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Government VOLT

P

patsublett

Member
I heard, on TV that it took roughly the amount of electricity required to run 4 houses to charge the VOLT over night. Sounds like a real fuel saver. Wonder how the fuel consumed by the generating plant compares to 10 gal of gas. Good government strategy. Take some here, lie about it, skim a little off and put it somewhere else.
 
One gets what, $4000 or $7000 govt money if you buy one too?

It makes sense to charge it over nite, the electric plants are idling at that time of day. But - what good is 40 mile range, then need such a long recharge?

It's a wonderful commuter car for people who live in city & go 20 miles to work in a temperate climate.

That doesn't likely describe any of us, so it will just be a tax drain on us.

--->Paul
 
Off peak power is particularly cheap and is surplus. In particular from nuclear and hydro electric generators.
Powder River Basin coal is very cheap per btu.
Otherwise the generating equipment just sits idle during off peak wasting money all night and over the weekend.
Peak power demands for a few hours during the hottest and coldest part of the day are the problem. That is when the oldest, dirtiest coal plats are powered up. Along with gas turbine and even turbo diesel gen sets.
Anybody however who plans on driving to work and plugging in their electric vehicle during the day is a dolt.
 
You can put the Volt, right up there with ETHANOL as another big Government JOKE. What a worthless piece of JUNK. Costs close to 40 Grand. Oh, but with some redistributed wealth, You can get a 4 to 7 Grand government (OurMoney)credit. Wonder how long this will stay up. POOFITYPOOOOOOF.
Jack
 
Here's some of the adver at the Volt site, obviously different than what some of you think you know.............



The Volt battery has gone through numerous environment-specific tests, including corrosion and hot- and cold-weather testing and the results were so promising that the 16-kWh lithium-ion battery pack is backed by an 100,000 mile/8-year warranty(3).

Here are a few more notes on the battery:
•Just plug it in to charge the battery, and most people can commute gas-free and tailpipe emissions-free for about $1.50 of electricity per day.














•A small, quiet on-board gas generator creates electricity that powers your Volt as you drive for hundreds of miles on battery and gas power.
•Lithium-ion cells outperform nickel metal hydride cells (found in today's hybrids) in terms of life cycle
•A liquid thermal cooling and heating system keeps the battery at a comfortable temperature as it's being charged and discharged
Here are a few more advantages:

•Commute gas-free on electric for an average of $1.50 a day
•Can be set to charge during off-peak hours for greater savings
•Your Volt will be fully charged in about 10 hours, depending on climate, with standard 120-volt line, or as little as 4 hours using a
 
Sounds like you got your name on the wating list. Enjoy, and you are helping the planet too. All the polar bears give thanks.
Jack
 
Hey Paul..........Charlie Rose (not a fan, but occasionally watch) was interviewing a fellow from Israel one day this week. They have the technology (gonna have 55 'stations' in place within 18 months) to replace a discharged battery with a fully charged one in about a minute's time....without leaving your vehicle. Showed a film clip with a car driving into a 'station'; an arm........for lack of a better word........changing the battery pack from underneath the car and the vehicle driving off.........in about one minute.
 
The problem with electric cars is that they require relatively huge amounts of rare earth materials. Up until 20-30 years ago, the United States controlled most of the rare earth production. Now it's 95% controlled by the Chinese. So you may not be enriching the Saudi oil shieks, but now you're at the mercy of the Chinese.
 
The energy use is upside down in the upper midwest where electricity is produced with primary coal and some Nuclear. It is right side up in the pacific north west, and where Nuclear is providing at least 25% or so of the grid power.
 
I heard the standard household charger works at a rate of 5 miles per hour. For every hour you charge it, you get one hour of driving (if on flat roads). So a 40 mile ride takes 8 hours of charging when you get home.

The only way the Volt saves some energy resources (while wasting others), is when it's hooked to electricity made from coal burning (most of the USA power) or hydro. Right now, resources are evaluted by the return. That is . . . how much it costs to get them, versus how much they return. Coal has the highest return of anything we use right now. I'll add that anything with less then a 5 to 1 return ratio is considered a waste of time. Ethanol has a return ratio of 1.1 to 1. Wonder why any money is wasted on it?

Coal - has an 80 to 1 return-ratio.
Hydro-electric - 40 to 1.
Wind power - 30 to 1
Imported oil - 28 to 1.
Natural gas - 10 to 1
Nuclear - 10 to 1
Domestic oil - 9 to 1
Solar electric - 8 to 1
Tar sands - 5 to 1
Biodiesel and ethanol - 1.1 to 1 (what a waste !)

It would probably be more efficient to build a direct-coal-burner. Maybe something like an old Stanley-Steamer?
 
Trouble is, if a lot of people get electric cars, the off peak hours will become peak. Just like when everybody switched to diesel pickups because diesel fuel was "cheap".
 
If one hour of charging gives one hour of driving, at 60 mph wouldn't you go 60 miles on one hour of charging?
 
I was wondering why the roof of the car is not covered in a big solar panel so it can recharge while its sitting outside all day? It's winter right now and the south side of our garage is so warm you could work out there in a t shirt. By the way, I hate electric cars and I think the technology is a pain in the @ss. I think my neighbors EZ GO golf cart is a better and more effective electric vehicle than the Volt. I know the range is farther.
 
Neighbor has an Electric car, ZENN. He drives it 5-10 miles a day to the transit station and around town. He loves it. He has had it over a year and says he really cannot tell on his electric bill that the car has been plugged in. Keeps it plugged in whenever he is home.
It will not go over 40 MPH due to gov restrictions on NEV cars. He has a Toyota Camry for when he need to drive the freeway.
 
Then charge the batteries in off-peak or whatever efficent manner. Interesting concept.

More initial vehicle cost, and you have to pool the batteries so lose ownership have to rent.

Less energy cost.

Be a hassle to make that work in my salty winter weather.

Interesting. Biggest knock I see is needing perhaps 2.5x as many batteries as cars. I've heard it will be a strain on our resources to manufature enough batteries to power cars as it is; this system requires much more exotic battery material.

Not knocking it, just thinking aloud. :)

-->Paul
 
"Anybody however who plans on driving to work and plugging in their electric vehicle during the day is a dolt."

Anyone who thinks that hybrid autos are anything but status symbols are fooling themselves. Your power comes through the same meter 'peak' or 'off peak'.
 
That is just my bad "editing." 5 miles per hours means . . . . you have to run the household charger one hour to get 5 miles worth of charge. So, it takes 8 hours to get a 40 mile charge. Last I heard, 40 miles is the max in a best-case.
 
Does he get his electricity for free?

A Chevy volt driven in Nwe York, 40 miles a day, will cost $50 per month to charge. It will be more once rates go up again.

A Chevy volt driven in northern Michigan 40 miles a day will cost $35 to $40 a month to charge right now, but elec. rates are going up.
 
Yes. Shortest drive to the bank is 12 miles for us, and our other account is a 50 mile ride. Grocery shopping is a 50 mile ride also. Mail is only 6 miles. At 18 cents per KWh, I don't think a volt would serve me very well.

I wonder what a new set of batteries costs when they wear out?
 
(quoted from post at 13:47:32 12/03/10) I was wondering why the roof of the car is not covered in a big solar panel so it can recharge while its sitting outside all day? It's winter right now and the south side of our garage is so warm you could work out there in a t shirt. By the way, I hate electric cars and I think the technology is a pain in the @ss. I think my neighbors EZ GO golf cart is a better and more effective electric vehicle than the Volt. I know the range is farther.
Click to expand...

Just how many KW hrs/miles do you figure a 3ft X 4ft solar roof panel is going to generate with indirect sunlight over 8 hrs?
 
That'd why I carry a plastic lunch bucket. Any electricity spilled at work isn't good enough to sell to the consumer. However it's good enough to gather up for use at my place.
 
just yesterday in my storage shed I stepped over my electric DC forklift motor coupled to 3 speed chev transmission, thinking after this I69 move I will again build my own electric machine. It worked far better than I expected . Next one will start with extended cab small truck. I started with ranger standars cab . At 6-6 my freme dosen't fit well. Next one will be a hybrid or at least be able to recharge while setting in town to top off batteries. My home made controller was the worst part of the rig. Next one will have full vlotage controller. The sense of accomplishment was well worth the whole project. It was not a good hill machine, but great on relative flat roads.
 
Brad,

My meter records the peak and off peak use. 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM I am on peak at about 19 cents a kwh and 7:30 PM to 7:30 AM I am off peak at about 5 cents a kwh. My weekends and holidays are all at the off peak 5 cent cost.
 
Y'all seem terribly put out about something you very little about. If you're not in the market for an electric or hybrid vehicle, why do you care? GM is going to sell all the Volts it makes even if you don't buy one.

Now for someone who wants an electric vehicle or maybe a hybrid, there's really nothing else that competes with the Volt: Charge it up and drive it forty miles, then the gas engine kicks in and you keep on driving.

As far as the role of the US government in the Volt, most of the car's development was done long before the bankruptcy/bailout. There's no doubt that external_link put a lot of pressure on GM to step up work on the Volt, but the car would have been built regardless.

Now I'm not a big proponent of electric vehicles. Supposedly GM will lose eight grand on every Volt it sells. But if the future of the car is electric, the Volt is way ahead of anything else.
 
The Volt needs 30,000 watts of power to travel a flat highway at 65 MPH. That would take approx 400 full-sized solar panels (3' X 4' each) to keep it going.
 
So I have to pay some rich dude $5000 in taxes so he can drive his volt. Maybe I should start sabotoging a few volts.
 
I think you're living in dream-land. The Federal government, directly and indirectly has already spent billions promoting this thing. That's money coming out of all our pocketes (those of us that pay taxes).

The USA already has trouble keeping up with electric-grid demands - and most of that power is made from coal burning. If everyone starts driving Volts (which are indirect coal and oil burners) -where do think the electric power will come from? Bigger coal fires?

I also ask, who exactly are you accusing of knowing little about this subject?

Let me get this straight:
The Volt has a price-tag of around $43,000 (with taxes).

Our taxes pay for a $7500 Federal incentive.

The Feds and many state governments are trying to force power companies to offer "flat rate" monthly charge fees for Volt owners that everybody will have to pay.

The Volt battery, although heavily backed by the USA government in its development, has its battery cells sourced from South Korea.

A replacement battery pack is around $15,000. GM warrantees the OEM new batteries for 8 years or 100K miles. So, I guess you could say the battery costs close to $2000 per year or $150 every 1000 miles. That's not accounting for the grid-power costs and gasoline costs to keep those batteries charged.

Also, the batteries cannot be used when temps are colder then 32 degrees F. So, they have to be heated to be used in "cold starts."

The Volt has an all-electric range at highway speeds of 25-35 miles.

Tell me how this makes sense. I've got to be missing something, somewhere.
 
Aah, the chebby volt, America's coal fired car! I bet the idjits that buy it, thought it was gonna save the world! Save a few IQ points, and buy a gas efficient car, instead.
 
Edmunds roadtest said the Volt milage/costs are about the same as a car that gets 30 mpg, but they also said they were basing costs on their electric costs of $.31 kwh, while most on here have said their costs are $.08-20 kwh.
Also all the electric cars have been subsdized to get them off the ground. Toyota was losing $3000-5000 per car.
 
Always wondered why they didn't have roof panels, they would have an all day trickel charge in most cases.
 
There's been articles telling about new meters that do this. We use to have to read our meter; they put in new meters and can read them at the station.
 
Couldn't agree with you more. Residential wind and hydro electric production with direct drive alternators all are based on rare earth magnets to produce economical power with minimal wind and water resources. All the companies I deal with say that the ability to purchase and get delivery of this product is restricting production capabilities.Fortunatally Solar PV and Solar thermo don't require this tech., but sadly most of the world wide production of these products is centered in China. Just my thoughts; China has waged World War III for several years now, with no military, no atom bombs, or elaborate terror plots. They just copied our products, manufactured them for far less, and are winning WWIII.Yuall better learn to bow and speak Chinese or be willing to reacess our excessive life styles, before we have no choices left.
 
This sounds a lot like the conversations that took place when tractors were introduced and horse farmers said they would never be as good as the horse. They probably were not initially, but did eventually evolve into workable products. Come on you "horse farmers", give it a chance-the oil is gonna be gone someday.
 
When I was in elementary school, they told us all cars would be electric in the future, and we would be converted 100 percent to the metric system by the time our class graduated high school.

1984 came and went, but my tape measure still reads in 16ths. Electric cars have fared about the same.
 
Your're comparing apples to oranges, or worse.

By your reasoning, any idea, no matter how inane it appears, much actually be good - just because it looks so bad? Wow!

Or, better put, is something once deemed bad was later proven to be good - therefore all things that seem bad are good?

Oil is a finite resource. Coal is also finite yet it is our most productive natural resource. Yet, your plan to save resources - is to create a car that basically runs on coal?

With horses versus tractors (or cars) there were many ligit arguments at that time. To the pro-side, we had a glut of primary oil to use up. So, cars and tractors had good reason to show potential - and they did.

What are the ligit arguments in favor here, in regard to the Volt? It WOULD make some sense if we'd found a way to make excess electricity. Where is it?
 
(quoted from post at 20:39:15 12/03/10) Aah, the chebby volt, America's coal fired car! I bet the idjits that buy it, thought it was gonna save the world! Save a few IQ points, and buy a gas efficient car, instead.
Click to expand...

How about burning American coal instead of Arab oil?
 
Isn't losing $8 grand on every Volt going to make it hard to be profitable? Seems like more government math to me.
 
Is that 8 year guarantee prorated? If so, after 2-3 years, that warranty isn't going to go far on battery replacement. I'll be the resale value on a 6-7 year old Volt with the original battery is going to be very low.
 
We were not talking about keeping it going down the highway 65 mph we were talking about charging the batteries with a solar panel while its parked in a broiling hot parking lot for 8 hours a day. Not that big of a mystery as every experiemental electric car popular mechanics has tested in about the last ten years has had an entire roof of solar panels.
 
Germ, GM has NEVER made money on small cars. So a few years back they mostly abandoned the small car market and focused on light trucks and SUVs. That worked out real well until gas prices went through the roof, people quit buying trucks and GM had no small cars anyone wanted to buy. Oil prices are cheap today but they won't stay that way. If GM wants to avoid a second bankruptcy, they have to be prepared for that day.

The electric vehicle business is a huge gamble. But to avoid being caught flat-footed the next time oil gets expensive, all the car companies are investing in electric technology.
 
JD, the folks I accused of knowing little about the Volt are the ones who said it has only a 40 mile range. Obviously you're not in that category.

As I said before, I personally am not a fan of electric vehicles. All of the things you say are quite valid points. But I still say that when compared to its all-electric and hybrid competition, the Volt is the best in its class.
 
Didn't they use these in your part of the country, you might try it.
21-1-ship.jpg
 
I understand that. I guess my subtle point was that GM is losing $8 grand on the Volt and the government is kicking in another $7 grand in subsidies. That's $15 grand they (us taxpayers) are paying someone to buy the car. It's bad business for a company that has a history of losing money and is trying to come out of bankruptcy. If GM had billions of their own cash sitting around to use for R&D on an electric car, then their investment might be worhtwhile.

Toss in $15 grand for batteries every 8 years and just how many of these will be on the road after 8 years? It just doesn't make economic sense. How many Vots will be on the road in 15 years as compared to gas models? I just think this is another case of "Going Green" that is more costly financially and resource wise than can be justified.
 
The vast majority of folks have a plain meter which measures current flow only. Dual rate meters are available in selected areas and would allow people to save on their power.

If you can have this service installed in your area by all means it will save money. If not, you are just benefitting the stockholders of the utility.

Just my thoughts..

Brad
 
There is no collective "we" here. Different people are talking about different things and specs.

To have enough solar panels to "trickle charge" in 8 hours - without an elaborate sun-tracking system - it would take aorund 20 full-size 120 watt solar panels in a sunny part of the country, and 30-35 panels in a darker area like New York. 20 panels would requre a roof-area of 200 square feet.
 
The "40 mile" range is more like 25-35 miles at highway speeds and is only a reference to when in all-battery mode. Once that is surpassed, the gasoline-powered generator kicks in.
 
There is no tracking of the sun in open parking lot. The government has a bunch of solar chargers for their vehicles that sat a long time. You can spout specs if you want but even if it just kept the juice a little warmer it would make a difference. I don't guess they're building solar collection centers in NY either, I guess you put them where they work.

davpal can include me in the collective we because he hit the point on the head of what we were talking about.
solar_powered_racing_honda_car.jpg
 
There's no tracking sun in an open parking lot? What the heck does that mean? Maybe you haven't noticed, but the sun moves. Thus the need for solar tracking IF you are trying to get the most out of a solar panel. If not using tracking, you need more panels to do the same job. Many solar installations use automatic tracking and the panels move all day, following the sun for best solarization.

Your the one that mentioned putting solar panels on the roof. I assumed you meant the car. If you meant some other roof, perhaps you should of been a bit more specific.

Buick-Deere mentioned "indirect" and thus the reason why I mentioned tracking.

Sorry you don't like "specs." For some things, they are necessary. I thought the context of this part of the discussion - was - slow-charging with solar panels instead of using enough panels to actually supply the direct demand for driving a volt.

You did not define what your "trikel charge" is. Enough for a days driving - gained while parked for eight hours? Or, just one $500 solar panel to maybe give you enough for 1/2 mile of driving after 8 hours use?

I'm also going to suppose there may be more peoeple under the umbrella of "we" then you and your buddy pal Dave.

By the way, please define what "keeping the juice a little warmer" means?
 
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