funny, I kee seeing this kind of stuff. People forget that Honda had a ev program as well and killed it. Range is the biggest but not the only problem. Polloution to charge the ev's in large numbers would not solve emission problems. It would also drive up electricity prices.

 

I'd suggest the article was not qualified to be quoted.

What actually makes me nervous about the Volt is seeing how much of a hit GM took for the EV1. The bottom line is these programs are inherently risky.

GM put a lot of money into developing and leasing the car, and then got bashed to hell when the program ended. Where are all the other companies' electric cars?

The most infuriating aspect is the furor that was raised when GM refused to let leasees buy the car. Think for a second about the possible consequences of allowing customers to drive around in an aging, one-of-its-kind 1000 lb battery. Can you even imagine the lawsuits?

 

Quite simply, the batteries are not yet evolved to the point where the technology works. It's close... but this stuff takes a lot of time.

If anything, GM's pursuit of the Volt's series architecture with a long-range electric-only mode runs contrary to the industry's common belief that a strong power-split hybrid provides the best "bang for the buck" with $6-8/gallon gasoline. Indeed, the Volt looks like the car that you'd want to have in your garage with the oil wells start to run dry. That certainly doesn't look like a concept that's being developed with a wink and a nod towards the oil companies.

 

What if the rest of the industry follows GM's lead and builds the same vehicle as the Volt, won't there be a supply issue wrt the batteries? If that's the case then we're in not much better position than we're in currently, with the oil companies stifling supply.

There must also be a finite supply of metals for batteries, surely? If that's the case then hydrogen technology can't come soon enough... but the oil companies wouldn't be in any hurry for change. Sorry don't mean to digress from the interesting topic, just thinking out loud.

 

Right now, there is an amazing amount of capacity in the lith-ion battery industry. I don't want to oversimplify the differences between high-energy consumer cells (the ones in your cell phone and laptop) and the "intrinsically safe" high-power chemistries being developed for automotive use, but I think it'd OK to assume that the world can make an insane number of batteries if called upon to do so. There's a problem, though...

My concern isn't that there is insufficient capacity - it's that all of that capacity is in China, South Korea, and Japan. If indeed resources start getting slim, and Shell's "resource scramble" breaks out, then I do believe that Europe and North America may not be able to get batteries.

It bothers me that GM's two battery sources for the Volt are both in Asia, and it's almost insulting that one of them (A123) took nearly $30M in taxpayer money to develop their chemistry and cell, and then proceeded to make an enormous investment to build a 300,000 sq. ft. production plant in China

Depending on who you talk to, we might only have a couple decades of lithium available... or there might be a couple centuries of the stuff lying around. Like many other commodities, it's a matter of price - the more people are willing to pay, the more that can be extracted at a profit. There is a finite limit, though, and replacing several hundred million internal-combustion vehicles with EV vehicles powered by lithium-ion packs may very well stretch the supply past its limits.

Nickel is a much bigger concern, and the current pricing reflects that. That's one very significant reason why there's so much interest in lithium-ion technology - at current pricing, the constituent materials appear to be much more affordable.

 

my thing is yah it all sounds great to run on electric but at the end of the day you still have to pay to charge the car. so will it cost the same or more to charge the car then to put gas in

 

No, it won't. GM is saying that it'll take 8 kWh to go 40 miles. That's about $0.65-0.80 (depending on rates in your area) to travel that distance; it'd be over $4 to make the same trip in the average compact car, or $6-8 to make that trip in a conventional midsize sedan.

 

well thats impressive if they could get a little further range be perfect that could offset a high price. especially if gas goes higher which it most likely will

 

Bingo!

 

Yes, and approx. 3/4 of a gallon of fuel to the ICE to recharge for the next 40 miles if need, etc.

 

yes but its running the car and recharging the batteries right so really your going a lot further on 3/4-1gallon of gas then 40 miles right?

 

I think it's just generating enough electricity to run the car for another 40 miles.

 

The ICE in the Volt isn't connected to the propulsing wheels at all...

 

I've wondered about this myself. I don't know too much about battery technology, but what about recycling the metals used in the batteries from the used up ones and putting them into new ones? Is it possible? Or is it a case of diminishing returns? I know a lot of metals can be recycled over and over again, but is there a requirement for these type of batteries where recycled materials would be unusable?

 

The ICE is only for recharge, not propulsion.