A Very Light Car

The problems I see with the Volt, Leaf and other electric autos is that they don't fit my life style. I drive, on any given day, somewhere around 50-100 miles. Most places I stop don't have a facility to charge the battery and if they did, I'm sure in time they'll charge you to use their charging station (nobody does anything for free). With that, and the $40K price tag to purchase, the unknown battery life and replacement costs and the costs to charge the battery at home, I don't feel like I can afford anything like a battery only automobile. A hybrid maybe but even they have a lot of the same problems for me, costs. I know YOU say that they have the same or cheaper 5 year cost but it has NOT been proven to my satisfaction because of the battery replacement costs. I'm still driving the same automobile after 12 years and it's cost the same now and it did when I bought it. It's got about 90K miles on it. Nothing major has gone wrong or needed replacement. Who, which an electric, can say the same? I don't see GM or Nissan replacing the batteries for free and I haven't heard a real life expectancy or cost. I just don't think the electrics are ready for prime time. They may be aimed at the middle of the buying public but the whole electric automobile business is the same now as it was in the '20's only now the government is pressing the issue for political reasons. There will always be some who want to be on the bleeding edge and then there are the rest of us that look at the real world costs in terms of real return on our dollar. R. Wink

The Volt, in very simple terms, gives your first gallon of "fuel" for the price of a dozen kwhs. Call it a $3 saving each charge. After that it gets about 40mpg.

Compared to a 30mpg ICE sedan, $4 per gallon, and 10 cent per kwh: at

50 miles a day you'd be at about 70% EV, and saving about $3.50. That would pay reasonably although you could do as well with a regular econobox if you're OK comparing apples to oranges.

At 100 miles a day, 35% EV, and the saving is $5 per day.

Once you figure that part out then you take fuel and electric price increases into account for as long as you intend to own the car, and insurance as well especially if you're comparing to other new cars. Plus all the usual stuff like depreciation and interest cost or whatever. And of course you'd do similar calculations with other EVs and hybrids.

"Feelings" like yours don't hold much sway with me.

There is no need to take my word for anything, because _I_ only referenced what independent sources have calculated. Those calculations can be highly variable but anybody with grade school math skills, with or without a calculator, can work out their own projected costs.

It will NEVER be proven to the satisfaction of people who feel their way around issues. The rest can go by the details of the manufacturer's warranty.

Probably somebody with an EV with 90k on it. Considering that the hybrids have been around for 10 years, and the Volt for 3, what do think the odds are that somebody has driven 90k and reported their experience on the intertubes?

Then you simply haven't read the warranty, which would have taken less time than you spent writing up an ill informed rationalization. Putting opinion before research is illogical, therefore I doubt that anything I or anyone could say will make you objective.

No, you said it correctly at the beginning. You're not thinking, you're feeling.

I live in the real world and I have a proven history of making good financial decisions. Feel free to pretend that I'm just some bleeding edge fanatic if it helps you feel better about your feelings.

Ok. Maybe you have a point or two but what is the replacement cost of a set of batteries and how often do then need to be replace? Cite hard facts, your or someone else's replacement cost experience, when and where so they can be verified. Your feeling on the subject as unimportant as you say mine are. Cite facts from real life, not government or auto company propaganda. I haven't been able to find anyone that has the data except for government or auto company propaganda. R. Wink

You already mentioned some kind of government propaganda which I consider crazy talk. Can you give me any reason I should do research for someone who's irrational? Clearly you still haven't read the warranty replacement details which are readily available and would give you an excellent idea of what to expect in terms of lifetime and degradation.

I had a conversation a few days ago with a guy who's thinking about doing an EV conversion. Assuming he was talking lead acid, I mentioned the cost of frequently replacing those. No he said, he wants to use lithium which he said are something like $5k IIRC. So not only are battery prices surely in your dealer's parts book (and bound to be similar to the price of a complete engine, which dealers are known to replace when necessary), but they're apparently available aftermarket, which means they're not any kind of boogeyman.

Well, the lead acids in my Fiat conversion lasted 2 years - froze over the winter when someone stole the cord to the trickle charger.

A friend put 400,000km on a first gen Prius with no measurable loss of battery capacity. I believe he sold it a few months ago.

On Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:22:09 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote as underneath my scribble :

Ed, you stopped looking a couple of years early in Colin Chapman design evolution, take a look at the Lotus 11 Club racer (the LeMans version also but more expensive rear suspension) really slippery, really light spaceframe and Al. bodywork, Coventry Climax, went like the clappers, can be used on the road! C+

Yes, the 11 and 15 were very slick. I don't think they'd be called club racers by my generation, though. Chapman raced them in international competition.

As for "can be used on the road," I suppose someone could. For that matter, Lotus made (almost as a joke, but you could buy one) a "road" version of one of their smaller formula cars. Headlights and cycle fenders did no add to the car's panache.

On Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:33:22 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote as underneath :

snip

I did in the early 60s and there were others... the only real change we made was a Triplex windscreen instead of perspex and a hood - all the rest of the road gear, lights etc. were all as original Lotus. Ah! The days before limits!! A couple of fading pics if your interested!

C+

'Looks like it was fun, C+. But where would I put my stereo speakers?

I lashed eveything I owned onto the back of my MG Midget, and into the cracks and crevices. It looked like a dung beetle hurtling down the road.

On Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:06:54 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote as underneath my scribble :

Well the XI was a lot roomier than say the Lotus 7 but you would have got miles more into your Midget! We put a radio in the Lotus XI but only any use when the roar of the engine and tyres were silent!! Very light cars have their disadvantages but the fun and need for speed outweigh the comforts - when your' young enough!! :) . Id hate to try insure such a beast for the road nowdays! C+

I didn't even try putting a radio in my Midget. I had a Stebro muffler on it when it wasn't racing. I couldn't have heard the radio anyway. Most of the time, I had the heater out of it, too.

I'm sorry to hear about the insurance situations in Canada and the UK. Here in New Jersey, I could get liability insurance on your car, cheap. Collision would be iffy -- we have an insurance inspector make a judgement on that, for homebuilts and exotics. It would be expensive, in all likelihood, or it would have a large deductable.

But we have a way around it. If the car is over 25 years old, we get "historic and street rod" registration (cheap). And if we don't drive it more than some mileage limit -- 5,000 miles per year, I think, with my insurance company -- insurance, again, is cheap.

This all varies by state. And "cheap" is relative, of course. d8-)

I see you are winning friends and influencing people all over the place. What a dick.

R wink, if it doesn't weigh 3800#, jerkoff is not innerested. KiddingHimself actually thinks planetary gears and a transmission are necessary in a gas generator setup. If he's right, and that's actually what's in the Volt, GM needs a little schooling as well. They should mebbe ride Amtrack now and then, see how diesel locomotives do it.

Other industry savvy critics have pegged the Volt: Overpriced, over-engineered. Planetary gears.... give me a fukn break....

I take it that you don't know anything about any of the Prius drivetrains either.

"Toyota's familiar Hybrid Synergy Drive system. A planetary "electronic CVT" gearset blends electric and combustion power as and when it's needed."

Yeah, Toyota is as stupid as GM according to you, right? How is it that you're here typing out horseshit instead of heading one of their engineering departments?

On Fri, 29 Mar 2013 10:50:10 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote as underneath my scribble :

Interesting Ed - No doubt about it, the US gets it a lot righter than we do in many areas! C+

Wrong again. From my previous link:

"the motor/generator again couples to the ring gear but now?in "charge-sustaining" mode?the smaller electric motor is also affixed to the running gas engine. In effect, the gas engine supplies power directly to the transmission, which is just like a parallel hybrid."

"The engine is used to partially drive the wheels when the car calculates that it will be a more efficient use of the engine's power."

I am no longer astonished at how little you bother to research a subject before pretending to know more about it than the manufacturer. That is a hallmark of a crank.

OK, let me re-phrase it: The fundamental design of the Volt does not REQUIRE it to blend energy mechanically.

From my previous link:

Which is stupid on it's face. It totally defeats the elegance of gas-generator premise.

Oh I see yer into popular mechanics. So was I, when I was 13.

You're right, I didn't research it, cuz I just assumed chevy woulda designed it the right way. Now that you're in web research mode, look at the energy trail of a diesel-electric locomotive, and you'll see that,, at least in the locomotives I'm familiar with, you gots a diesel generator and traction motors.... none of that parallel hybrid planetary gear transmission bullshit.

So not only did you buy an over-priced, over-engineered bullshit car, you bought one that was POINTLESSLY overengineered. And you still haven't asked why Volt overcomplicated the fundamental premise of the gas-generator-traction motor concept. Oh, I know why you don't ask.... cuz you couldn't find the answer pre-packaged for you on a website.

So now you have shown me that the Volt has NO redeeming qualities. It took a great idea and shot 8 out of 10 toes off that idea. I didn't know that, and I appreciate your pointing alladat out for me.

The justification for buying a Chevy Volt for those that aren't blowhards like KiddingNoOne is quite simple:

I like the car and I decided to buy it.

For KiddingNoOne the justification is:

I purchased a Chevy Volt because it's a great investment.

I have lots of money and you don't.

I'm smarter than you, etc.

If you disagree with my logic your acting just like like Mark Wieber.

Anyone who questions my logic is broke and on welfare, too poor to afford it, stupid, "bonkers".... new reasons that I'll continue to invent.

Yes, it does. Both Toyota and GM have determined that it takes 2 electric motors and an ICE, and multiple modes of operation to get best efficiency. Your saying "locomotive" over and over doesn't change the reality.

It's not stupid, it's actual award winning engineering

as opposed to your idiotic ranting.

IOW, as I've been telling you from the start, you don't know what you're talking about and continue to put your conclusions before your research.

Everybody knows the basics of how locomotives work. It doesn't translate to vehicles no matter how times you keep saying it.

... that works perfectly well on the Prius C for example that you touted, although you'll never grasp the contradiction.

JESUS! Will you guys knock it off? A Volt is NOT a "gas-generator-traction-motor" design. Those locomotives are NOT plug-ins. They use that configuration because it's proven to be a better way to couple an IC engine to the very different operating conditions of a railroad locomotives. There have been a few straight-diesel locomotives, in the US and in the UK. They were failures because of inflexibility in diesels of those sizes, and because of the enormous difficulty of coupling them to the wheels through a mechanical transmission.

The Volt is a plug-in serial hybrid with some parallel-hybrid features

-- 'way complicated, but because of limitations in current technology, not because GM's engineers like to pretend they're Mercedes-Benz engineers, using three parts when two parts will do.

Like all of the various hybrids so far, it's a glimpse into the future. There are some owners for whom it makes reasonable sense. Like all EVs of all types, it makes no economic sense for most of us. But it's a step in a direction that will make sense for more people, in more circumstances, as the concept is tested in the field and refined.

But neither does a Cadillac or Porsche SUV make any sense. Or any Cadillac or Porsche, for that matter. Sports Car Graphic ran a spoof many decades ago, in which they showed a MG-TD pickup truck and a Ferrari GTO halftrack. Little did they suspect that Porsche would build a half-assed truck for yuppies some day. I'm waiting for a Maserati RV or an Aston Martin dump truck next...

So all electric vehicles are interim steps, which appeal to people who like the concept and like to try new ideas. Assuming that we may have cheap electricity from alternative sources some day, they're one way to deal with the distribution problem. Right now, the efficiencies don't work out. But they may well do so.

Anyone who thinks that hydrogen fuel cells are a better prospect isn't paying much attention. Almost all hydrogen now is produced from reformed natural gas. Talk about hack jobs! And the prices, and failures due to contamination...Jesus. There isn't a significant pipeline in America that will carry hydrogen without being completely rebuilt. Good luck with that.

As for the likelihood that we'll be able to use alternative electric sources, versus other sources of liquid fuels in IC, consider that all of the liquid fuel promises have failed. Every one. Not that we don't have some cellulosic ethanol in the pipeline some day, or something derived from another source, but, so far, those options don't look any better than EVs. And natural gas IC -- well, if you don't want to go very far and if you don't need a trunk. Like EVs, they make sense for some people.

The Li-ion battery is the biggest problem. There is some promise for aluminum-air and some of the nano-structure carbon batteries, but they're in the lab, along with algae-derived liquid fuels and controlled nuclear fusion. In fact, they're ahead of fusion.

Somebody has to take the first step, in every technology. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Gunner was wondering why the Doble steam car isn't around today. It worked great -- very reliable and set all kinds of records. But it cost 40 times as much as a Ford and much more than a Duesenberg or Rolls Royce. Nice try, Doble. It ain't for us peons.

The Volt is highly subsidized and the economics of operating it are all skewed out of shape. That's what we do with new technologies in a lot of cases. That's what it takes. It doesn't bother me at all. Without it, we wouldn't have jet planes, rural electrification, or hydroelectric power. None of them made any economic sense at first. Some of them still don't. The market isn't up to the job.

I haven't followed all of your arguments, but you're arguing over engineering details that are largely cutting-edge stuff that is hardly known. You won't need the parallel-hybrid complications when there's a cost-effective battery or battery/capacitor system that will handle the necessary discharge rates. You won't have cost efficiency until the capacity is large enough to run on electricity almost all the time, and the IC engine size can be further reduced. These are engineering projects that are being developed as we speak.

Meantime, we have the Volt -- the first effort by any manufacturer to make a serious plug-in serial hybrid that almost makes it, and that seems to work out for quite a few users.

What is there to argue about? Do you think you have the engineering problems worked out better than GM? Or do you think we should all just forget it, and stick with what we have? The Model T was pretty good at getting us around. Maybe we should have stuck with it, eh?