Chevy Volt Grabs 230 MPG Rating, With Catches

[FlayerSlayer]

Ok, given that driving 50 miles, using gas for 10 miles, equates to 230 MPG... I see the mileage being:

40 miles = Infinite MPG
41 miles = 1886 MPG
42 miles = 966 MPG
45 miles = 414 MPG
50 miles = 230 MPG
55 miles = 168 MPG
60 miles = 138 MPG
75 miles = 98 MPG
100 miles = 76 MPG
150 miles = 62 MPG
Infinite miles = 46 MPG

 

[d_kuhn]

I prefer a cost of energy approach... you're not getting infinite mileage under 40 miles because you have to pay for the cost of the electricity. The chart would look like this given their assessment that it costs 40 cents in electric to get 40 miles and a gallon of gas costs $2.70:

Driving Distance - Effective MPG
< 40 miles - 270mpg
60 miles - 197mpg
80 miles - 160mpg
120 miles - 123mpg
200 miles - 94 mpg
300 miles - 79 mpg

 

[d_kuhn]

(note that I converted the electic into equivelant gallons of gas... 40 miles for 40 cents = 270 miles for $2.70... or one gallon of gas)

 

[d_kuhn]

(and I was assuming 50mpg gas engine mileage).

 

[asiaprime]

shouldn't the average be based on a full tank of gas and running until empty? unless my math skills failed me...

 

[ravenware]

[citation][nom]lifelesspoet[/nom]They ought to take the energy use from electric power, convert into what it would take for a gas fired power plant, minus average transmission loss and add them together.Electric cars acheive up to 90% effeciency and sometimes more, gasoline provides roughly 25-30%. They are incredibly reliable and efficient machines, but pretending that the electricity doesn't exsist is misleading.[/citation]

Gas fired? Thought they all used coal and nuclear. Anyway all fossil fueled power plants can be replaced. The gov will probably just tax us until it is out of style and never replace them.

 

[asiaprime]

shouldn't the average be based on a full tank of gas and running until empty? unless my math skills failed me...

 

[knickle]

I don't see anything surprizing here. It doesn't matter what company or industry it is, there's always marketing hype. It's rare that a product lives up to the hype. Take it all with a grain of salt until the product is released.

Looking at the future when gas prices soar and your car has a battery pack, you won't be wondering about your mpg. You'll be trying to remember if you plugged the car in.

The future is almost here folks.

 

[P_haze420]

There one car out there that is made by group of people. Sorry, I don't know the name of the company but anyways, every 100 miles, you charge it for 10 minutes then go for another 100 miles, repeat.

BTW, screw chevy and other companies that got money from gov. I'm supporting ford all the way, the true American cars and didn't accept the money from the govs. SMART MOVE, FORD!!

 

[Honis]

I'm so glad be bailed these guys out. Those few dollars we lent them was totally worth GMs honest customer approach. Helping them through bankruptcy was a good idea too! I mean, did we really think we'd want them to pay us back after making such great products like this! They totally learned there lesson about misleading customers! I mean 250 MPG! That's awesome!

/sarcasm

 

[d_kuhn]

Wish I could edit... math was wrong on mileage (knew it looked too good to be true):

Miles Effective MPG
40 270
60 109.4594595
80 84.375
120 68.6440678
200 59.73451327
300 56.09418283

 

[Guest]

The oil companies probably made donations to congress people and auto executives to limit electric cars to battery packs that can only go 40 miles. Otherwise, that rating system wouldn't even be feasible if just one manufacturer offers an "extended" 60 mile battery pack. Think about it, and think about it more when literally none of the so-called "big 3" release a mainstream vehicle that can go further than 40 miles on a single charge.

 

[jerther]

Thanks as8df7h2js8222! And knowing this, like you said, it's the MPG rating that is nonsens.

Infinite miles = 46 MPG

That's about what I do with my Firefly, except I paid 500 bucks for it... not 10 zillions..

 

[Kaiser_25]

The car itself still seems kinda nice, but their advertising gives me a bitter taste for GM...they shouldn’t be exaggerating right now, they need to win the consumer back...they wont, but that’s what they should be trying to do.

 

[Scotteq]

[citation][nom]lifelesspoet[/nom]They ought to take the energy use from electric power, convert into what it would take for a gas fired power plant, minus average transmission loss and add them together.Electric cars acheive up to 90% effeciency and sometimes more, gasoline provides roughly 25-30%. They are incredibly reliable and efficient machines, but pretending that the electricity doesn't exsist is misleading.[/citation]


Yup - The problem with electricity is, unless you live near a hydroelectric or nuclear plant, that the energy to make the electricity still has to come from fossil fuels. Therefore the correct calculation would clearly be more like the average efficiency from the (coal fired, mostly, so 32% according to the paper linked below) power plant, less another 10% for the car.

All electric vehicles do is move the issue elsewhere.

Dept of Energy paper on Coal Plant efficiency: http://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analyses/pubs/CFPP%20Efficiency-FINAL.pdf

 

[jerther]

[citation][nom]Scotteq[/nom]Yup - The problem with electricity is, unless you live near a hydroelectric or nuclear plant, that the energy to make the electricity still has to come from fossil fuels. Therefore the correct calculation would clearly be more like the average efficiency from the (coal fired, mostly, so 32% according to the paper linked below) power plant, less another 10% for the car.All electric vehicles do is move the issue elsewhere.Dept of Energy paper on Coal Plant efficiency: http://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-ana [...] -FINAL.pdf[/citation]

I believe it's easier to control the polution problem on a small number of plants rather than on millions of cars!

 

[zerapio]

I think a better way to measure car efficiency is to do miles per energy consumed in Joules or KJ. That way it doesn't matter if the car uses gasoline, diesel, electricity or a buddy pushing behind you can still compare them. Heck, you can compare cars, airplanes or bicycles for that matter.

 

[Guest]

It looks like EPA calculates MPGs for electric and plug-in hybrids as follows: 11c/KWh on average in USA, and you need xxx KWh to fully charge your battery. US average price for a gallon of gas is $2.75, so charging the battery for is equivalent to yyy gallons (dollar wise, no relation to energy, calories or whatever). Knowing how many miles you can get for a fully charged battery, and some electric/gas average for the drive cycle, they compute an equivalent miles per gallon.

This is intended to give people a feel of dollars/mile expressed as MPG for the new vehicles, and was concoted by the EPA, not GM. Nissan's plug in electric is good for 367MPG using this method.

 

[hakesterman]

The car is basically useless because the pricetag is $ 40,000. Only a small share of people can
afford it and they would have to own the car for 15 years for it to pay for itself. Even if the government gives you a $ 7,500 tax credit for being green, it's still more than the average joe can afford and it's highly unlikely that it will ever come down in price. Now if they could get the price down to say $32,000 and you got an instant 7,500 off from the government so you only have to finance $24,500 minus your down payment, now your talking main stream America.

 

[IzzyCraft]

Ugh the volt good idea/bad idea.

BRING BACK THE EV1 put them of those high quality batteries in it and give it 75-150mpg per charge!

Anyone planning to travel more then that in a day can go rent a car! Or borrow a friends!

I'm sick of hybrids they are the worst of all worlds and make shitty cars, 2 engines, 2 drive chains, 2x the waste, 100 times the weaker car that has no get up.