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Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

motortrend.com

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Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#41

Post by ollie87 »

awjr wrote: post #26
ferongr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most electric cars lack a variable-ratio transmission. At some point and you only have the final drive to reduce the speed of the electric motor. The final drive has to strike a balance between torque for negotiating inclines and top speed, as the electric motor cannot rev to infinity, neither can the power systems handle infinite power though them. An electric car with a two-ratio gearbox would be ideal for both tak…

One of the concerns I have is that many of the EVs that are being released are not capable of towing significantly. I own a horse and we need something that can tow a braked 3.5T trailer. This market in the EU is primarily serviced by diesel 4x4s. I can see a future where the diesel engine is banned and only at that point will something fall out of the woodwork to cope with that towing capacity.

Extra battery in the floor of the trailer? Hooks into the car and gives it some extra juice, why wouldn't that work?

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#42

Post by astalwick »

This is a big deal.

Car of the year, when you're talking about normal internal combustion cars, doesn't really matter that much. When you start talking about new (and, for $30000, scary) tech like electrics and hybrids 10-12 years ago, it makes a big impact on purchasing decisions.

I bought my 2005 Prius largely based on the car of the year recommendation on the 2004 Prius (among other research, sure). That recommendation helped validate that I wasn't buying an experiment - people who know cars thought this was a great buy.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#43

Post by coredog64 »

Klathmon wrote: post #30
archildress wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point. Tesla is, to me, fundamentally a battery company.

To me, Tesla feels like a "marketing" company. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Yes, their battery tech is improving, and they make pretty damn good cars, but most of all Tesla is getting people excited for electric cars. Before they came around, electric cars were shitty ecoboxes that were worse in just about every way to an ICE car. They were ugly, had no range, were missing features, expensive, slow charging, e…

Off the top of my head, the pre-Tesla EVs I remember are the GM Impact, an electric RAV4, and an electric S-10/Ranger (the latter primarily sold to corporate fleets).

The EV1 spawned a movie, with most owners very interested in buying.

If you think a RAV4 is a shitty ecobox, well, I'm not sure how I can help.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#44

Post by Klathmon »

ollie87 wrote: post #41
awjr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the concerns I have is that many of the EVs that are being released are not capable of towing significantly. I own a horse and we need something that can tow a braked 3.5T trailer. This market in the EU is primarily serviced by diesel 4x4s. I can see a future where the diesel engine is banned and only at that point will something fall out of the woodwork to cope with that towing capacity.

Extra battery in the floor of the trailer? Hooks into the car and gives it some extra juice, why wouldn't that work?

IIRC it's not the battery power as much as it is the cooling.

Many of the parts on electric cars overheat when pushed pretty quickly, and while adding cooling similar to a traditional ICE seems to be the answer, it adds even more weight and complexity to a platform which is already fighting to save every oz.

Even the Tesla Model S can't do more than a single lap around many tracks without overheating.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#45

Post by GirlsCanCode »

Cyph0n wrote: post #23
avar wrote: post #16

The article only briefly touches on this, but LG Korea is a huge part of this. They make the motor, battery & drivetrain, basically everything that makes this car an electric car. Chevrolet is just manufacturing the parts that would be mostly identical to any of their other cars. Rather than Tesla being worried about Chevrolet, I think they'd be more worried about the likes of LG & Samsung in the longer term.

Isn't Tesla's battery tech developed by Panasonic? And I believe that some of their initial Autopilot tech was sourced from Mercedes. It's very difficult to find an auto manufacturer that can build a car from the ground up, primarily because the economics aren't scalable.

But the YCombinator people must minimized GM's accomplishments while maximizing Tesla's.

I own both a Tesla Model S (P90D) and a 2016 Chevy Volt. In many ways the Volts technology--with an engine and an electric drive--is more "advanced" than the Teslas. But nobody here was excited about it. Of course, the Tesla has nicer user cockpit controls, etc., but that just icing.

I'm looking forward to driving a Bolt.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#46

Post by pseudometa »

Cyph0n wrote: post #23
avar wrote: post #16

The article only briefly touches on this, but LG Korea is a huge part of this. They make the motor, battery & drivetrain, basically everything that makes this car an electric car. Chevrolet is just manufacturing the parts that would be mostly identical to any of their other cars. Rather than Tesla being worried about Chevrolet, I think they'd be more worried about the likes of LG & Samsung in the longer term.

Isn't Tesla's battery tech developed by Panasonic? And I believe that some of their initial Autopilot tech was sourced from Mercedes. It's very difficult to find an auto manufacturer that can build a car from the ground up, primarily because the economics aren't scalable.

Tesla's battery tech is developed by Tesla. Panasonic is the manufacturing partner. Like Apple & Foxcon.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#47

Post by coredog64 »

brightball wrote: post #38

I still don't understand why anyone would buy a Bolt (or a Tesla) over a Volt. Since I heard about the Volt initially back in 2006, it was the most logical and practical approach to powering a vehicle that I'd ever heard. Eliminate gas usage on 95% of your driving, but have gas available for long range and fast refueling against the entire infrastructure of the US. Pure EV's are nothing more than "around town" cars i…

I already have 2 cars, so I'm not concerned about range.

One of those cars is a Prius. While it has been very reliable, as we come up on 200,000 miles my wife is getting anxious about failure modes that are hybrid only. I mostly don't want to ever have to get another oil change again.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#48

Post by ygra »

Roritharr wrote: post #28
ygra wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A top speed around 150 km/h isn't unusual for smaller ICEs either. Unless you spend that much time on the Autobahn and do mostly city driving the speed limit isn't really a problem in my experience. But I guess with an electric vehicle you're unlikely to drive long distances at those speeds anyway.

Not a big Problem, but being limited to 150 was one of the main things why my old ICE car to me felt unsafe to drive on the Autobahn. For short periods its just safer to be able use the most left lane at 160-180 than to go 120-130 in the Center and wait for a chance to overtake with not much headroom over the left at 140-150.

Our car tops at 155 km/h and the most problematic thing to me is acceleration above 100 km/h rather than actual top speed. Overtaking is something that takes a while and you always have to factor in a lot more distance to oncoming cars in the left lane considering that they may be a good deal faster than you. I tend to be comfortable at 120–130 km/h in the right or middle lane, but admittedly, other people may prefer to drive faster. It comes with an efficiency trade-off that may prevent them from using EVs, though ;-)

Acceleration shouldn't be a problem for an electric motor, though, so despite a somewhat slower top speed I'd envision that things like being on the on-ramp to the Autobahn, or overtaking maneuvers are less of a problem than for ICE-powered cars with a weak engine.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#50

Post by [deleted] »

coredog64 wrote: post #43
Klathmon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, Tesla feels like a "marketing" company. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Yes, their battery tech is improving, and they make pretty damn good cars, but most of all Tesla is getting people excited for electric cars. Before they came around, electric cars were shitty ecoboxes that were worse in just about every way to an ICE car. They were ugly, had no range, were missing features, expensive, slow charging, e…

Off the top of my head, the pre-Tesla EVs I remember are the GM Impact, an electric RAV4, and an electric S-10/Ranger (the latter primarily sold to corporate fleets). The EV1 spawned a movie, with most owners very interested in buying. If you think a RAV4 is a shitty ecobox, well, I'm not sure how I can help.

[deleted]
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