Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

cbsnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 291 posts

Re: Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

#251

Post by jdietrich »

logifail wrote: post #243
marvin wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you're not basing your reasoning purely on what the sales representative of the dealership said about EVs. Car dealerships have an incentive to undersell EVs because they require less of the routine maintenance that combustion engine cars require (oil changes, brake pad changes). Dealerships make much of their money on servicing, so this is not in their interest. In Norway, a new electric car car is obviously…

> Dealerships make much of their money on servicing, so this is not in their interest "Much of their money" - got a source for that? At least where we are, there is a competitive market in servicing of ICE vehicles, and I won't be getting the new vehicle serviced at this dealership, I'll be going to a third party shop much closer (and cheaper). The vehicle warranty isn't affected. > obviously better on a TCO basis, d…

>Thought experiment: what % of EV ownership will your country have to reach before those incentives disappear? There is this annoying issue of governments needing to raise tax revenue one way or another

Subsidies are a stopgap measure, not a permanent fixture. Economies of scale are hugely significant in the motor industry, presenting EVs with a catch 22 - they're too expensive because not enough people are buying them, and not enough people are buying them because they're too expensive.

Volumes are increasing and prices are falling rapidly, which should allow for the phase-out of incentives within the next few years. Government investment in public charging infrastructure is probably necessary until at least 2035.

Re: Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

#252

Post by zepearl »

nimbius wrote: post #139

Disclosure: im an automotive engine mechanic by trade. The Volt was a political nightmare. trade rags beat this car night and day for being a fake. but honestly its a damn good car. it was never going to see tesla style torque or mileage but the people driving it werent the whole foods kind of crowd anyway. the hybrid electric was borne out of the need to create something that couldnt be patent-struck by toyota, whos…

A friend of mine owns it since a long time - he has always been very happy with it and never had any problems with it. I've been in it a couple of times and it felt nice while driving. It's a pity that people basically didn't understand it.

Re: Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

#253

Post by erik_seaberg »

anovikov wrote: post #204

Why are people so against it? I mean, plug-in hybrids are a dead end, they made sense only when batteries were super expensive. With almost all producers being under $200/kwh and some under $130/kwh, with $100/kwh just around the corner, what's the point of a plug-in hybrid?

Hybrids (or battery swaps) make sense until apartments and employers have power outlets for every parking space.

Re: Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

#254

Post by jdietrich »

speedplane wrote: post #147
dd36 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that r&d is a sunk cost and that producing the vehicle is cash flow positive and will be even more so in 5 years, GM should be pedal to the metal. The loss per unit sold is a non-real accounting artifact. Frankly, it should be accounted for on the basis of the carrying cost of the r&d debt. If I open a bakery and buy a ton of expensive equipment, I will have huge accounting losses per cookie for years but I may…

> The loss per unit sold is a non-real accounting artifact. GM can clearly make money from this vehicle if the tighten up their production. I'm sure engineers there know exactly what needs to be done to get there. It probably takes investment, but there will only be a return on the investment if many more Bolts are sold. To sell more of these cars, they have to overcome public perception that they are some weird new…

>Unfortunately, engineering rarely changes the way someone feels about a product, marketing does.

Personal experience is also hugely relevant. If a friend gives you a ride in their electric car, many of the advantages become immediately apparent - the silence, the interior space, the remarkable acceleration and the general normality of an EV. A brief conversation with an owner will reveal that many of the fears about EV ownership are just myths.

Tesla have done an important job by making EVs cool, but equally important is simply getting used to the presence of EVs. That's not an overnight process, but it's already starting to happen, at least in Europe. The sight of cars with no tailpipe or someone plugging in to a rapid charger is no longer unusual. EVs are starting to seem less like a weird option for hippies and nerds and more like the inevitable future of motoring.

Re: Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

#255

Post by dawnerd »

bit_logic wrote: post #54

This was really shortsighted. PHEV is currently the best technology. I think the push for full EV is premature for mass market. It works for niche cases like Tesla, but not something that can be truly mainstream. With current battery tech and infrastructure, EV is a 50 mile technology. It has nothing to do with battery tech itself, doesn't matter how light or dense the battery is. The limit is infrastructure. 50 mile…

300 miles is still no where close to what some ICE cars get. I can go about 600 miles on a tank - and I have before without stopping.

I want an EV badly but I just can’t do my regular Portland to LA drives in them right now.

Re: Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

#256

Post by matthewdgreen »

derekp7 wrote: post #221
masonic wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EV is a 50 mile technology Sssshhhh, don't tell Tesla or Hyundai that. PHEV is a solution looking for a problem. You only add a little bit more range versus a plain ICE, and that's at the expense of lugging around an extra motor and battery array. The whole carpool lane eligibility for hybrids is a crutch and the only selling distinction for PHEVs. (If you're driving far enough for a carpool lane to even matter, you'…

You could also say that having large batteries is a solution looking for a problem. If 95% of your driving is under 50 miles a day, then you are lugging around 150 miles worth of extra batteries (to get that 200 mile range) that still need a long charge cycle, where you could easily replace that 150 miles of batteries with an ICE that will get you unlimited miles with a 5-minute fuling stop in between. And still end…

Most people drive more than X miles on Y% of their trips. For any given (X, Y) where Y is non-trivial — and 5% is non-trivial for most people — you can augment an X-mile battery limit by adding public charging stations. However the smaller X is, the more numerous and densely spaced those stations will have to be, which is deeply challenging given the layout of roads, and the cost of building charging stations. (This leaves aside the relative annoyance of making many brief stops vs. occasional longer stops.)

Manufacturers like Tesla control both “X” and the charging station layout, and have limited influence over “Y” except insofar as it affects their ability to sell cars. Presumably they’ve crunched the numbers and concluded that they can’t support a reasonable customer base on small values like X=50.

Re: Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

#257

Post by tomatocracy »

cptskippy wrote: post #246
dragonwriter wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most EVs today support a flavor of DC fast charging beyond L2, a Leaf can be charged up to 80% in like 15 or 20 minutes. That sounds like a lot Because it is a lot > but when those chargers are in Market or Restaurant lots where you can charge and shop/eat then they make sense. Which would be great, but that's generally not what the charging infrastructure is like today; there's now a decent probability of a route-…

I agree with you and at the same time those inadequacies aren't highlighted constructively. The comments are typically vague dismissals of the technology outright with unhelpful remarks like "this doesn't work for me (and probably not you) because of xyz boundary condition." I would much rather these people not say anything but ideally I would like to hear the feedback be more positive or suggestive in nature like "I…

Where I think I disagree is that I don't see this as some corner case - to me it's one of the primary use cases for owning a car, and I'd wager the same is true for the population at large - perhaps even second most common after commuting. A huge number of people have relatives/family/friends a 3+ hour drive away.

The most constructive answer, I think, is to prefer plug-in hybrids as a drive train option (perhaps the default option) on "normal" cars/SUVs which people actually want to own. This is what Volvo is doing for example. It has a weight (and therefore efficiency) cost but a plugin hybrid with a true 100+ mile range is still incredibly worthwhile. Don't let the best be the enemy of the good.

There are still incentives to build out decent fast charging infrastructure in a plugin hybrid world - as stopping to charge instead of stopping for fuel has a cost advantage (though the time cost still needs solving - it's not just time to actually charge, it's also queueing time to be able to use a charger in many places).

Re: Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

#258

Post by pinko »

bluedino wrote: post #223
Shivetya wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tl;dr very long, owned a Volt, because of it bought a TM3 Owned a 2017 Chevrolet Volt, I made this choice because I wanted to "dip my toes" into the EV experience and only needing one car I needed one that could go anywhere. I make two trips per year by car one of which is thirteen hundred miles round trip. The fit and finish was very good for any car, it drove very well, and EV mode was an eye opener. Being in Georg…

>> I make two trips per year by car one of which is thirteen hundred miles round trip. Why not rent a car or fly?

The friction, risk, and uncertainty of rental cars sucks. Friction: pricing is unpredictable between and within vendors so you have to waste time comparison shopping on ad-laden sites to avoid getting screwed, taxes and fees and insurance costs and benefits are often opaque, and you have to somehow get to and from the rental office which can be far away (Enterprise's pickups sort of kind of help with this but need to be much more Uber-like), and you have to wait an indeterminate length of time in line (from 0 to 60+ minutes if you're unlucky during a rush) and then you sometimes have to trek a ways from the office to the actual car. Risk/uncertainty: your car may not exist (has happened to me often) or may stink, or be dirty, or somehow not what you were expecting, and the alternatives, when they exist, usually involve an argument and an upsell; and if you have an accident, the insurance paperwork is a nightmare even when you're 100% covered, unless you've paid for the expensive rental agency max coverage.

Having your own car is predictable and low-risk, if expensive in other ways. But if your time has value, and you add the probability-weighted costs of not being able to leave for your trip on time, or go at all, or do it in a sub-standard car, renting can be pretty expensive too.

Re: Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

#259

Post by octorian »

tankerdude wrote: post #230
Shivetya wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tl;dr very long, owned a Volt, because of it bought a TM3 Owned a 2017 Chevrolet Volt, I made this choice because I wanted to "dip my toes" into the EV experience and only needing one car I needed one that could go anywhere. I make two trips per year by car one of which is thirteen hundred miles round trip. The fit and finish was very good for any car, it drove very well, and EV mode was an eye opener. Being in Georg…

All that about Tesla is true. The one hope I have is the updating software. Their usb stick audio is miserable. Favorites break. Better phone integration would be great. Either way, the electric car experience is so much better than anything else. Maintenance on my Leaf is near nothing.

As someone who's had a Model S since 2015, the USB audio bit is my biggest gripe about the car... above pretty much everything else. It's also actually regressed across updates in the past as well. Some issues are flat-out bugs, some are implementation choices, and some are simply a lack of features/options.

And since none of this makes for a flash Elon Tweet or press release (for people who don't own one), basically nobody over there seems to give a damn.

Re: Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt rolls off the assembly line

#260

Post by anovikov »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #253
anovikov wrote: post #204

Why are people so against it? I mean, plug-in hybrids are a dead end, they made sense only when batteries were super expensive. With almost all producers being under $200/kwh and some under $130/kwh, with $100/kwh just around the corner, what's the point of a plug-in hybrid?

Hybrids (or battery swaps) make sense until apartments and employers have power outlets for every parking space.

Not really. For daily driving cycle, you will have enough of battery for charging just once per day, overnight, if you can't do it then plug-in hybrid is of no value to you compared to an ICE car (or a traditional non-plugin hybrid), simply because you don't plug in. For long journeys, you need fast chargers anyway, and you mostly have it on highways.
Post reply on HN