GM Says New Volt to Get 230 MPG in City Driving

Compressed air would likely be safer than hydrogen in these cases but I agree... who wants to walk up to a smoldering vehicle after an accident knowing it has 9000 psi of compressed gas on-board?

 

Hmm, didn't know that about the Hydrogen... Thanks for the info!

But yeah, not safe at all.

 

yeah ive seen pictures of a compressed hydrogen car after it got into a wreck. blew the whole block to smithereens!

 

I don't know where you guys live, but there is plenty of sunshine in California. With a house full of solar panels, I bet I could offset what it takes to plug my car in at night!

 

Talk about expensive!

 

Only Fuel efficient car I would buy or considering buying is a VW Tdi.

 

So my question is this.. what drive cycle from the EPA did they base this from??

answer: nada.. there isn't one.

More hype from the spinmeisters at GM. Is this the "New GM" talking or the same ole GM..

 

Celebrities will by the Volt in droves thinking they are saving the world. They will all bow to their leader Al Gore and look down on anybody that doesn't agree with them. A good example is Leonardo DiCaprio. He brags about the fact he has 3 Priuses and won't drive anything but a hybrid. Dude, your a millionaire. Drive a Ferrari. The carbon footprint of manufacturing those hybrid batteries and shipping the components all over the world can't make the Prius any more carbon nuetral than a regular car. The ONLY reason to buy a hybrid IMO is to save gas. Sorry for the rant.

 

say no more, this is a cng (compressed natural gas) honda civic that exploded in a downtown parking lot after catching fire...



this is the storage tank for the cng, you can see the thick insulation around the tank. notice how it is not attached to the car, since it blew out after exploding...

 

I saw the Volt in person a few days ago at GM for a special event. I got to see the drive train, battery, charging, and interface systems for it. According to the engineers I spoke with who work on the Volt, the car will use a little less electricity to charge than a typical home refrigerator. So for starters, we're not talking about a huge amount of electricity being used.

Secondly, the way the Volt works is different than a Prius. A Prius constantly constantly charges and discharges the battery but only about 40-60%. With the Volt you plug it in, charge it up, and drive it until the battery runs down about 40 miles later before the small 4 cylinder engine kicks in which directly powers the electric motors for the wheels. The battery does not get charged by the engine.

The engine itself is a direct injection gas engine. The piston is cooled from underneath by a high pressure spray of oil and above with a direct spracy of gasoline. The engine runs at very high compression similiar to a diesel engine. The result is that you get a lot more power and torque from a smaller engine. The same type of engine is in the Camero. The V6 engine in it gets around 30MPG.

As far as coal, well we have like 300 years worth of the stuff still in the ground in the US. It can be burned pretty cleanly and efficiently. I grew up near a HUGE TVA coal plant and you never saw anything come out the stacks at all unless it was winter when all you saw was steam.

My only gripe is that the projected price for the Volt is way too high. 40k. I'd pay maybe 30k, but definitely not 40k.

 

I'd get one....for free 230 mpgs!! then at night plug it in my neighbors house

 

Just a few more comments about some of the stuff I read here. Here's some more info in general when it comes to addressing the fears people have about hybrid and electric cars.

First of all, those batteries in hybrids are not thrown into landfills. Neither are the lead acid batteries in 'normal' cars. Today approximately 85% of all lead acid batteries are recycled. Lead is super easy to re-use. Toyota has a buyback program on their batteries. They will pay you $600 for each battery removed from their cars. The nickel compounds in them are valuable hence it is worth their while to recycle them, which they have been doing for years now.

Secondly there are already numerous companies making or getting ready to make fully electric cars that charge up in as little as 2 hours. Tesla motors has the model S coming out in a few years. The car will go 300 miles on a charge and cost $45,000. There are many other companies making small cars that will go 100 miles or so. This was totally not possible 5 years ago, or even 2 years ago. So the technology to make it happen is growing rapidly- much faster than the development of the gas engine when it was introduced. So electric cars will and are going to happen.

Lastly, coal comes from places like West Virginia, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania. Most of our oil comes from middle eastern countries, many whom don't particularly like us and are also making deals with China and India as we speak. If fossil fuels are evil, choose the lesser of the two and go with coal. The issue to me isn't about environmental impact, but political stability.

 

I don't have a problem with electric cars or hybrids, I'm just tired of being preached at and look down upon by elitists who think they are saving the planet by driving one. I think the technology is amazing and anything that saves us from buying more middle east oil is good in my book.

 

I agree with you that people who are obnoxious about electric cars are assholes. That said, I've met very few who are actually like that. For me personally, I'd drive an electric car just because I find it to be a pain in the ass to fill up at the gas station on my daily commute and that oil companies manipulate prices and make trillions of dollars at our expense even when prices are ridiculously high.

 

you guys gotta remember that we dont have to burn fuels to make energy, in canada we use the rivers to create energy, and we have so much of it that we sell it to the US. Wind and Hydro are really good resources and eventually it will be the source for energy everywhere, not to mention solar power as well. The thing is that the power plants in the states that run off of coal and other fuels are very expensive to build and they cannot afford to do the switch over right now.

 

Yeah we'll get back to you in 2040.