Maybe I’m a bit unfair to the Leaf. It’s no Accord, but it’s not a rollerskate either. I still think something that manages only 70% of the HP of a Civic is underpowered, though.
My Mom has a Chevy Volt and it’s by far the best car she’s ever owned - and she’s owned quite a few nice cars over the years.
I’ve driven it myself for hundreds of miles and have to agree. It’s comfortable, feels well-built, has excellent steering and control, and plenty of range for someone who doesn’t drive very much. In the suburbs she’s gone for many many months at a time without ever having to refill the gas tank. And when I drove it for a few hundred miles completely discharging the battery, even its gas-only mileage was impressive (40-45MPG).
After owning it for a couple of years, I believe she still gets around 40 miles on a full charge in the Summer, and it goes down to around 30 in the Winter.
If I was currently in the market for a new car (and had a garage in which to charge it) I’d absolutely consider the Volt as one of my top choices
It appears I’ve done the Porsche Panemera’s energy efficiency a disservice, mainly because the information that’s readily available is misleading, and there’s no EPA sticker yet, even though the car’s been in the US markets for 5 months.
Official figure is that the car has a 22 mile range on its 7.5 kWh usable battery storage, which would be 98 MPGe, which is in line with the Tesla S, which is probably the closest in terms of weight and mechanics. The 22 mile range appears to be realistic, since reviewers have said they’ve gotten 25-30 miles without making a special effort to do so. Remember the 2013 Volt’s official figure is 35 miles, and Jonathan Crane says he’s gotten 35-45. Gasoline-only fuel efficiency appears to be closer to 30 MPG, not 26.
Which I find fascinating, since when I was driving an '86 Civic, it was a big deal when I managed 30 MPG on mostly-highway trips. In a car that developed 76 HP and weighed 2000lbs.
I find it interesting that the Volt uses gas almost mainly to charge the battery and the battery is used to power the motor that propels the car. I’m curious why that is. I wonder if the reason they did it that way is that having a full size gas engine’s extra weight reduced the overall efficiency in both modes.
I found this on the Volt faq site, which doesn’t exactly answer the reason:
“The Volt is a series vehicle meaning only the electric motor powers the car at all times, the gas engine is just a generator for making electricity once the battery is depleted. A little like the Prius, the engine does help spin the wheels after the battery is depleted. GM engineers chose to do this because it improved efficiency by 10 to 15 percent.”
The “real reason” is probably due to an extremely complex set of different systems working together in some ways that would take hours to explain.
Having a single drive-train that is purely electric no matter how much battery is left probably simplifies things a lot than it would be to also enable the gas engine to directly drive the tires.
Having the electric engine always drive the car also has the benefit of immediate responsive pick-up. Much like other electric cars, it picks up instantly when you hit the gas regardless of the charge left in the battery. It rides really really nicely. The only difference if the battery gets low is that you hear the gas engine whir up a bit.
Diesel-electric locomotives have been doing this since 1918. For most of their history, they were purely diesel generator / electric motor combinations, with no power storage at all. So did Diesel-powered ships and submarines. Electric motors have huge advantages over internal combustion engines, particularly if you need a lot of start-up torque as locomotives do. The electric motor is happy with direct drive, and doesn’t necessarily need a gearbox, while of course ICEs need one since they have a narrow range of operating speeds (typically 1000-6500 RPM). There’s no significant energy loss in such a setup compared to direct-drive.
EDIT: Block diagram!
The question isn’t “why does the Volt use such a system?”, it’s “why do almost all hybrids use a parallel drive system that adds tremendous mechanical complexity?” If I had to guess, it’s mostly about total system power. A generator / battery / electric motor setup is limited by the smaller of the maximum output of the electric motor and the generator / battery combo. A parallel system can generate HP equal to the sum of the ICE and the electric motor / battery.
That article was published on April 1st, of course. While what he’s saying would be theoretically possible, you wouldn’t do it the way it’s described in the article. You don’t step down from 600v to 273v with “resistors and headlights.” The amount of waste heat generated by resistors would set the car on fire. 600v -> 273v implies at least as much power wasted as used to propel the car, all converted to heat. If you doing that kind of conversion, you’d do it with a transformer or switching power supply.
I’m a hybrid owner (lexus) and an electric car fanboy. To chip in another european POV…
The range anxiety problem and the ‘horror’ of taking 20-30mins to recharge every 200 miles is definitely less of a big deal outside the US. I live about 120 miles from central London, and that’s a long way in terms of the UK. I hardly ever drive that far in one go, because it’s just too tedious, so we always stop for coffee somewhere en-route. That means I’m going 60 milesish between 20minute stops.
That might sound nuts to Americans used to 3 day road-trips, but that really is more of a US phenomena. My Lexus goes about 350 miles between refueling, if that dropped to 200 miles but gave me a pure electric, emission-free car with cheap-as-chips fuel, I’d trade in tomorrow. TBH The only reason I haven’t ordered a Tesla already is that the lexus is fairly new, and I suspect the next generation Tesla will be much better.
Plus, I second Zaks comment on US car construction. They all seem to be tanks compared to European cars. Cars really don’t have to be that big, or heavy!
The US is kinda biggish. With some open, unused spaces. How far is a “long way” has some regional differences, as well. I was very casual about 20 mile trips to a local store when I was in LA, because LA has a hypertrophied freeway system running in front of everyone’s door, so such trips were often only 20 minutes. Here in Boston a 7-8 mile trip often feels like a big deal because the roads are just paved cowpaths.
That’s what I love about the Volt. You truly can use it as your only car because it operates just like any other for long-distance trips.
My Mom can go for months without ever putting a drop of fuel in the tank, and then I can go and drive it nearly 1,000 miles in a weekend getting 40-45MPG and filling up only once every 300 miles or so.
The volt knows when you aren’t using gas, and it will automatically start using gasoline before it degrades/gelatinizes. It also tells you to fill up the tank with gas after a year of that.
I thought of this comment when reading about StoreDot, an Isreali company that is building batteries than can charge in 30 seconds. The key is using peptides, apparently both in the electrolyte and as an anode. They’re still in prototype, and they have an issue with energy density, but they claim they’ll be up to lithium-ion energy densities in a few years.
Cool! There was a bit of hubbub about supercapacitors a year or two ago also. Hopefully one of these new technologies pans out.
There were also some related articles about still-in-the-lab battery technology. This is the only development that’s about improving charge speed, but there are now known ways to make batteries with 2x the energy density of lithium ion. There are manufacturing issues, but it can be done. We’ll get there one way or another.
Well with so much free energy available it is silly to waste it, off course the energy companies know this, so do their bit to slow things down as much as possible.
And i found this site that seems useful:
I ran into quite a few sites when I was looking into this. www.GreenCarReports.com, www.ChargedEVs.com, www.PlugInCars.com, www.InsideEVs.com, and www.HybridCars.com, to name a few. InsideEVs is interesting because it lists monthly sales for each model of hybrid or EV.
There are tools for finding public charging stations, like www.PlugShare.com. For example, there are four public chargers available in the parking garage of the local commuter rail station. They don’t charge you to use the station beyond the cost of parking ($6 / day), and in fact they’ll ticket you if you park an electric car at a charger without plugging it in. For most electric cars you’re getting 20 miles of range per hour docked there. Which is very slow if you’re waiting on it, but fine if you’re parking and taking the rail into Boston.
There are also a bunch of european cars that do not often appear in usa based green car reports (like the site i linked). So it is worth checking the Renault, Seat, Alpha Romeo, Lada, VW (etc) sites for info on their own hybrid/green cars etc. The uk does not make squat now (thanks Maggie), so there is no british car industry anymore (well tiny sports/premium types) :(
Edit: Ok on the sad state of british cars in relation to modern green car options etc, one thing that might work well for you is to get an oldish Land Rover (so not current top of the line models etc) and run it on vegetable oil, like this kind of thing:
I know a guy that has been doing that for about 5 years on his 1990’s era Land Rover Defender, he visits local chip shops and restaurants, offers to take their old left over oil from the cooking (i think he even gets a small amount of money for doing it?), then filters it in his garage, and has a clean/green running car.
So i’m carrying on my research into the hybrid/electric car options and have a few interesting links (youtube) to check out, the first a Scottish chaps blog about his electric renault Zoe:
It seems your concerns change quite a bit when on electric only (not necessarily in a bad way, just a change). And this second link is to a guy (that used to have some series on TV) that reviews and tries out lots of ‘green energy’ options, including lots of car reviews etc:
Lots of handy info in his youtube channel.
Inspired by Gus’ thread on his solar array (and others, like Cliffski), i’ve been planning a complete move away from fossil fuels as my number 1 source of energy. So over the last week or two i’ve been looking into these new electric cars that might possibly finally be worth a serious look. I haven’t decided on which i would go for, some are still to be fully announced (either later this year of beginning of next). But to add the usual list (Nissan/Volt/Ford etc) that you may be more familiar with in the usa here are some other all electric cars to keep an eye on:
Honda Fit EV:
http://automobiles.honda.com/fit-ev/
Mitsubishi i-MiEV:
http://www.mitsubishicars.com/upcoming-vehicles?cid=paid_search_imiev_bing_0020&kwid=224x330210
Toyota RAV4 EV:
BMW i3:
VW e-Golf:
http://emobility.volkswagen.com/int/en/private/cars/eGolf.html
VW e-up:
http://emobility.volkswagen.com/int/en/private/cars/e-up.html
Renault electric range:
http://www.renault.com/en/vehicules/aujourd-hui/renault-vehicules-electriques/Pages/index.aspx
I did have a list of hybrids, but now i think i want to make the jump to pure electric as the ranges are probably good enough for 90% of my driving time. The other 10% (trips to family etc) will just be a bit of an adventure (or i can play it safe and use the dirty fossil fuel car). The eventual aim is to couple roof solar panels (on house and maybe on garage also) with providing most (all) of the electricity for the house and car. This may not be fully possible, but that is the direction i want to go in terms of my relationship to energy and the new technologies we have to harness it.