Chevy Volt Panned...

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

If they (electric cars) were cheap enough your could think of them like netbooks -- a second vehicle that often is good enough, but not what you want if you can only buy one car.

But $48,700 is not exactly cheap!

I'm surprised they didn't take a few more lessons from the Prius; their initial price and performance is at least pretty well within the "acceptable" range for most people who would otherwise be looking at gasoline (only)-powered vehicles.

Hey, at least you wouldn't have to worry about the "cold battery lacks performance" problem where you live!

Arizona will freeze over before I'd ever buy a Chevy Volt. ...Jim Thompson

But of course what's really important is how a car _looks_, and the Volt fails in that department too. Remember how killer the concept was:

The production model pretty much looks like a Malibu with a different grille.

But how long will that battery last in 115 degree heat?

Batteries hate hot.

tm

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

If we keep getting all this AGW, it may well just freeze over.

tm

I'd go for that if it had a 4.5 liter gasoline-powered engine ;-)

Yep, butt ugly.

Back around 1956, Fisher Body Division of GM sponsored a contest amongst high school drafting students to submit drawings of car body designs. I garnered an honorable mention. I may still have my drawing around here somewhere. If I can find it I'll post. ...Jim Thompson

Yup, I think we hashed this out on this forum about 6 months ago, by careful reading of an intentionally vague GM press release.

Very short range on electric power alone, then the gas mileage is relatively poor when the IC engine cuts in. This may be the unavoidable result of a series hybrid, or just that they have inefficient electrical systems and an inefficient IC engine that is WAY too big.

I get 49 MPG in mixed-city driving in the winter with my Honda Civic hybrid, and as good as 56 in the summer. I can get 50+ on the highway.

Jon

I don't know all the ins and outs of calculating energy conversion efficiencies, but I wouldn't be surprised if the net consumed energy per mile is greater than that of a properly tuned IC engine. ...Jim Thompson

I got over 50mpg on regular unleaded with this car, in the 80's:

The engine design dates back to the 30's. Mine had 16 horses. AFAIR the first one had only nine and got over 75mpg.

The dashboards on most of those were rather spartan:

I had a 1961 Renault Dauphine, 32hp, 40mpg in town.

These cars are for the young, dumb and unmarried... cheap, but death traps in a collision.

My wife totaled a pickup truck with our 1996 Q45, suffering only an energy-absorbing bumper compression. ...Jim Thompson

Mmm... I'm pretty sure that in any marketing survey, the Civic Hybrid is going to be preferred by the general public by a rather large margin. :-)

But hey, any idea how much your 2CV would cost in today's dollars?

What, no GPS? :-)

---Joel

No idea but it should be under $10k. It was a very clever design. For example, they connected the secondary of the ignition coil to the two spark plugs, one side each. And ... voila ... no distributor needed. What ain't there won't cost money and can't break.

On early models the cable that drove the speedometer needle would also drive the wipers ... tada ... no motor needed for that. IIRC the clutch for that could be wiggled so you could wipe after sitting at a traffic stop for a while in the rain. The starter was engaged via a steel rope which further simplified things. If the battery happened to be flat, no problem, there was a crank in the trunk.

Mine had a radio with shortwave bands inside. I doubt any contemporary car can match that :-)

Well, there are always early adopters who are willing to pay for the development costs. The next version will make more sense altough the biggest problem to me is the Chevrolet part. Thats a big minus.

...a Chevy *anything*.

Will the Volt even be produced another year?

Depends on how the electricity is generated. A diesel engine may reach close to 45% overall efficiency. A gasoline powered engine is happy when it reaches 30%. Ofcourse better number can be achieved in a lab but that is not a real comparison. It is not hard to beat an IC engine!

That's a Prius with a different body. Japanese suck at design and styling. The Prius is regarded an ugly car by many people.

Not after the obamunist is gone.

OK, but Citroen 2CVs look like emaciated VW Bugs with all the "happy" removed!