The GM VOLT! $41,000 For A 40-Mile Car! YOU SUCKERS READY TO BITE?

Let's see, a trip from Washington, D.C., to Orlando, strictly on electric power, will require ONE WEEK! But that includes just recharging of the battery.

Including layovers, rest and eating -- allow TWO FULL weeks.

Face it folks, electric cars are no more than fads for the rich at this point in time.

Tom Hanks will have to have his Volt recharged twice just to get down his driveway to the Interstate.

For we ordinary motorists, the technology is years off.

In fact, we might be cited in alt.obituaries before we can buy one that's meant for driving as we know it.

---------------------------- "GM Volt's price induces some sticker shock"

By Peter Whoriskey The Washington Post Wednesday, July 28, 2010; A10

The long-anticipated Chevrolet Volt, General Motors' electric car, will cost $41,000, the company announced Tuesday, leaving consumers to decide whether its environmental appeal is worth a price far above that of similarly sized conventional autos.

Electric-car technology has been around for years, but the high cost to make the vehicles has prevented automakers from producing them for the mass market. The price announcements for the Volt and its electric rival, the Nissan Leaf, have been highly anticipated as a result. Nissan, the only other major manufacturer expected to bring such a vehicle to market this year, said the Leaf will cost $32,780.

GM and Nissan are relying on a $7,500 federal tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles to offset some of the added cost, and they're hoping that the allure of their novel power source will make up the rest.

"The Volt is a game-changing product," said Tony Posawatz, GM's vehicle line director for the Volt, which is expected to hit showrooms in November 2011.

(Photos: 2010 International Auto Show)

Although the prices are high, enthusiasts say that electric cars can reach a large, untapped market for vehicles with little or no tailpipe emissions.

The Volt can travel 40 miles on its battery charge and an additional

340 miles on a gasoline-powered generator. The all-electric Leaf has a range of 100 miles.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama pledged to put 1 million plug-in vehicles on the road by 2015.

But some analysts said they doubt that electric cars can reach a broad audience in the near term. Hybrid cars took about eight years to reach the million-unit sales mark in the United States, according to Energy Department figures.

"I'm not sure the Volt is going to be a volume vehicle," said George Magliano, director of automotive industry forecasting for North America at IHS Global Insight. "The technology still isn't there to make them cheap. At the end of the day, the consumer pays a hefty premium to make a statement."

To move the industry along and bolster U.S. manufacturing, the Obama administration has put its weight, and billions of dollars, behind an effort to develop electric cars and batteries in the United States.

In developing the Volt, GM is seeking to fulfill its promise to Congress during the government bailout to move beyond gas-guzzlers. The company had been planning the Volt long before it neared bankruptcy last year, however, as an attempt to leapfrog Toyota in the quest for fuel-efficient vehicles.

The president has expressed optimism that automakers will be able to lower the price tag of electric-vehicle technology. Earlier this month, he suggested that major reductions in battery costs, one of the primary reasons electric cars are more expensive, are on the horizon.

"Because of advances in the manufacturing, [battery] costs are expected to come down by nearly 70 percent in the next few years," Obama said at the site of a planned battery factory in Michigan. "That's going to make electric and hybrid cars and trucks more affordable for more Americans."

Both the Volt and the Leaf will cost considerably more than rival gasoline-powered compact sedans, such as the Honda Civic or the Ford Focus, each of which costs under $20,000.

Price is only one potential barrier to mass adoption, however.

Consumers must also get accustomed to plugging the cars in at home. It takes hours to recharge the vehicles, and in the absence of a network of public recharging stations, drivers that run out of juice may need a tow truck.

Both Nissan and GM are planning relatively low production levels at first, especially compared with the more than 11 million vehicles expected to be sold nationwide next year.

GM plans to produce 10,000 Volts next year, and 30,000 in 2012, company officials have said. Nissan has indicated that it will sell about 25,000 Leafs in the United States next year.

(U.S. government borrowing is $1.4 trillion this year - could buy

36,750,000 volts or ...)

As the only two major manufacturers preparing to mass-produce cars that can run on batteries, GM and Nissan are engaged in a debate over price and capability.

On purchase price, the Leaf is significantly less, though the leasing prices are very similar. The Volt will also be available by lease with a monthly payment of $350 for 36 months and $2,500 due at signing, the company said.

"The Chevrolet Volt will be the best vehicle in its class . . . because it's in a class by itself," said Joel Ewanick, vice president of U.S. marketing for GM. "No other automaker offers an electrically driven vehicle that can be your everyday driver, to take you wherever, whenever."

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Reply to
Palin'sAbortion
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Apparently you missed the fact that the Volt is a Serial PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) NOT a BEV (battery electric vehicle) when the HV battery is depleted to 40% SoC (from what I have heard) the gas engine starts and supplies the electricity needed to power the motor. This is per the SAE

Reply to
Daniel who wants to know

Goodbye to those $40/hour UAW car production line jobs tightening bolts and taking breaks every two hours!

But does McDonald's have 15 million U.S. jobs for our erstwhile middle class dumb'uns?

Even Barack's brilliant administration can't put factories back together again!

------------------------ "The job machine grinds to a halt"

Op-Ed By Harold Meyerson Wednesday, July 28, 2010; A15

AIN'T NO HIRING. And ain't likely to be any for a good long time.

The problem isn't merely the greatest downturn since the Great Depression. It's also that big business has found a way to make big money without restoring the jobs it cut the past two years, or increasing its investments or even its sales, at least domestically.

In the mildly halcyon days before the 2008 crash, the one economic outlier was wages. Profit, revenue and GDP all increased; only ordinary Americans' incomes lagged behind. Today, wages are still down, employment remains low and sales revenue isn't up much, either. But profits are the outlier. They're positively soaring.

Among the 175 companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index that have released their second-quarter reports, the New York Times reported Sunday, revenue rose by a tidy 6.9 percent, but profits soared by a stunning 42.3 percent. Profits, that is, are increasing seven times faster than revenue. The mind, as it should, boggles.

How can America's corporations so defy gravity? Ever adaptive, they have evolved a business model that enables them to make money even while the strapped American consumer has cut back on purchasing. For one thing, they are increasingly selling and producing overseas. General Motors is going like gangbusters in China, where it now sells more cars than it does in the United States. In China, GM employs

32,000 assembly-line workers; that's just 20,000 fewer than the number of such workers it has in the States. And those American workers aren't making what they used to; new hires get $14 an hour, roughly half of what veterans pull down.

The GM model typifies that of post-crash American business: massive layoffs, productivity increases, wage reductions (due in part to the weakness of unions), and reduced sales at home; increased hiring and booming sales abroad. Another part of that model is cash retention. A Federal Reserve report last month estimated that American corporations are sitting on a record $1.8 trillion in cash reserves. As a share of corporate assets, that's the highest level since 1964.

Why invest in new plants, offices and workers, particularly here at home? Spooked by the 2008 crash, corporations want to keep more money under the mattress. More important, they're sitting pretty as profits rise.

Is this model sustainable? It's hard to say -- a double-dip recession could plunge their profits yet again. But from the American worker's perspective, the model, no less than a new downturn, is an unqualified disaster. It portends the kind of long-term, structural unemployment that we haven't seen since the 1930s. It locks into place a generation of reduced incomes.

This dystopian America already stares us in the face. Fully 46 percent of the unemployed have been without work for six months or more -- the highest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began measuring such things in 1947. Two years ago, just 18 percent of the unemployed were jobless for more than six months. America's private-sector job machine -- the marvel of the world since 1940 -- has clanged to a halt, and there's no place for it in corporations' new business model.

The restoration of American prosperity, then, isn't likely to be driven by our corporate sector. Across-the-board business tax cuts make no sense when business is already sitting on oceans of cash. Targeted tax cuts and credits for strategic investment and hiring within the United States, on the other hand, make excellent sense. The Obama administration has proposed expanding the tax credit for the manufacture of green technology here at home, and congressional Democrats will soon unveil legislation creating further incentives for domestic manufacturing.

Another source of jobs would be public, and public-private, investment in infrastructure. As Michael Lind and Sherle Schwenninger of the New America Foundation have argued, building a new American infrastructure of roads, rail and broadband is not only an economic necessity but also the investment with the highest multiplier effect in creating new jobs. A U.S. infrastructure investment bank, such as that proposed by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), could leverage significant private capital to begin America's rebuilding, though the idea has encountered rough sledding in (surprise) the Senate.

What won't work as an economic solution -- indeed, it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment -- is blaming the unemployed for their failure to find jobs. There are now roughly five unemployed Americans for every open job, according to the Economic Policy Institute's most recent calculations, and that ratio isn't likely to decline much if we leave it to the corporate sector to resume hiring. Corporations have figured out a way to make money without resuming hiring. Their model is premised on not resuming hiring. If the public sector doesn't fill the gap, the era of American prosperity is history.

[ snipped-for-privacy@washpost.com]

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Reply to
J. Fartlington Poopnagel

Duh, the Volt has a 40 mile range on the batteries alone and a 250 range while being recharged by the generator. A total range of 290 per tank of gas.

The questions one needs to ask are, when the Volt is plugged in, how many KWHs are required to recharge a fully depleted battery pack, at say 9c per KWH, and how many gallons per hour will be consumed when the engine is running the generator. Once one knows that, the true cost per mile can be determined verses the CAFE rating for a conventional powered mid-size car like the Volt.

The Volt is a true electric car, not a hybrid, since the engine can not power the vehicle

Car buyers are the people who have the strongest opposition to electric vehicles. Until such time as they make an electric/hybrid minivan with a range of up to 200 miles, an electric/hybrid car is a useless luxury for me and my family.

Reply to
Mike

Not a full performance capabilities. Range is only 40-60 miles if the battery is new.

Which raises the point, while GM says it will warranty the battery for 8 years, one important thing seems missing from the warrenty. Will at 8 years it go 40 miles before the engine is needed ot will it go 2 miles before the engine is needed?

Batteries don't usually fail right off, but deteriorate slowly. At what point does the GM warranty and taxpayers fork out for a new battery? It hasn't been defined.

That is important too. And needs to be defined in the warranty. How many watts does it take to charge? As batteries get older, they may consume more to charge and hold their chrage for a shorter duration.

Watts from the wall are not free, it is entirely possible and older battery could be an energy gussler but not replaceble as it hasn't met GMs criteria for replacement.

Volk is shockingly over priced POC.

Reply to
Canuck57

Surely we can trust GM to honor the spirit of the warranty, after it IS Government Motors?

Reply to
Jim_Higgins

As we have come to expect your opinions do not usually reflect the facts. You could not afford a Volt in any event.

Reply to
Mike

??? The engine most certainly can "power the vehicle." It might not be able to power it directly through gears and a driveshaft, but that doesn't mean it isn't powering the vehicle. Once your battteries have been dicharged to a predetermined level, you essentially have a gasolinie powered car that uses a generator/motor set to drive the wheels instead of using a conventional direct mechanical drive train. BUT the engine is still "powering the vehicle". Once you are in this mode, the batteries are now essentially a big capacitor that supply extra energy for acceleration.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

You make an interesting point re the battery as an "extra energy" source but how much will the battery have to give after the 40 miles?

Many (most?) current gas powered cars have a 100~200+ hp engine. This provides a level of power (acceleration, passing power, etc.) that our driving habits now expect and "need". I suspect the Volt's supplemental gas engine would have less hp ( mean it isn't powering the vehicle. Once your battteries have been

Reply to
JimG

Probably no worse that the '64 Bug I drove for years. You adjust, and pick your spot. The Bug was 50hp, the Volt generator 71hp. I've heard the motor has a "sport mode ", and since from what I've read the battery only depletes to 30% maybe there's a way to goose it for merging. I see plenty of cars with power to spare and the driver doesn't know how to merge. Most ramps are better designed/longer than in the past. But lack of merging power is an issue for some. I'd rather have it than not. Many questions about this car won't be known until it gets in the hands of consumers. I haven't seen one full fledged road test yet.

--Vic

Reply to
Vic Smith

I drove a '71 SuperBeetle and, as I was writing my initial post, I was recalling the slow, painful process of merging onto a highway in my Bug! LOL!

Reply to
JimG

Yes and the Volt IS a "Hybrid", specifically a serial plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and the SAE agrees. The SAE also states that MPG during charge sustaining mode and watthours per mile during charge depleting mode must be quoted separately not combined into some faux MPG number

Reply to
Daniel who wants to know

Perhaps should have said motivate the vehicle, rather then power, to make it more understandable for the slower witted in the NG? ;)

Reply to
Mike

The high torque of an electric motor, like those that motivate the Volt, should quite easily blow past most of the under powered high winding, low torque 4cy cars on the road today on the entry ramps and curves on mountain roads. Especially the small and midget cars that are being offered by the Japanese

Reply to
Mike

Lack of torque in small engines is a problem for many small and midget cars. It is torque, not HP, that gets you going and keep you going on grades. Many import brands wind up their engines so they can advertise higher HP ratings, but that kills the torque curve of the engine.

Electric motors on the other hand have their highest torque at start up and under increased load.

Reply to
Mike

The EPA has devised a different method, than used for engine powered vehicles to rate hybrids like those from Ford, GM, Toyota and Honda as well as a method for Generated / Electric only motivated vehicles like the Volt. The difference in the Volt's generators engine is that it runs at a constant RPM, like stationary engines. That is a far more efficient way to run an engine

Reply to
Mike

In message , Mike writes

Low end torque is the preserve of the diesel engine.

Reply to
Clive

Obviously you are not an electrician if that is what you choose to believe ;)

Reply to
Mike

In message , Mike writes

What do you want to discuss, series or parallel d.c. Or synchronous or asynchronous?

Reply to
Clive

Exactly what did you have to contribute to a discussion about Electric vehicles?

And why didn't you direct your rant at the Democrats too? I'm sure they were party to the ills of the world just as much as the Republicans.

Reply to
Peter Hill

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