"The goal is to re-enact the flex-fuel hoax, in which GM receives extra credit for making cars that can burn 85% ethanol, even if they never see a drop of such fuel."
Right... if a mass market-bound product needs subsidies, by definition it deserves to fail.
The Volt is to GM what the Viper was to Chrysler in the early 90's. From the day it hit the ground as a running concept car, the Viper captured the imaginations of millions of "sort of" car guys. I sold cars for 4 years from 91 to 95 at a Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep store, and the Viper sold a ton of minivans even before it hit the showrooms. And when it did become available, only a few stores actually got one allocated. But, it was a halo car that worked.
Posted at 2008-07-02 21:58:30 [PermaLink]As Damian noted, it would behoove Chevy to create a proper compact chassis first. Once you have that, then start tinkering with the Tesla coils.
In comparison, the Civic hybrid weighs 600 lb less and I'd put money on it having a stiffer chassis than the Volt.
The drivetrain concept is the same in principle as those jackasses claiming to run cars on water.
For the Volt: You're in an electric car but you have gasoline and an extra engine, you use it inefficiently create electricity, you use that to help run the electric motor.
For the Huckster HHO: You're in a combustion engine car but you have electricity from the alternator, you use it inefficiently create hydrogen by electrolysis, you use that to help run the combustion engine. (Pay no attention to the alternator belt behind the curtain!)
The Huckster HHO loses because of the sheer gall and/or ignorance of not simply acknowledging that you're bolting on a parasitic science project that feeds on gasoline and dead batteries. At least the premise makes sense though (if you are unfamiliar with chemistry and/or the electrical system of cars).
The Volt loses points for the audacious inefficiency of throwing a gasoline powered generator in the backseat of an EV-1 and adding other "value adds" like big chrome rims, and a mean grill, and xenon headlights, and....
Is anyone catching on to the callous disregard for the dilapidated basics in favour of the high margin bolt-ons?
On the bright side, the Volt may have some traction with the growing hordes of condo-dwellers. These urban dwellers are poised to be early adopters of plug in hybrids. They have money, underground parking lots, and since they're starting from the centre of the city, they usually have short drives.
biggest problem with battery powered cars - and the reason why they will never be more thn a boutique item - is that there isn't enough material to make enough batteries to retrofit a significant percentage of the vehicle fleet. the Tesla has - if memory serves - the equivalent of 2000 laptop batteries worth of lithium in its battery pack.
Posted at 2008-07-03 07:35:14 [PermaLink]I'd like the hear his logic for the "15 mpg" estimate he throws out there.
Virtually every railroad locomotive in the U.S. and Canada works by burning diesel fuel, turning it into electricity, and powering the wheels with electric motors. Yeah, locomotives have some special issues that cars don't have, like the need for very high starting torque...but if electric drive were really all that inefficient, we would have seen more development of other forms of power transmission.
photocourier.blogspot.co
The 15 mpg figure seems to come from nowhere. It would be interesting to see some kind of derivation, but I suspect PIDOOMA.
The issues with the Volt simply give an indication of just how challenging the design of a mainstream electric or mostly-electric vehicle is. Because the enormous cost of the batteries required to give a pure electric vehicle decent range would make such a vehicle prohibitively expensive, GM decided on a pure-electric range (~40 miles) which balanced cost of batteries with some measure of utility. From that start point, an additional engine was clearly necessary to not completely cripple the vehicle - it's unlikely there are very many buyers who would find a 40-mile range acceptable. GM's selection of a gas engine in series as a range extender is intriguing, but not necessarily the height of foolishness. A part of the loss in efficiency in the process of converting mechanical energy from the gas engine -> electrically stored energy in the battery -> mechanical energy from the electric motor can be recouped because the gas engine can constantly run at its most efficient speed when recharging the battery. Pace Dara's limited understanding of thermodynamics, it has nothing in common with the free energy the shadetree hydrogen heroes claim to extract. How smart a choice the series solution will turn out to be remains to be seen. One thing is certain - GM's struggles with keeping costs down on the Volt are just another data point showing that electric vehicles are hard to do. Compromises are inevitable.
I agree with several above posters, where did that 15 mpg figure come from.
Dara: I first saw this type of propulsion system proposed by Burt Rutan in an interview perhaps eight or so years ago. The reasons Rutan gave were similar to what Crispy noted above. The internal combustion engine is essentially a range extender that can be tuned to run at a constant (and most efficient) speed. I assume the primary market for this type of vehicle would be people with modest daily commutes and the occasional longer trip.
The reason I compared it to the hucksters is that both have a primary and secondary energy currency in the design and a requirement for multiple conversions, which is always going to result in additional energy loss.
Of course, some people think that thermodynamics is a set of three laws, so maybe a little further explanation is necessary.
To start off: I don't think that the Volt's a bad idea. It's not a great idea though, and that's because of energy loss. Here are some quick figures:
The gasoline engine will be maybe 40% efficient at turning fuel into shaft rotation.
The electric generator will be about 40% efficient at turning shaft rotation into electricity.
The electric motor will be about 80% efficient at converting electricity into shaft rotation.
You end up with 13% system efficiency using generous numbers and ignoring battery and transmission losses.
Taking the last two efficiencies gives us a virtual "transmission" that we can compare to a regular vehicle for a stab at fuel efficiency numbers. The efficiency between the drive shaft and the wheels is roughly 32%. In a modern car, the drivetrain efficiency can be 80-90%.
I suspect that this is where the 15 mpg comes from: by the time you send the energy through all the hoops, only a percentage of it ends up at the wheel.
"ignoring battery and transmission losses"
Battery losses are not inconsequential and there is also the extra weight. The major problem that will probably prevent battery powered vehicles from ever occupying more than a niche market, even if the price comes down, is energy density.
Gasoline has an energy density of 46.9 MJ/kg (slightly less for government mandated gasohol.) Even the best cutting edge lithium ion batteries with nanowires have an energy density of less than 3 MJ/kg. You just can't pack enough energy into the things to make them practical.
Dara's imaginary electric motor and generator efficiencies, are, respectively, pessimistic and hilariously low.
Tesla, for instance, claims its electric motor is 85% to 95% efficient. And generator efficiencies above 90% aren't unusual, especially if you can optimize for a single speed/load point, like you would in the Volt.
Any way you slice it, the 15 mpg swag is bizarre. GM is now touting an approximate range of 400 miles, and this is after making the gas tank(s) smaller than the 12 gallons in the original concept. For the 15mpg figure to be even remotely true, GM would be currently pondering running 360 miles in the range-extending mode, which at 15mpg would require a 24-gallon tank. 91 litres. Not likely.
Crispytoast,
If Tesla is getting 85 to 95% with their electric motors, the GM factor easily brings it down to 80, but I won't argue with you on that. Nor will I question why you believe GM's marketing numbers for their last stab at relevance in the car industry.
What I really would like is an example of a mass produced shaft driven electric generator that is light enough to be mounted in a car and hits anything significantly over 50% efficiency. If you can show me a 90% efficient one that fits into GM's budget for the Volt I would like to buy their stock.
"The goal is to re-enact the flex-fuel hoax, in which GM receives extra credit for making cars that can burn 85% ethanol, even if they never see a drop of such fuel."
Will the Volt be flex-fuel capable? Aside from some of the other pressing issues relating to energy usage and supply, isn't such a combination (E85/battery power) the most obvious solution (both short and long term) to western dependence on dictator oil and the negative effect sky rocketing oil prices are having on consumers and our economies?
If even 10% of the automobiles in North America and Europe were running today on an exclusive combination of battery power and E85, what would that do to the price of oil, not to mention the pocketbooks of Chavez, the Mullahs, and Saudi princes, among others?
Once technology allows for the mass production of cellulosic ethanol, and if and when the United States removes the tariff on Brazilian ethanol derived from sugar cane, then we may truly be looking at the end of the line for oil as a monopolistic commodity.
This is for all the pessimistic writers here.
Throughout history people with great ideas have been told,
" THAT WILL NEVER WORK". THE WRIGHT BROS.,DA VINCI, ALBERT E. etc...
“If You’ve Never Failed, You’ve Never Lived”. Or tried.
Get off your ass, get out there, and come up with SOMETHING new. Contribute.
Do Something to get this country (the U.S.A.) off FOREIGN OIL.
It takes many systems working together to get ALTERNATIVE-FUEL vehicles on the road.
Read this. nrel wind to hydrogen project,that is currently online(working) in many countries in the Americas. [External Link]
F.Y.I. The first known electrolysis of water was done in about 1800. A CARS ALTERNATOR PUTS OUT 90 AMPS. THE CAR ONLY USES ABOUT 50. Electrolysis only needs about 20. Do the math.
DO SOME RESEARCH, EDUCATE YOURSELVES, THEN COMMENT WITH KNOWLEDGE NOT IGNORANCE.
Try something new and be surprised you negative bastards