I’ve been hearing a lot about Chevrolet’s new electric car, the Volt. It is supposed to be America’s answer to Toyota in the green car exhibition. On Chevrolet’s electric car site, they proudly proclaim, “It’s unlike any previous EV (electric vehicle), thanks to its innovative rechargeable electric drive system and range-extending power source.” This “range-extending power source” can be gasoline, E85, or biodiesel. Which makes it a hybrid, no? Like the Prius parked in my garage. The only difference seems to be that the Volt does not use the gasoline engine unless you run out of electricity, making electric-only trips possible for short distances. Of course, I can do that today with a modded Prius, or one I buy in Japan. The Volt is a plug-in hybrid concept vehicle with lot of marketing hype. And not much else.
The major difference is that the engine only charges the batteries in my understanding. Therefore, it can be highly specialized to that one task.
The Volt is simply not a Hybrid. Period.
The Volt drives using electricity stored in batteries 100% of the time. The wheels are powered by electric motors 100% of the time and never by a drive shaft.
Chevy also opted to add an electrical generator to the car which can produce electricity in the event the batteries run dry due to a long road trip or the owner simply forgot to plug in the car the night before.
The on-board electrical generator can be gas power, E85, pure ethanol, bio diesel, or even fuel cell as soon as the technology permits this to be a reasonable choice.
This car is WAY ahead of it’s time and even further ahead of any other car company’s “green” efforts.
David, we are agreed that the Volt concept is a plug-in electric car that can burn fuel only when absolutely necessary.
GM has taken a modern, technically advanced electric car concept and added a gas engine (powering a generator) to it. I do not dispute that it is a fantastic piece of engineering. I do not dispute that it will get excellent gas mileage by rarely using its “range-extending power source.”
But this does not mean that GM has revolutionized the electric car. Electric-drive-only, plug-in options have been available for other cars for years, even on gas-married models like the Prius (converted by CalCars in 2004). There’s no innovation in that concept. The E-Flex drivetrain may be innovative, and some of the other engineering proposed by the Volt may be innovative, but they did not just re-invent the electric car.
See: CalCars Plug-In Hybrids page and: Google’s ReChargeIT project
The earliest date Chevy has proposed for production is 2010. Which means this car does not yet exist. We have no idea how it will perform, what the electric-only range will be, how much it will cost to buy, etc. For now, it is a tremendous exercise in the marketing of laboratory ideas.
It is supposed to be America’s answer to Toyota in the green car exhibition.
Well I think that probably tells you all you need to know at this point about the Volt. That’s like lutefisk being Norway’s answer to sashimi.
Posted to http://www.edmunds.com is the following
“The specs for triple-digit fuel economy:
The Volt features a front-mounted electric motor that generates 120 kilowatts of power (160 horsepower) and 236 pound-feet of torque. Lithium-ion batteries are housed beneath the Volt’s floor. Also onboard is a 53-kilowatt electric generator. The turbocharged, 1.0-liter three-cylinder gasoline engine also fits up front, while the 12-gallon fuel tank is in the rear.
The Volt will drive about 40 miles on pure electric power. Vehicle Line Director Tony Posawatz (whose name rhymes with “kilowatts”), says GM arbitrarily picked this distance because Department of Transportation studies show that half of U.S. households travel less than 30 miles per day, while 78 percent of commuters travel no more than 40 miles per day to work.
“Most Volt drivers would use little or no gasoline,” Posawatz notes.”
reference: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=119088
COMMENT: I have some experience driving battery electric conversions in New England. They need a fuel-fired source of heat for windshield defrosting and cabin heat, so I suspect GM engineers will consider either running the generator in cold weather to provide that heat source for the safety and comfort of the motorist. They could wire in resistance heaters for those purposes plus seat warmers, but that will reduce the battery-only drive range by 10 or more miles during cold weather.
As noted above, it remains to be seen just what the Volt can do when it turns up as a production vehicle. Until then, it is a breakthrough in marketing terms only.