Did you miss the first part of this thread? We already went over that. Repeating the same false statistics over and over again does not make them any less untrutful.
I believe that starting next year, the Volt is getting a different engine that will work more efficiently. In a few years it is slated to get a different platform. Now that they have done a good job in the first version, their next task is probably to improve it's efficiency while trying to bring its cost down. In its third model year, they have already slightly managed to do this. The 2013 offers 10% more battery life while still being the same price as the 2011 model. As inflation pushes prices higher on other models, the Volt's price has remained the same and in fact come down even as it's offered more content. The long term goal I would suspect, would be to bring the long term price down to where the current price is with the tax credit. That way, when the tax credit runs out, the price will be as competitive without it as it is with it. If they spent $1billion in R&D, if I'm not mistaken, they only have to sell 80,000 more units more to break even assuming they make about $10k on each one. I think that has a pretty realistic chance of happening. They are already coming out with a Cadillac ELR and I would suspect that an Equinox version sharing the same platform in 2015 is probably in the works.
So the only connection between the engine and the wheels is electrical? There is no traditional transaxle throughwhich engine power is used to mechanically drive the wheels? It's just a question of whether the electricity generated goes to the battery or directly to the motor(s)?
The Volt is a poorly conceived hybrid vehicle subsidized with taxpayer money. People can either believe a car salesman or they can believe an electrical engineer. That is up to them. The car is a sham, it was never an electric vehicle because GM lacks the will to enter the electric vehicle market. They make their money from internal combustion and they always will. People will have to look to other companies for an actual electric car and they are. There will never be enough Volts sold to cover the development cost so the taxpayer is left paying the bill involuntarily. What is particularly damning here is that GM started out with a great design for a pure electric with onboard generator and then sold out so they could use hybrid parts off the shelf and cobble together something that they could produce cheaply while taking advantage of the cache they earned when they were showing the pure electric vehicle at car shows. Its classic bait and switch. All they needed after that was a few idiots like you who would tout the vehicle regardless of its technical shortcomings. The people who buy this car are mindless liberals who don't know a can-opener from a coffee maker. You want to drive an Volt? Fine. You want to deceive others so that they share in your folly? That makes you a lowlife tout. Every post you add to this thread demonstrates for all that you can't trust a GM dealer and you should walk across the street and buy a Toyota or Nissan.
Found this on Seeking Alpha: I've been a bit of a blogging slacker for the last month as I focused on preparing my keynote presentation for next week's European Lead Battery Conference in Paris, but it's been a quiet time in the battery and electric vehicle space and there hasn't been much to talk about. That all changed yesterday when the Congressional Budget Office reported that plug-in vehicles are not ready for prime time, Smith Electric Vehicles cancelled its IPO, and I discovered critical modeling errors in two research reports on Tesla Motors (TSLA) from first-tier investment banking firms. Before discussing the latest developments, I want to mention an important article I found earlier this month in APS News, a bi-monthly newsletter from the American Physical Society, which asked "Has the Battery Bubble Burst?" The author's conclusions were no surprise: current lithium-ion batteries aren't good enough for electric vehicles and better batteries are at least a decade away. What impressed me was his explanation of why there's no "Moore's Law" for batteries: "⦠electrons do not take up space in a processor, so their size does not limit processing capacity; limits are given by lithographic constraints. Ions in a battery, however, do take up space, and potentials are dictated by the thermodynamics of the relevant chemical reactions, so there only can be significant improvements in battery capacity by changing to a different chemistry." It's the clearest, simplest and most elegant answer I've ever seen. While yesterday's report from the Congressional Budget Office didn't use the phrase "not ready for prime time," it did conclude that the US government will spend between $3 and $7 of taxpayer money for every gallon of gasoline "saved" by consumers who drive subsidized plug-in vehicles. The most important conclusion, in my mind, was: "Because of their other, indirect effects, however, the tax credits will have little or no impact on the total gasoline use and greenhouse gas emissions of the nation's vehicle fleet over the next several years. As a result, the cost per gallon or per metric ton of any such reductions will be much greater than the amounts described above." While the CBO's report on plug-in vehicles is pretty damning, things may not be as bleak as they appear at first blush because sales of plug-in hybrid electric and battery electric vehicles have been weaker than anybody expected. The following graph is based on monthly tracking data from hybridcars.com and shows how quarterly sales of PHEVs and BEVs from all automakers combined have ramped over the last seven fiscal quarters. My third quarter estimate for this year is based on average sales during July and August ... There's more. http://seekingalpha.com/article/880061-electric-vehicles-are-still-not-ready-for-prime-time
OK that's getting a little beyond my technical knowledge. I would recommend reading the wikipedia article that explains it in detail. It's my understanding that it can send power to both.
Well they sure don't seem to believing you because Volt sales are steadily rising. Add to that the fact that it has sold more units than every other pure electric and electric extended range vehicles combined. Haters gonna hate.
At least you admit that the Volt isn't an electric vehicle. Honesty has to start somewhere. The sales of the Volt will never even be enough to cover the development costs so there will always be a *huge* taxpayer subsidy. The people buying are leftist loons who believe anything they are told. Once the car has gone 25 miles it is just an inefficient gasoline powered GM pile of crap destined for the bone yard.
I know very little about electric cars. They do have a great number of smart cars over here, and I'm not sure if they're electric or not. I did see a movie about the demise of the the electric car from GM years ago, can't recall the name, where they destroyed a whole bunch of these cars. If the Volt is not a good design, as 377 has shown, then I wonder why GM would have wasted all that money on the earlier technology? If Sandybestdog is selling them, then I assume he knows as much about them as a regular car salesperson knows about regular gas cars. My point is, are we hating the Volt just because of Government Motors, as described by some? Is it possible it's a decent car looking for Americans to adjust their thinking? Ideas and thoughts anyone?