62 miles per gallon aint small potatoes.
Will the thing actually go that far without a recharge?
That’ll put a heck of a dent in the average mpg for CAFE standards.
ain’t buying no products from Goobermint Motors. End of story.
“The Chevrolet Volt, GM’s electric car that’s expected to go on sale in late 2010, is projected to get an estimated 230 miles per gallon”
Is the range even half that?
But how much fossil fuels were burned to charge it?
Freight trains are electric too. Of course the electricity comes from deisel powered generators. The Volt’s electricity will come from Coal Powered Generators.
I read somewhere yesterday that GM has started selling cars on eBay. No wonder they could afford to crap can a 1000 dealerships...
The first 40 miles are free (the Obama stimulus program pays for the initial mileage).
“But that mpg figure would not take into account that the car has already gone 40 miles with no gas at all.
So let's say the car is driven 50 miles in a day. For the first 40 miles, no gas is used and during the last 10 miles, 0.2 gallons are used. That's the equivalent of 250 miles per gallon. But, if the driver continues on to 80 miles, total fuel economy would drop to about 100 mpg. And if the driver goes 300 miles, the fuel economy would be a just 62.5 mpg.”
I have been saying for EON's that the Volt will make the Prius the Beta Max of Hybrids...
If, (and it is a big if) the Volt engine run sat a Constant RPM like I think it will, that means tayloring the engine for the lowest Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) at that given RPM.
That is huge....
Unless, they get their electrons from nukes, I won’t touch one.
What a fraud. I suppose the electricity used to power the batteries for the first 40 miles comes from pixie dust.
Who is making this engine ? Honda ? Who is really making the car ? Honda ?
I had a CRX HF that touched 60 mpg, in 1991 with no batteries. This news isn’t news. The cars are being released with voodoo math, veiled claims and as usual since the early 90s - I’m sure it’s a different car altogether.
Even Saturn stopped re-badging the Opel Vectra. They don’t care anymore. US Car companies haven’t been “U.S.” at all in years.
Farce.
GM will need *and will get* the big tax incentives required to move these cars, in the interest of "saving the planet" from the phantom menace of climate change.
I don't believe the compromises the Volt requires are outweighed by the potential but *as yet unconfirmed* overall decrease in operating costs as compared to an efficient IC alternative.
Yes, if you end up travelling on mostly gasoline. I think I would end up doing that, on average, about a dozen times a year.
The breakthrough in this stuff is going to be that EESTOR super capacitor, and that should be out late this year or early next.
That said, I WISH I could get real numbers on the mileage. I know it will vary dramatically with the distance driven, but they could give some straight numbers, like; for the first 40 miles, at 13 cents per kilowatt hour, how much will it cost to drive? If operating completely off the onboard engine, what's the gpm to recharge the batteries? Can the onboard engine recharge the batteries at a driving rate, or will it have to "rest up" while recharging after two or three hundred miles? What's the expected life span of the batteries?
I think the concept of a small recharging motor operating at a constant speed is good.