230 MPG EPA Rating?

Trust GM to fudge the numbers and lie. BS is GM's most important product

230 MPG EPA Rating?
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Folks are a bit confused by these mysterious ads. The giveaway is the music, which reveals the spot to be part of the Volt campaign, but what is 230? It would seem that 230 could well be the Volt?s EPA MPG rating, a number which will be useful only to GM?s relentless hype campaign. After all, no single portion of the EPA test cycle is longer than 11 miles, meaning EREVs get their own testing method (summarized after the jump). But as Ad Age puts it, ?why run a teaser campaign for a car that doesn?t go on sale until next year ? and one that?s been known about for some time? After all, the marketer has been beating the drum for the car for more than a year.? Because that?s the Volt Way. Meanwhile, 230 MPG? Really?

Last we checked in with the Volt?s EPA MPG vision quest, GM was basically negotiating with the EPA for a 100mpg plus rating. Last September Bloomberg reported that,

obtaining a 100-mpg rating will require the EPA to develop a new way of measuring fuel efficiency for a car that?s likely to rely more heavily on electric than internal-combustion power, according to GM?s Posawatz. The automaker promised to share mileage data captured from the Volt?s onboard computers to verify real-world performance if EPA will grant the certification now, he said.

GM-volt.com?s Lyle Dennis thinks he knows how the Volt will crack 230 MPG

Mike Duoba from Argonne National Lab devised a method to determine the MPG of an EREV; first the car is driven from a full battery until it reaches charge-sustaining mode, then one more cycle is driven. If we use the highway schedule, the first 40 miles are electric. One more cycle is

11 more miles. If the Volt gets 50 MPG in charge sustaining mode, it will use .22 gallons of gas for that 11 miles. Thus 51 miles/.22 gallons = 231.8 MPG.

What happened to 30 MPG in charge-sustaining mode? Is the 230 just a reference to the charging voltage rather than some concocted MPG equivalent? Expect more questions than answers at GM?s press conference on the 230 phenomenon tomorrow.

Reply to
Jim Higgins
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No. The ad shows 23.

Are they really running the motor off gas? I thought they used petrol.

That's what the 23 in the ad refers to.

========== "Christians, it is needless to say, utterly detest each other. They slander each other constantly with the vilest forms of abuse and cannot come to any sort of agreement in their teachings. Each sect brands its own, fills the head of its own with deceitful nonsense, and makes perfect little pigs of those it wins over to its side." [R.J.Hoffmann]

Reply to
Barry OGrady

DUH! The mileage figure was set by the test method used by the EPA, dummy, not GM.

Surely you are not that slow a thinker to believe the manufacturer had the privilege of setting its own EPA mileage figures? LOL

Reply to
Mike

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