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Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

nytimes.com

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Re: Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

#51

Post by haribilalic »

fletchowns wrote: post #36
Lewisham wrote: post #5

I'm actually most concerned about the lifetime of the batteries. From what I've read, the batteries top out at 8 years, and presumably degrade before that. As the $20k Chevy Cruze is the same chassis as the Volt, I guess the batteries come out at ~$15k. That's a huge amount of money to renew use of your $40k car after 8 years (unless you see that $15k as some sort of investment in the environment). The Volt design co…

If you crashed your 2002 BMW M3 ($43k new) and it was then useless to you, like an electric car with kaput batteries, you could be back in business for $15k (current used price of that M3).

Sure, but the insurance excess would only be $0–$2,000.

Re: Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

#52

Post by ericd »

gamble wrote: post #48
arn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the range as the issue, but the lack of instant refueling. I don't get too worried about my car's total range since I can just stop and get gas every 10 minutes in town. But the problem with electric is that it takes 10 hours to recharge. Is there a solution to that besides hybrid gas/electric?

It's essentially impossible to charge a battery in the same time as filling a gas tank. The currents involved would be immense, and besides requiring heavy-duty conductors and power electronics, such high currents would incinerate any lithium-ion battery on the market today in spectacular fashion. Battery swapping is probably the most practical solution, but developing a standard battery pack that can be used in a va…

Perhaps a breakthrough in capacitor power density? Otherwise, yeah, swapping seems like the most realistic option.

Re: Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

#53

Post by fletchowns »

haribilalic wrote: post #51
fletchowns wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you crashed your 2002 BMW M3 ($43k new) and it was then useless to you, like an electric car with kaput batteries, you could be back in business for $15k (current used price of that M3).

Sure, but the insurance excess would only be $0–$2,000.

Good point. Let's say the engine just dies for some reason and insurance doesn't cover it.

Re: Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

#54

Post by awad »

georgieporgie wrote: post #44
masklinn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 30mpg highway is really good Depends on the car you drive. 30mpg is really good for a gaz-guzzler, but mid-range sedans can easily be driven into the 40s.

mid-range sedans can easily be driven into the 40s. Really? Here are some numbers from Kiplinger's "best midsize sedan" list from 2009: * Sonata 32mpg highway. * Mazda 6 30mpg highway. * Chevy Malibu 33mpg highway. * Nissan Altima 31mpg highway. http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/car/archive/2008/car1207.ht... Cars.com mentions the best in each class for 2011, and it's the Nissan Versa and Sentra, each at 34mpg for the…

My 2011 Sonata is rated at 35 highway but I can and do get 40+ easily on long drives. The instant mileage gauge is definitely useful in terms of trying to get the highest 'score' fuel efficiency wise.

Re: Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

#55

Post by noonespecial »

Lewisham wrote: post #5

I'm actually most concerned about the lifetime of the batteries. From what I've read, the batteries top out at 8 years, and presumably degrade before that. As the $20k Chevy Cruze is the same chassis as the Volt, I guess the batteries come out at ~$15k. That's a huge amount of money to renew use of your $40k car after 8 years (unless you see that $15k as some sort of investment in the environment). The Volt design co…

Its a punt for the future. I'd hope that in 8 years a replacement battery has twice the capacity at a quarter the cost. If it doesn't and nothing better has emerged, the electric car is probably screwed as a concept anyway. I'd then hope there's more oil than we think.

Re: Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

#56

Post by adrianN »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #41
bbg wrote: post #19

I want to love electric cars, but I see two big issues: (1) if they go mass market, all that electricity will still have to be generated somewhere. Coal? Nuclear? (2) The batteries need rare-earth minerals, which are brought to market through environmentally-degrading open pit mining. Furthermore, at this point, most rare-earths are available almost exclusively from China.

An internal combustion motor is, at best, about 20% efficient [1], whereas if you burn the same fossil fuel in an electric power plant using a combined cycle configuration you can reach 60% [2]. Now the electric company loses some of that by sending over wires to your house (or where ever the charger is) but its still a big win. What that means in mathematical terms is that if you took the same fossil fuel we burn to…

When calculating the efficiency of electric cars you must also take into account the losses from the battery. I'm pretty sure charging a battery is not 100% efficient.

Re: Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

#58

Post by adrianN »

georgieporgie wrote: post #27
daimyoyo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I'm on the highway, I tank my car up and it'll be roughly 200 miles at halfway and 300 at 1/4. Granted, I've never driven my car to vapors on the highway but it seems logical that a tank of gas will get me around 400 miles. It's a 14 gallon tank so that translates to around 30mpg highway. I don't think it's unrealistic to ask for an equivalent efficiency in an electric car.

30mpg highway is really good and does not reflect the average experience of a consumer. That said, I think you're (sadly) right, but not for the reason you're stating. Because electric cars can't be recharged in five minutes, consumers will suddenly think they have to go even further on a charge. They will completely ignore the fact that they commute 15 miles each way, every day, and the fact that they already have t…

What? 30mpg is around 7.8l/100km! All three cars I've driven so far consumed around 5 l/100km (gas) or around 4.5l/100km (diesel). All of them could seat four people and had enough room in the trunk to fit a week of groceries for four people.

Re: Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

#59

Post by eftpotrm »

noonespecial wrote: post #55
Lewisham wrote: post #5

I'm actually most concerned about the lifetime of the batteries. From what I've read, the batteries top out at 8 years, and presumably degrade before that. As the $20k Chevy Cruze is the same chassis as the Volt, I guess the batteries come out at ~$15k. That's a huge amount of money to renew use of your $40k car after 8 years (unless you see that $15k as some sort of investment in the environment). The Volt design co…

Its a punt for the future. I'd hope that in 8 years a replacement battery has twice the capacity at a quarter the cost. If it doesn't and nothing better has emerged, the electric car is probably screwed as a concept anyway. I'd then hope there's more oil than we think.

I'd hope so to, but battery tech hasn't exactly got a stellar record of improvement, likely because of fundamental chemistry constraints.

While I hate to be the depressive and I'd love there to be a better technology available, my understanding is that the resource requirements for battery production and disposal are sufficiently high that the whole life energy costs of such vehicles aren't actually very impressive compared with conventional vehicles, sadly. Hydrogen fuelled cars are a nice technology but effectively an energy storage medium rather than a fuel because the Hydrogen is sufficiently expensive to extract (though a late friend who was a former industrial chemist insisted that solar-initiated catalytic cracking of seawater to extract Hydrogen was viable), plus the molecules are so small that even the best vehicle fuel tank will leak itself empty within a few weeks.

My best bet would be that we'll end up with waste or algae derived biofuels driving turbines feeding ultracapacitors to drive electric motors. But, TBH, there seem to be nasty issues on pretty much all sides. It may simply be that personal transportation as we currently know isn't sustainably scalable with the information and resources available to us.

Re: Chevy Volt: Is This Our Future?

#60

Post by McP »

arn wrote: post #46
daimyoyo wrote: post #12

I've said before and I'll say again: Electric cars will not gain widespread acceptance until you can travel the equivalent of a tank of gas on one charge. Tesla motors is close, but you need at least 300 and closer to 400 miles per charge.

I don't see the range as the issue, but the lack of instant refueling. I don't get too worried about my car's total range since I can just stop and get gas every 10 minutes in town. But the problem with electric is that it takes 10 hours to recharge. Is there a solution to that besides hybrid gas/electric?

Nanosafe batteries charge in 10 minutes http://www.nanobus.org/dotnetnuke/Technology/NanoSafe/tabid/...
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