http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/14/auto...ex.htm?cnn=yes

I wish they would have factored in the 'looks' of them.

Jeff

 

Does the Volt have regenerative breaking? How much would this aid the Volt if it did? Would it be extremely costly and add extra weight?

 

The Volt does have regenerative braking and it does cycle the energy to the battery pack to keep it at a sustained level, but it doesn't recharge the battery. Basically, the Volt never tries to recharge the battery on the road. You run the battery pack until its depleted and then need to run on the "range extender" gas engine until it's plugged in and recharged.

I'm not sure that article is 100% accurate about the Volt's operation. My understanding is that the Volt, when fully charged, always runs 40 miles or so on battery power, then when the battery is depleted the gas engine fires up and sends power directly to the electric motors.

CNN says "The gas engine generally takes over on the highway and during fast acceleration or uphill driving. That allows it to get an average of 50 miles to the gallon." I don't think that's the case. The gas engine never "assists" the battery power. You're either running the electric motors off battery, or running the electric motors off the gas engine, but never running the battery and gas engine at the same time.

 

I'm not 100% certain, but my understanding is that the gas motor never sends electricity directly to the electric motors. It only charges the batteries. My understanding is it is designed that way so the gas motor can always operate at it's peak effeciency when it is running. (same rpm, load, etc...)

 

It's amazing to me that despite numerous press releases and other readily-available information on HOW the Volt works, that the media can so consistantly be entirely wrong on how it works.

 

I know they mention it in this article, but where were the big news items claiming the Prius wasn't worth the extra money when it came out?

There were stories out there mentioning it, but overall it was "Prius is good, Prius is awesome, buy a Prius and you can be too!"

Now it's "Volt is good, Volt is overpriced, Volt won't save you enough on gas, buy a Prius and save some money."

Dunno why I'm complaining about it, it's not like it wasn't expected.

You do realize they were talking about the Prius there, not the Volt, right?

If you did then sorry for misunderstanding, but the rest of your post was just about the Volt so it looks like you were writing that they said that about it and not the Pruis.

 

Just double-checked and you're right. I was getting it confused on how the engine was in the equation. The gas engine sends energy to the battery pack to keep it at a sustained level, but that energy is only used to drive the electric motors and does not recharge the battery.

 

This thread + Me = Epic Fail.

Sigh. All I wanted to contribute was this

"The Volt does have regenerative braking."

There, I'm pretty sure that is correct. I rescind anything else stated on this thread other than the above quotation. LOL.

 

It's actually a fairly balanced article. It basically finds that neither the Volt not the Prius make any economic sense compared to fuel efficient gas-only models. People buy a Prius for reasons other than fuel efficiency (watch the South Park episode "Smug Alert!" to see who buys them). I think those same people will buy the Volt.

 

I was going to post something similar. I have heard people complain about Volt's batteries and how environmentally unfriendly they actually are when you look at the manufacturing and disposal process.

Duh, where do Prius batteries come from, rainbows and sunshine?

People also complain that getting energy from the electrical grid is no better because electricity is produced from fossil fuels. A valid point, but again, how do you think Prius operates?

 

we are overall a bunch of cars guys, so I will assume that most of you have probably run an air compressor that was plugged into your cigarette lighter, right? If you run the compressor with the engine off, the you can hear the compressor start off at full power, and as it continues working, output gradually lowers. But the second you crank the engine up (and in turn, charge the battery with the alternator), the compressor immediately goes to full power.

It would make sense that when the Volt's generator engine is going, then the battery will be able to provide more power. Maybe that's why the generator runs when you reach highway speeds in the Volt? Am I oversimplifying things?

 

Other spin piece to discredit the Volt. We all knew this would happen. GM will never be as good as Toyota "just because"

 

True but as mentioned here before, power plants generate power far more efficiently then do ICE's. Also not all (but still most) electricty comes from fossil fuels.

The part that I dislike about these cars is the batteries. The energy it takes to create them and then the logistics of disposing of them years later.


Yeah, I can imagine if Toyota came out and said the Prius was going to get 230 MPG then people would just eat it up. People almost seem dismissive of the Volt though. Maybe its the price I don't know. People had no qualm in buying $40k SUVs not too long ago.

 

While it remains to be seen if it will come to pass, Bob Kruse has stated that the Volt battery packs could be put to other uses after their meaningful life in the car is done. I think he mentioned backup power cells for utilities? Whether anyone will use them that way, who knows?

 

Which was predictable. Price has a fair amount to do with it, but a $25,000 sticker price on the Volt wouldn't overcome GM's "junk" reputation among many of the sheeple.