light turns green?

I don't see much rear world use in quick acceleration.
 
Y'all are way off on the price point. Yes it will cost $40k to MANUFACTURE. Doesn't mean that's what the consumer is going to pay. It's already been discussed the car will be subsidized. Expect at least 5k off right there (and that's conservative). Now we're down to 3500. But wait, there's more! Don't forget about the 7500 you get in tax credits! bam, you're down to under $30k.

Yep, lets let the poor taxpaying public subsiside it. (it makes us ALL poorer in the long run.)

Since we don't have enough power plants to charge all these cars, lets raise the electric rates for everyone so we can build expensive solar and wind power plants.
Then we will need to upgrade the power grid, so lets increase the rates again.

Then we will need to subsidize the replacement of the batteries, since they are so expensive....
 
Greetings all,

Toyota had a diesel electric hybrid in 2002 that got triple digit gas mileage.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article814928.ece

They just decided not to produce it, and here is a rant about it:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030409074915/http://www.therant.info/archives/000060.html

That said, all of these electric vehicles, as of right now, are driving toxic carriers that cost a lot more to the environment than the current gas cars. Battery creation, disposal, electrical grid distribution and generation (over 70% of electricity in US by Coal and Natural Gas, 49% by Coal).

The Diesel-Electric hybrids are so much more environmentally friendly and are doable right now. However, that said,

There is research into ceramic power discs that use urine as the source of hydrogen to create the fuel cell, each one at 20KW/hour. The discs are the size of a hubcap. Now, that would be a great source for electric cars. (And for you naysayers, the prmary component in Urine is a nitrogen atom with 4 hydrogen atoms and breaks down with 0.8 Vdc to form Hydrogen gas, versus water at 1 oxygen and 2 hydrogen needing 1.2 Vdc to break down... ;) )

Back to the mayhem, =^.^=
 
230MPG is great, but the thing is... Terribly weak vehicle, I'd imagine... The Prius is weak as-is, the Volt being 100% electric I'd imagine would be worse.

Sorry, I'd rather stick with my V8 that can get up and go on the highway without getting rear-ended because my vehicle won't get up to speed quick enough.

I remember reading the Volt having ~400 pounds of torque and ~170 HP. This isn't exactly a Corvette, but I bet with mods in the future, it could be pretty quick.

Also, anyone who'd buy a Prius, lost their man hood years ago. Any women who buys a Prius, never grew breasts. Asians can't make good looking cars.
 
Instead of spending $40,000 on a car that gets like 300mpg I think I'll keep my truck that's paid off and gets 15mpg. I only drive like 5,000 miles a year.
 
I remember reading the Volt having ~400 pounds of torque and ~170 HP. This isn't exactly a Corvette, but I bet with mods in the future, it could be pretty quick.

Also, anyone who'd buy a Prius, lost their man hood years ago. Any women who buys a Prius, never grew breasts. Asians can't make good looking cars.

Wow.. just wow. Why the hell would anyone mod a Volt to make it faster? People would buy it solely for the MPG.. and people that want a faster car would obviously get something else. :rolleyes:
 
Wow.. just wow. Why the hell would anyone mod a Volt to make it faster? People would buy it solely for the MPG.. and people that want a faster car would obviously get something else. :rolleyes:

You'll be surprised how many stupid people there are. All those ricers that got handed down honda civics from their parents, does that not ring a bell?.........................
 
Yep, lets let the poor taxpaying public subsiside it. (it makes us ALL poorer in the long run.)

Since we don't have enough power plants to charge all these cars..
The energy has to come from somewhere. Generating power at a power plant, transmitting it over the grid, storing it in a battery, and using it to drive an electric motor is far more efficient than burning gas in an internal combustion engine. The current power grid is capable of dealing with the initial demand for these cars, and can slowly grow over time as we move to all-electric vehicles over the next few decades.

Then we will need to subsidize the replacement of the batteries, since they are so expensive....
They said the same thing about cars. Why spend all this money on infrastructure when horses are perfectly fine?

The long term benefits of moving to electric vehicles (less pollution and less energy use) will outweigh short term development costs and power infrastructure investments.
 
the Camero gets more then 4MPG, good god, a post about misleading numbers and you post more!

Holy cow, are you going to be okay? Don't freak out but....I was talking about MY Camaro. That is why I would buy a Volt...get it...to offset the gas mileage MY car gets. Sheesh, calm down.

BTW, you spelled Camaro wrong.

Steve didn't make a misleading post. Maybe Camaros in general have higher gas mileage, but have you seen Steve's Camaro? :-P

Heh, you beat me to it...again ;)
 
Why would I want to own that garbage? :rolleyes: I prefer a car that can do more than haul one person around, I prefer a car that I can keep to 70-90mph traffic with ease, I prefer a car with better acceleration, better efficiency, better room, better impact rating, better life span, better survivability... I could go on and on.

I also prefer a car that a bunch of nerd or stuck up pricks don't drive and finger every Hummer that they see as if their acid batteries are so great for the environment.


..... Simply put, I want a real car.


Now for your argument, I'm friends with the GM of Toyota NA, he knows how I feel about the car. He doesn't drive one either...

Pain to fill diesel? LOL, have you ever owned or driven a diesel... nuff said.

I have driven one as a rental on vacation and my perceptions were much the same as yours and dead wrong.

It has no trouble accelerating, no trouble maintaining freeway speeds will a full load of people, no trouble passing on the freeway either. The rest of your assumptions aren't even worth responding too.

I will however fully agree that the overwhelming majority of drivers of it are schmucks, hippies and other general fruitcakes that need a sound asskicking. However it very much is a real car. Not one I would personally own, because I dislike how it looks but that is about the only reason.

wow, just wow. :rolleyes:

I'm sure that everyone here is unemployed and can't buy food and owe the banks. Amazing how ignorant people are.

Gonna have to call you out on this one..might not want to go on about peoples ignorance in the same thread that you exhibited a disturbing amount of it.
 
wow, just wow. :rolleyes:

I'm sure that everyone here is unemployed and can't buy food and owe the banks. Amazing how ignorant people are.

Last I checked Detroit had 23% unemployment, no large chain grocery stores and if you already had a 5 year old mortgage you are already screwed. On the plus side, you could get a HUD house for $1.
 
The energy has to come from somewhere. Generating power at a power plant, transmitting it over the grid, storing it in a battery, and using it to drive an electric motor is far more efficient than burning gas in an internal combustion engine.
The long term benefits of moving to electric vehicles (less pollution and less energy use) will outweigh short term development costs and power infrastructure investments.

The big problem, is that the same people who want to get ride of the internal combustion engine, are the same people who will do anything they can to stop the building of new power plants.

Solar cells and windmills will NEVER give us enough power to allow for any type of growth. The only solution using current technology, is nuclear power. While we are finally seeing some movement on a national level to finally start building new plants, out here in Kalifornia, we have a law making it illegal for build any new nuclear power plants. Not only that, they are now trying to make it illegal for EXISTING plants (not just nuclear) to use ocean water for cooling. Where do these environmental nuts think all this power is going to come from?
 
. Not only that, they are now trying to make it illegal for EXISTING plants (not just nuclear) to use ocean water for cooling. Where do these environmental nuts think all this power is going to come from?

Harnessed rage from angry republicans.
 
Harnessed rage from angry republicans.

He's absolutely right with regards to nuclear power being necessary for this to work. We can begin the transition with the current grid, but if we want to go electric we need more power.

Wind could be great in the midwest and solar in the southwest, but nuclear can be generated anywhere, generates a lot more power, is cheap, and is far more reliable.
 
The big problem, is that the same people who want to get ride of the internal combustion engine, are the same people who will do anything they can to stop the building of new power plants.

Solar cells and windmills will NEVER give us enough power to allow for any type of growth. The only solution using current technology, is nuclear power. While we are finally seeing some movement on a national level to finally start building new plants, out here in Kalifornia, we have a law making it illegal for build any new nuclear power plants. Not only that, they are now trying to make it illegal for EXISTING plants (not just nuclear) to use ocean water for cooling. Where do these environmental nuts think all this power is going to come from?

Do you remember the problem with nuclear power? What do we do with the spent fuel? We have to store it safely for 10,000 years. Until cold fusion reactors become a reality can't really support your idea to go completely nuclear either. Other then that, wind and solar and coal look really good.
 
I'm sure we could sell you some more power, lol hell we have reactors offline because the cooler summer we have no demand for AC until the last 2 days

seems like a waste, you'd think they'd shut down the coal/gas fired stuff and leave the nukes running

http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/667879
 
Do you remember the problem with nuclear power? What do we do with the spent fuel? We have to store it safely for 10,000 years.

Yucca Mountain. Its a shame they keep trying to kill it by cutting funding. Boomer fucktard partisian politics, democrats kill the good things republicans want and vice versa.

Nuclear power generates relatively litte waste, and nuclear fusion power doesn't seem to be that for off. Most scientists seem to think it will be an option within this century.
 
Last I checked Detroit had 23% unemployment, no large chain grocery stores and if you already had a 5 year old mortgage you are already screwed. On the plus side, you could get a HUD house for $1.

The city itself or the suburbs (GDA)?
 
230 mpg is such a bogus number. Yes, it'll immensely help GM not just for marketing, but to meet Obama's CAFE requirement of 35 mpg. But still, 230 mpg is hogwash.

To recharge 40 miles requires 10 kW-hr., according to the CNN article. That comes out to $1.20 where I live (12 cents/kW-hr.), which could buy 1/2 gal. of gas. That means, the Volt's equivalent mpg rating should be at most 80, not 230. The 80 is just a max b/c actual mpg should be somehow averaged with the gas only part of almost 50 mpg. Thus, the actual equivalent mpg rating of the car is somewhere between 50 and 80, which is still excellent, but nowhere near 230.
 
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