The Volt does use a 4 cylinder gas engine. 1.4 liters.
Posted on 02/19/2012 12:09:07 PM PST by Brookhaven
Would you buy a car that held only one gallon of gasoline? Neither would I. Yet, we've invested billions of dollars developing and promoting a car with a “gas tank” (the batteries) that only holds one gallon's worth of energy.The Chevy Volt's batteries hold the same amount of energy as one gallon of gasoline—one single gallon.
I've heard that new super batteries are just around the corner. All we have to do is invest enough money and they'll appear. Just like computers (in the 1950's they were the size of rooms, today they can be held in the palm of your hand), battery development is whizzing along at a blurring pace. Unfortunately, that isn't true. The development pace of batteries is nothing like that of computers.
A better analogy for battery development is radio. In the 1950's most people listened to music on AM radio. In the 1970's, FM radio became the standard for listening to music. Digital radio was introduced in the 2000's. Each of these was a step up in quality, but they weren't such a huge step that they made the old standards obsolete.
Alkaline batteries were commonly used in the 1950's, and they still are today. Plug a C, D, or AA battery into any device; odds are it's the same alkaline battery technology they were using back in the 1950's. Nickel batteries appeared in the 1970's. Lithium batteries appeared in the 1990's, and have three times the capacity of 1950's alkaline batteries. Truth is, the change in battery technology is slow, slow, slow.
The Chevy Volt battery pack weighs 435 pounds. That's what's required to store the energy found in one gallon of gasoline. If you wanted to create a Volt that had a “five gallon” energy tank, it would require at least 2,175 pounds of batteries—literally over a ton. Even if batteries suddenly became dirt cheap, the weight alone makes creating a car that holds more than a couple of gallons of energy unfeasible.
When Consumer Reports tested the Volt, they managed to get 28 miles on a full battery charge; which sounds about right for one gasoline gallon's worth of energy.
The Nissan Leaf did a little better. Consumer Reports got 68 miles out of a full charge (about two gallons worth of energy). Nissan didn't use more advanced technology than the Volt. The Leaf has a larger battery than the Volt (660 lbs. Vs 435 lbs.) and the non-battery part of the car weighs less (2,694 lbs. Vs 3,346 lbs.). Nissan just put more batteries in the car, and made the rest of the car lighter.
So, why isn't just adding more batteries and making the car lighter a solution? Look at the Tesla Roadster. It gets 211 miles on a full battery charge (that's what Tesla claimed in a lawsuit against the show Top Gear—who said they only got 55 miles per charge—so we'll go with that over the 250 plus miles Tesla claims in their advertising). 211 miles is still a great range, but how did they achieve it? They increased the battery pack to 992 pounds (557 pounds more than the Volt) and decreased the non-battery weight to 1,731 pounds (2,053 pounds less than the Volt). The Tesla Roadster is a small, small car. I'm sure it's fun as a sports car, but if ask it to do any of the mundane tasks in life (carry a family, or bring home a load groceries) it's not anywhere near to being up to the task.
The fact is, when it comes to practical vehicles, the Chevy Volt is the state of the art, best in class as far as electric vehicles go. The best electric vehicle available only holds the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline—one gallon.
This might still be workable, if you could refill the “electric gas tank” in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, it takes at least 8 hours to fully recharge the batteries in the Volt. A drive from Atlanta to Birmingham (about 150 miles) takes about three hours (I drive slow and like to make a couple of stops along the way). If I tried to make that trip in the Chevy Volt, it would take about 50 hours, because I would have to make five 8-hour stops to recharge the battery.
Would we be calling a car with a conventional internal combustion engine with a gas tank that only held one gallon of gasoline “the car America had to build?” Would we have spent billions of dollars developing that car? Would we be offering $7,500 tax credits to encourage consumers to purchase that car?
Yet, that is what we've done with the Chevy Volt. We've put all our money and efforts behind a car with a “gas tank” that holds the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. The Chevy Volt, or any other electric car, will not be the answer to our energy problems until we can equip a car with a battery pack that can hold the same energy equivalent as the gas tanks in current cars. Given the history of battery development (tripling capacity every 40 years), that will be somewhere between 120 and 160 years from now.
Buying an electric car today is the same as buying a regular car that only holds one gallon of gasoline. Building one is, well...I'll let you answer that one yourself.
What a coincidence - that's how our academic and bureaucratic masters see it, too.
My friend has a Volt. He actually went to Michigan to buy it, because they initially weren’t sold in Indiana.
He loves the car, now realize that he is a “techy” person and really appreciates the complexity.
His daily commute is about 20 miles round trip.
I know for sure that he went at least 5 months without buying gasoline. After a year of ownership he’s more enthusiastic than ever.
Then again his wife buys a new Vette every year so he has that to drive if he wants to do burnouts.
It brings to mind the Volt commercial were all the small appliances are powered by internal combustion engines. With the implied "oh, this is awful, lets' replace all these messy ICEs with a nice clean Volt."
Powered by coal.
BTW, I do think that Tesla has the best approach to car batteries given the current technology. Leveraging the volume production of rechargable AA's was way smart.
The Volt does use a 4 cylinder gas engine. 1.4 liters.
My son and I built a 1970 Vega Kamback with a 350 cu. in. V-8 with about 300 h.p.; the dang thing was never engineered for such power (although Chevy did make the V-8 Monza on the same chassis). Acceleration was awesome, but the handling, steering, and brakes really were not up to the task. The cost of totally re-engineering the car was prohibitive; I took it apart and sold it.
I’m sure the hot rodding was worth the experience.
But you’re right, they build Corvettes that have the chassis dynamics to complement the power.
I’d agree with that. They both suck, batteries suck worse.
The Volt only seats four people while the Prius seats five.
There is a Plug In Prius being introduced at a better price point than the Volt.
My point was that Chevy is doing some financial gymnastics to be able to lease a $42,000 Volt for only $369 a month with nothing down. Mercedes gets $349 a month for their new $34,000 C250 with $4000 down.
Something is rotten in Denmark because Chevy is pocketing the $7,500 Tax Credit (that we all pay for) to make the lease deal work at that price.
Government Motors strikes again.
So, he mostly runs in electric drive and recharges at home or work?
I kept asking this question and never get an answer, maybe your friend would tell you. How much does charging his Volt add to his electric bill?
They also do it because gearing for such a beast would be a nightmare; electric motors have the ideal power curve for a locomotive because they deliver maximum torque at zero RPM.
He does most of his recharges at work. They have a couple charging stations, likely added with “stimulus money” LOL.
I’m sure if you look over here:
http://gm-volt.com/forum/
You’ll find plenty of info.
To me there’s no $$ savings in the Volt, because the capital cost is so high. You buy it because you enjoy the technology (like my friend), or you’re worried about a fuel shortage (like 1973-74) and must have mobility over relatively short distances.
But the laws of physics still make PV panels a non-starter. In mid-lattitudes at noon the total energy received from the Sun is roughly 1,300 watts per square metre, so even if a 100% efficient PV panel were developed (the best are <20%), it would take a panel of at least 300 square feet to meet the needs of the average home. If you wanted to run your home 24/7 from solar, count on a panel at least five times that size plus a couple of tons of batteries.
Actually if you look at the powertrain history of mine haul trucks, you’ll see that torque converter / powershift transmissions have moved up the size range displacing diesel electric drive at increasingly large sizes.
In 1980 almost all mine haul trucks over 90 tons capacity were diesel electric. Now CAT uses torque converter / powershift all the way to 400 tons capacity. This configuration is more efficient, and CAT has spent the capital to design, develop, and tool up for mechanical transmissions in this “mega” size category.
Which conveniently falls at the point where you need to put down $10,000 for a new battery.
Oh, I agree.
All I’m pointing out is that some progress has been made in raising the efficiency of PV cells. As you point out, the current commercially available cells are running < 20% efficiency. Look where they came from tho - back in the 70’s, they were just a bit over 2%. Right now, a Boeing subsidiary (Spectrolab) is developing PV’s with efficiency over 40% for space applications. They’re obviously still expensive, but in the grand scheme of solid state development, the crush on margins is ruthless. Ergo, in the last 40+ years, we’ve seen an order of magnitude improvement on PV cell efficiency.
There hasn’t been anywhere nearly the same percentage improvement made in batteries.
Both technologies are not going to “solve” anything anytime soon, individually or together.
The only technical error in the article is it overstates the amount of “gas” the Volt battery has. The Volt’s battery has about 10.5 useable kW. One gallon of gas has 36.6 kW.
Regardless, the Volt is a re-volt-ing display of heavy handed government causing miss-allocation of resources.
That’s an awesome random bit of trivia applicable to the topic at hand.
I love Free Republic for stuff like that. I bet you never see anything similar at DU, for instance.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.