Electric Cars: Chev Bolt seems to be the first practical one.

[MossRoad]

Good article on the Volt....
216 Chevrolet Volt First Test Review - Motor Trend

Power to weight ratio is 23.8... yet 0-60 was 7.1, respectable for such a machine. 1/4 mile is 15.6 at 85.7.

2017 Impala power to weight ratio is 12.4 and 0-60 is 6.3... 1/4 mile is 14.9 at 95.9.
216 Chevrolet Impala LTZ V6 First Test Review

 

[MossRoad]

So the Impala gets about 22mpg combined.... the Volt gets something like 108! Guess the Volt is the winner in that account by a disgustingly huge margin!!! :laughing:

 

[houstonscott]

So the Impala gets about 22mpg combined.... the Volt gets something like 108! Guess the Volt is the winner in that account by a disgustingly huge margin!!! :laughing:

I hate to pop your bubble, but Volt gets 37mpg in real life. The rest is EPA fake news.

 

[sd455dan]

I hate to pop your bubble, but Volt gets 37mpg in real life. The rest is EPA fake news.

That would be by definition starting with a -0- charge in the battery right? and running Soley on gas? on a 1st gen Volt

The site I looked at said the 2016's are 41 mpg combined city/hiway? and


Just thinking out loud. and as an example:

If a person were to drive a 600 miles a month (7 miles to town) x 2 =14 miles + 6 miles around town driving for a total of 20 miles total a day X 30 days a month = 600 miles.

In our area most electricity is produced by hydroelectric and is just over 10 cents a Kilowatt hour.

Found this on a site that get's in the ball park for calculating a volts charging to a full charge, cost calculation

Electricity: You drive 1,000 miles per month, your car (The Chevy Volt) gets 2.7 miles per kilowatt hour used (EPA estimated average), and you pay $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (national average) That means:

1000 miles / 2.7 miles per kilowatt-hour = 370 Kilowatt-Hours



370 Kilowatt-Hours * $0.12 Per Kilowatt Hour = $44.44 in Electricity per month.- that is based on a 1000 miles @12 cents per kilowatt hour


So if my math is right?

370 X .6 = 222 kwh 222kwh X .11 cents ( a bit over our rate)= $24.22 a month in electric charges X 12 months = $293.04 a year driven in this manner. ( electric mode only) I did check and it appears the extra energy per month would not raise our electric rate because we are already just over the threshold point for the increased kwh price.

Obviously this does not count cost of the car, maintenance, or other costs, But I think that running in full electric for around where I live looks pretty reasonable to me.

Driving a 3500 Cummins powered Ram 4x4 as a daily driver. and am getting about 18 MPG local short trip driving, and about 21 mpg hiway, ( which is decent-I think) Down the road the Volt looks like a pretty good addition (possibility)- for me, but then i (want) a hybrid.

guess the white elephant in a dark room is- if buying a well used 1st gen Volt, how much of the battery packs life is left and how big of hit is it to replace with a new pack?

i did a search and this really surprised me:

Zero Battery Degradation Replacements Giving Chevy Volts an Edge

Mmm maybe they are fairly long lived after all?

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

That would be by definition starting with a -0- charge in the battery right? and running Soley on gas? on a 1st gen Volt

The site I looked at said the 2016's are 41 mpg combined city/hiway? and


Just thinking out loud. and as an example:

If a person were to drive a 600 miles a month (7 miles to town) x 2 =14 miles + 6 miles around town driving for a total of 20 miles total a day X 30 days a month = 600 miles.

In our area most electricity is produced by hydroelectric and is just over 10 cents a Kilowatt hour.

Found this on a site that get's in the ball park for calculating a volts charging to a full charge, cost calculation

Electricity: You drive 1,000 miles per month, your car (The Chevy Volt) gets 2.7 miles per kilowatt hour used (EPA estimated average), and you pay $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (national average) That means:

1000 miles / 2.7 miles per kilowatt-hour = 370 Kilowatt-Hours



370 Kilowatt-Hours * $0.12 Per Kilowatt Hour = $44.44 in Electricity per month.- that is based on a 1000 miles @12 cents per kilowatt hour


So if my math is right?

370 X .6 = 222 kwh 222kwh X .11 cents ( a bit over our rate)= $24.22 a month in electric charges X 12 months = $293.04 a year driven in this manner. ( electric mode only) I did check and it appears the extra energy per month would not raise our electric rate because we are already just over the threshold point for the increased kwh price.

Obviously this does not count cost of the car, maintenance, or other costs, But I think that running in full electric for around where I live looks pretty reasonable to me.

Driving a 3500 Cummins powered Ram 4x4 as a daily driver. and am getting about 18 MPG local short trip driving, and about 21 mpg hiway, ( which is decent-I think) Down the road the Volt looks like a pretty good addition (possibility)- for me, but then i (want) a hybrid.

guess the white elephant in a dark room is- if buying a well used 1st gen Volt, how much of the battery packs life is left and how big of hit is it to replace with a new pack?

i did a search and this really surprised me:

Zero Battery Degradation Replacements Giving Chevy Volts an Edge

Mmm maybe they are fairly long lived after all?

Don't feed the troll.

 

[California]

i did a search and this really surprised me:

Zero Battery Degradation Replacements Giving Chevy Volts an Edge

Mmm maybe they are fairly long lived after all?

I looked through that and in addition to zero degradation, this poster's real world experience caught my eye:

"Even though 90% of our driving is less than 35 miles and pure EV, when we did use gasoline we have been able to obtain 121 MPG, 142 MPG, & 162 MPG ranges."

Obviously he's going limited distances on gas to attain that, but if for example his kids all live within a hundred miles then this owner has found an ideal solution that matches his needs.

 

[hawkeye08]

Tesla has a big battery factory in Nevada, a joint venture IIRC. They think the future is batteries everywhere, including a large battery pack in our garages to store cheap off peak power to use during peak times and during power outages. Interesting idea for sure. Tesla Gigafactory | Tesla

I also read recently that the Tesla founder wants to end government subsidies for electric cars. Turns out that you loose subsidies once you sell xx cars and he wants to keep playing field level (when they lose the subsidies, he wants no one else to get them either)...

Follow the money.. I am not a fan of electric cars but we need to develop technology to reduce pollution. I think hydrogen is the way to go, but it has its own set of challenges.

 

[sd455dan]

I looked through that and in addition to zero degradation, this poster's real world experience caught my eye:

"Even though 90% of our driving is less than 35 miles and pure EV, when we did use gasoline we have been able to obtain 121 MPG, 142 MPG, & 162 MPG ranges."

Obviously he's going limited distances on gas to attain that, but if for example his kids all live within a hundred miles then this owner has found an ideal solution that matches his needs.

It really does look to be a viable and cost effective means to get into the hybrid world of cars for what appears to be not to expensive a price. and does seem to be a very good fit for people who live rural but within the all electric round trip range for the Volt, the battery packs` longevity really did surprise me to.



my nephew almost bought a used Volt and did a fair amount of research including test driving a few different years of Volt and said a really decent example could be picked up for about $16000 in a 2014 model.

I find the idea of having a back up storage pack with around 16 Kwh is a (draw) all on it's own.

Haven't looked into how or (IF) the Volt power pack can be integrated with any type home Solar/ wind/ genny set up but imagine someone must have utilized the power pack to augment ? a homes telephone , or fork lift batteries ??

I just did a little more looking on line and was a bit disheartened to see people making a big deal out of powering a 750 watt Harbor Freight inverter with the Volt.

Many TBN'ers have much larger inverters on their tractors, even run a 2000 watt continuous- 4000 watt surge HF inverter on my tractor.
Someone must have dug into the Volt a bit deeper and come up with something a bit more involved than a $50 inverter with battery clips

 

[Redneck in training]

While driving from CO to IA on I80 I saw charging stations just about at every gas stations. So charging shouldn't be a problem. But the cost of charging is. I Googled it and found the cost of a kWh is equal to highway robbery. Depending on how it is measured and charged the cost of the energy is equivalnet up to 3.50/gal of gas. Typical cost of 1 kWh was 0.75 USD. The xcuse is that in most states only the utility can sell electric energy by kWh. Bummer.

 

[California]

Haven't looked into how or (IF) the Volt power pack can be integrated with any type home Solar/ wind/ genny set up but imagine someone must have utilized the power pack to augment ? a homes telephone , or fork lift batteries ??

I just did a little more looking on line and was a bit disheartened to see people making a big deal out of powering a 750 watt Harbor Freight inverter with the Volt.

Many TBN'ers have much larger inverters on their tractors

Dunno about Volt but I did read a first-person article by an electrical engineer who powered his home throughout a multi-day power outage from his Prius.

But it was different from what I expected. He didn't use the primary (300 volt??) battery. Rather, he related that Prius has an oversize starter motor because the engine switches on and off all the time. And has a 120 amp HD alternator to charge its heavy 12 volt starting battery. So he ran an inverter 12 volt DC to 120 AC. He said the car engine cycled on automatically and ran for a while every half hour to maintain that starting battery.

Being an engineer he probably had 100% LED lighting in the house. I think he said his inverter was sufficient to run his refrigerator if nothing else was on.

I have no idea if any of this would apply to the Volt. Its engine doesn't cycle on/off all the time like Prius so Volt may not need as robust a 12 volt starting system.

Now ... who will be the first to sell an inverter from EV/hybrid, to house current? I've never heard of one.