Sales of the GM Volt.

[joshh]

http://www.fenderbender.com/FenderBender/March-2011/Chevy-Volt-sales-fall-in-February/

I'll update this thread after the cars are available in all dealerships for real numbers.
So far it's not looking so hot.
I suspect there will be decent sales for a few months then it will drop off severely unless they do something about the price.

[KenC]

WAY overpriced.

[joshh]

WAY overpriced.

There's a Government rebate (more bailout as I see it) of $7500 bringing the car down to $32k. But it's still 10k away from it's real competition. The Leaf is not it's competition imo.

[NigelStu]

What is its competition?

[joshh]

What is its competition?

The Prius (although smaller).

GM has now confirmed, late in the game, that the Volt can, in some situations, use the ICE to power the wheels. This came to light after Motor Trend was allowed to test the car for three long drives and discovered:

However of particular interest, when going above 70 mph in charge sustaining mode, and the generator gets coupled to the drivetrain, the gas engine participates in the motive force. GM says the engine never drives the wheels all by itself, but will participate in this particular situation in the name of efficiency, which is improved by 10 to 15 percent.

This is exactly the opposite of what GM has been saying for years – most recently in June, when GM spokesman Rob Peterson told AutoblogGreen that there was no mechanism in the Volt to drive the wheels even if the engineers wanted too. Or, at least, that's what we heard. Peterson told AutoblogGreen today that the "news":

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/10/11/gm-yes-the-volts-gas-engine-can-power-the-wheels/

It's not a true electric vehicle.

[tjts1]

Considering the waiting list is more than a year and dealers are asking $65k, I wouldn't worry about it.

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/02/17/chevy-volt-price-gouging-dealers/

Its only real competition is the Leaf and thats not up to full rate production yet.

[NigelStu]

The Prius (although smaller).

It's not a true electric vehicle.

Its also not a 'true' hybrid with electric assist like the Prius, so in the same method of thought, IMO its not a Prius competitor either. Its pretty much in a class by itself at the moment.


If anything out there is a mechanical competitor, its the Fiskar. Hardly price competitive, but mechanically its damn similar.


There aren't enough 'green' cars like this out to separate into more than a few broad classes. You have the hybrids that use primarily ICE to drive the car, and then the ones that use some other form for primary (or only) drive - plug-in hybrid (Volt/Fiskar), pure electric (Tesla/Leaf), fuel cells, and the host of others on the horizon. Right now we have effectively a 'class' of green cars that contains the equivalent of a Sentra, Cadillac, Lotus and a Rapide. Not exactly a 'normal' shopping list for a potential buyer.


In the end, these cars wont make sense until either (or both) of the following are met:
-Prices on par with current market for similar sized/equipped vehicles with similar range capability. Leaf gets it on price/size. Volt gets it on range.
-Fuel is in the $6+ range, without a considerable rise in electric cost.


I certainly hope that the first one option happens first!

[mrsleeve]

hybrids are a dead end technology for automotive applications. They are like the Beta Max of the car world.

DIESEL is the way to go

[Fusion]

Hybrids are a dead end and so are fully electric vehicles.
I see absolutely no reason to prototype and spend money on R&D until battery prices drop. And I mean huge ass drop. Maybe that isn't possible though.
I was just looking at minivans that can be coverted to electric and the price is somewhere around 18k (provided you already have the gas/diesel version) and like 70% of that are the 200Ah cells. It would tak me about 7 years to pay off the price, after that I'd be driving "for free".
This is a major DEAD END (like the falling off a cliff type) and they have to realize that and stop spending their own money and our tax dollars on various funding.

Diesel sucks because the more they make the engines efficient and especially eco, the more expensive the repairs are. Its not like the old generation diesel I have, that has some 250k miles in 10 years on it and still running strong, with minimum maintenance.
French cars have catalysts with additives. Some kind of fluid that cleans the exhaust fumes and should be replaced every 60k. The damn thing costs 2000$ so people just ditch the system and get it erased from the OBC. German cars have lots of problems with injectors and fuel pumps. VW injectors die at around 60k, can't be refurbished, and cost around 900$ each. Usually one takes a dump and the rest follow. Turbos are also prone to die sooner or later.

CNG (stove gas) - dead end.

The only thing I'm considering is LPG. It's used here a lot, costs half of what you pay for petrol and MPG is about the same on smaller engines. Installation is about 1500 bucks and maintenance is the same as with any petrol engine. Those haven't gone through many upgrades in the last decade (except high pressure injection - LPG can't be installed on those yet) so there's not much to worry about.

I'm not an engineer, but I can't believe that there's no way to reduce fuel consumption in current engines to 50%. If I had all the money that was spent on hybrid dead-ends, I'm pretty sure I'd come up with something.

[Turf1600]

Hybrids are a dead end and so are fully electric vehicles.
I see absolutely no reason to prototype and spend money on R&D until battery prices drop. And I mean huge ass drop. Maybe that isn't possible though.
I was just looking at minivans that can be coverted to electric and the price is somewhere around 18k (provided you already have the gas/diesel version) and like 70% of that are the 200Ah cells. It would tak me about 7 years to pay off the price, after that I'd be driving "for free".
This is a major DEAD END (like the falling off a cliff type) and they have to realize that and stop spending their own money and our tax dollars on various funding.

Diesel sucks because the more they make the engines efficient and especially eco, the more expensive the repairs are. Its not like the old generation diesel I have, that has some 250k miles in 10 years on it and still running strong, with minimum maintenance.
French cars have catalysts with additives. Some kind of fluid that cleans the exhaust fumes and should be replaced every 60k. The damn thing costs 2000$ so people just ditch the system and get it erased from the OBC. German cars have lots of problems with injectors and fuel pumps. VW injectors die at around 60k, can't be refurbished, and cost around 900$ each. Usually one takes a dump and the rest follow. Turbos are also prone to die sooner or later.

CNG (stove gas) - dead end.

The only thing I'm considering is LPG. It's used here a lot, costs half of what you pay for petrol and MPG is about the same on smaller engines. Installation is about 1500 bucks and maintenance is the same as with any petrol engine. Those haven't gone through many upgrades in the last decade (except high pressure injection - LPG can't be installed on those yet) so there's not much to worry about.

I'm not an engineer, but I can't believe that there's no way to reduce fuel consumption in current engines to 50%. If I had all the money that was spent on hybrid dead-ends, I'm pretty sure I'd come up with something.

Try DEI.

[mrsleeve]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

LP is not nearly as plentiful as crude oil. If you were to start seeing large scale production of LP powered cars you would see a huge up swing in LP pricing. that and here in the states LP is more expensive than traditional motor fuels. The reason its cheaper for you in the EU is its not taxed as heavily as gas or #2 diesel


Oh and LP only has 91k BTU per gallon thats on par with Ethanol at 100K BTU per gallon. Gas has 130K BTU per gallon (pure gas not ethanol blends) and Diesel at about 137k-139k BTU a gallon, depending on time of year ( blends with Kero to keep it flowing in the winter lower BTU a little bit.)

SO really mileage is not comparable you are still going to lose about 20% of effective work from using LP over traditional Motor fuels

[Fusion]

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/11/16/a...ust-injection/ ?

Sleeve: correct, but the (selfish) price/mile savings here are huge. The system pays off in less than a year.

[mrsleeve]

^^^^^^^^^^^

Just saying you have an artificially created monetary incentive to use LP. to get around the sky high taxes on motor fuels sold in the EU (most of the world really) I bet if you look into your tax codes I would almost bet that there is a provision in there some where that if you are using a non taxed fuel to power a vehicle you are supposed to log all those miles and pay the taxes at the end of the year.

Just because there is a monetary incentive that will save you paying taxes does not mean its A BETTER fuel or a good alternative to more traditional fuels.

[Fusion]

Nope, that price includes comsumption tax and VAT.
And yes, there are factory made LP cars, in small numbers though.

[tjts1]

CNG bitches. Its the way of the future. We're running out of places to store it and its selling for $3.80/MMBtu