Dear Paul:
I don’t usually engage in tit for tat in these forums, so I’ll essentially just clarify my original comments. Keep in mind, however, that my overall point was and is that the Volt is a product brought to market too soon as current technology cannot provide an electric vehicle that can actually compete with conventional vehicles. Therefore, as a simple business decision, it makes no sense. Also please keep in mind that my comments relating to the Volt in particular rather than to basic physics are based on my readings of articles about the Volt which include information attributed to GM. Yes, I have in fact, read extensively on the Volt and the related technology.
Regarding the Volt’s range, it’s my understanding that its systems will not allow the battery to discharge below a specific level of charge (necessary to protect the ability of any battery to continually recharge), thus, as you note, engaging the gasoline engine which provides charging power to the battery. However, even a 220 volt charger takes on the order of four hours (take an hour or two either way if you like) to restore the full charge. What this means is that the gas engine is going to provide sufficient power only to limp along, a fraction of the fully charged power of the battery equals a fraction of the performance at full charge. That’s physics, not GM spin. What you laud is actually a weakness because vehicle with a backup gas engine can immediately resume more or less normal operation under gasoline power; the Volt cannot. And 40 miles remains nothing to write home about.
I have, as I noted, indeed read quite a few reviews of the Volt. As to the performance being “actually quite good,” those professionals who reviewed the vehicle noted, without exception, that it was quiet, drove smoothly, and felt more or less normal, but mentioned many, if not most, of the drawbacks I listed, the short range, difficulty and time involved in charging, and outrageous cost foremost among them. My mention of 35 MPH was not presented as a hard and fast fact, but as a potential example. Even if the vehicle was capable of, say 50MPH on the charging motor, that’s still a significant drawback compared with far less expensive conventional vehicles. GM is certainly not advertising a 100 MPH top speed for the Volt, but that merely underscores another of its many limitations compared with its conventional competition.
Let us assume that the battery warranty is as you’ve described. The risk for the initial owner may be mitigated in terms of replacement, but that warranty likely applies only to the original owner, therefore, buying a used Volt with no battery warranty is going to take a real leap of faith on the buyer’s part. My point about the extraordinarily high replacement cost for batteries rendering the vehicle essentially worthless stands, merely with slightly different parameters. Even if the warranty is fully transferrable, the extra costs that represents for the manufacturer underlines the ridiculously negative manufacturing cost vs profit equation for the Volt.
Regarding GM’s earlier electric vehicle experiment, it was not my intention to suggest that none were tested in cold environments, though I may have inadvertently implied that. I know for a fact that that vehicle did undergo cold weather testing, and as a result, the vehicles that were leased–not sold–to what we would now call beta driver/testers, were all confined to the warm states I mentioned for the reasons I mentioned. Gm eventually took possession of all of the vehicles when their leases were up and destroyed them. Draw your own conclusions. Again, this issue involves only basic physics which are not confined to the Volt. If you don’t believe me, put some fresh batteries in your refrigerator and/or freezer for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minute, etc, and check the voltage with a simple voltmeter. You’ll see that cold depletes batteries at a rapid rate. Lithium Ion batteries are no different, just enormously more expensive and potentially dangerous.
“Until it becomes affordable enough for you to buy, you don’t have to worry about the cost”? Paul, that lump sum subsidy for each Volt is not the only taxpayer money relating to the Volt. Don’t forget the GM bailout and the various federal programs providing millions upon millions for exploring such technologies, all of which are, in part, coming out of my pocket and yours so that a very select group of buyers can feel that they’re defending the planet. The Volt’s battery pack is state of the art. Science makes clear that without unimaginable breakthroughs in battery power, storage capacity, weight, size, life and charge time, electric cars will never be viable. Let’s not even get into the billions upon billions of infrastructure costs necessary to make electric vehicles even remotely practical. And remember, they will never, ever be practical in colder climates without another unimaginable breakthrough that renders batteries immune to the effects of cold. That’s a large part of the US, all of Canada, and much of the rest of the world. And hey, if the Volt is such a great idea, why does the taxpayer have to provide half the cost of many reasonably well equipped compact cars just to get the Volt off the showroom floor?
Let’s compare the Volt to say, the new Ford Fiesta. Equipped with every bell and whistle Ford offers, the Fiesta costs only about $22,000 and gets 40 MPG on the highway. Its emission controls are advanced and its engine efficient and clean burning. Compared to that vehicle, and a great many others, the Volt remains ridiculously overpriced, and has significant disadvantages in every meaningful way. If GM was not owned by the Democrat party, the Volt would still be a technology demonstration project in its research division because the engineers there certainly know that it’s an interesting idea, but the technology has not caught up to the promise, and it never may. GM will lose money on every Volt it manufacturers absent those breakthroughs about which I spoke. No manufacturer can afford, for long, to lose money on its products, particularly when they know they’ll be losing that money before the first product is ever delivered to a customer.
