As to your last paragraph, that is why it has a mountain mode. You put it on 20 minutes before you go into mountains. That will activate the gas generator to start recharging the battery. Then you will have plenty of battery power to sustain you through the long periods of acceleration. Pam Fletcher is going to be on a live webcast tomorrow at my dealership (and presumably others around the country)for National Volt plug in day. I'll see what else she has to say and report back.
Why don't you come sit in my Volt and we'll take it for a drive. I guarantee you won't be saying that afterwards.
I've been googling, and it seems that most Americans drive less than 35 miles per day anyway. Do that commute with your electric car, keep a gas car for the rocky mountains, probably save a fortune, and most families have 2 cars anyway. Makes some sense. If you only have one car though, well, it probably has to be gas.
I kinda doubt it. What's the efficiency of charging a battery? The energy has to come from somewhere and I was under the impression where these cars are supposed to be a hit, the grid was already strained.
But the Fox documentary on the Volt showed it repeatedly running out of battery power after 25 miles. Is there another source that shows it going 37 or 38 miles? How about a link? If they had just stuck with the original design I may have even bought one. I looked at the car several times at car shows and was telling people at work for years that I was waiting for it to come out. But when the car became available it was quickly evident that GM had ditched the advanced design and just pulled hybrid parts off the shelf which they cobbled together into a mediocre vehicle. I was disappointed and these days have a 2012 Focus for commuting (but still drive my Mustang once or twice per week). My Focus can get an honest 41 mpg on the highway if I keep the speed down below 70 mph. I am interested in a Prius and probably the next economy car I get will be a Toyota. The amount of fuel savings from commuting to work in something economical almost pays for the car. The Prius is supposed to get 51 mpg on the highway and it is highly rated for reliability.
You confuse open-mindedness with technical gullibility. I'm an engineer and just can't bring myself to buy an inferior vehicle like the Volt. I'm sure you can find a few people who are not technically astute enough to discern the major flaws in the Volts design and implementation. After all, the average IQ in the USA is about 100. Many of us will likely never buy a GM product again in our lifetimes because of the misrepresentation of the Volt and the shady treatment of GM bondholders during the taxpayer funded GM bailout.
Yes, the battery issue is about energy density. There are batteries that exist that would work but they are too expensive to put into a passenger vehicle and are usually found in communication satellites and other high-dollar applications. Same with solar cells. You can buy a solar cell right now that converts fully 28% of available solar energy (per unit area) into electrical energy but those cells are prohibitively expensive and are generally only found in space applications.
I guess I really didn't consider that we might have the technology in military or space applications but I imagine there are rare or difficult to manufacture elements needed and just scaling up quantities wouldn't necessarily solve the cost issue. Commercial solar panels today are, I think, about half that efficient. This sounds incredibly promising but you read these stories then they fade away. http://www.ecogeek.org/solar-power/1329
Now we know why volt sales in August got a bump. GM was giving them away! General Motors rolled out the Chevrolet Volt two years ago with lofty sales goals and the promise of a new technology that someday would help end America's dependence on oil. So it seemed like a good thing in August when sales of the $40,000 car set a monthly record of 2,800. But a closer look shows that things aren't what they seem for the cutting-edge car. Sales rose mostly because of discounts of almost $10,000, or 25 percent of the Volt's sticker price, according to figures from TrueCar.com, an auto pricing website. Other pricing services gave similar numbers, and dealers confirmed that steeply discounted Volts are selling better than a few months ago. http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012...iscounts-to-boost-volt-sales/?intcmp=features
"GM is losing thousands of dollars on every Volt, raising the question of how long it can keep eating the steep losses." As long as there are taxpayers to make up the GM losses they'll continue to deeply discount these massively flawed vehicles.