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40 mile range is the sweet spot says GM
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GM's Volt vehicle line executive Frank Weber says that future battery improvements will not see a Volt going further than 40 miles on battery alone but rather becoming lighter, cheaper and hence a little more efficient.

He bases this on polls carried out by the company on typical usage and concludes that more than 80% of drivers will never engage the engine on a daily basis.

The current goal in the design of the Volt is a reduce cost, to bring the Volt into lower and lower cost markets.

He does however speculate that a modular battery design will emerge that might allow different owners to tune the range of the car between 20 and 80 miles on battery alone.

The question I have is, in the mass market, how many Volt owners will religiously plug in every night?

MPT


Posted 12-26-2008 9:17 by MPT
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Comments

Fshhead wrote re: 40 mile range is the sweet spot says GM
on 12-28-2008 15:47

Ahhhhh GM'S Volt is a total joke!!! LOL

They get the same electrical range as an electric vehicle in the early 1900's!!!! No wonder it needs a IC engine to boost the range. I think they & Tesla need to get together with help from the incoming administration. It would be a win, win for everyone involved. GM needs better range, Tesla needs capital & factorys & if it was sucessful Obama would look like a genius!! He has a place for input on his site. I have written to them about a half dozen times on this....

change.gov/.../ofthepeople

MPT wrote re: 40 mile range is the sweet spot says GM
on 12-28-2008 16:30

I hadn't seen that site; I'm on it right now, thanks for the link.

Fshhead wrote re: 40 mile range is the sweet spot says GM
on 12-29-2008 1:57

No prob' at all for the link. I am more than happy to contribute.Hopefully Pres.-Elect Obama & Tesla will have a nice cozy relationship. I mean the direction that he says we should be heading is right up Tesla's alley AND they have proved that it CAN be done & is viable.

Fshhead wrote re: 40 mile range is the sweet spot says GM
on 12-29-2008 2:09

LOL Ahhhh I stand corrected....

"One charge will take the car about 110 miles, which isn’t much different from contemporary EVs. "

Top speed is 25 mph so I am sure the range would be lower if it traveled at speeds the Volt will go.

Man, tell you what Jay Leno has QUITE the nice collection of cars.

www.jaylenosgarage.com/.../Baker_E_shell.shtml

CelticSolar wrote re: 40 mile range is the sweet spot says GM
on 01-03-2009 4:41

"The question I have is, in the mass market, how many Volt owners will religiously plug in every night?"

There will be three categories of PHEV/EREV drivers:

1) Plug-in most/all the time

2) Plug-in sometimes

3) Plug-in almost never

Group 1 will be the early adopters (why else run out to by a plug-in car). To answer your question, for the first couple years, I think most Volt owners will be plugging in.

After PHEVs are more common, group 2 will start buying them. Their plug-in habits will fluctuate with the price of gas. I wallet painful trip to the pump will remind them to plug-in more often.

Group 3 should not waste their money on a plug-in. A standard hybrid would be cheaper for them and perform the same.

Fshhead wrote re: 40 mile range is the sweet spot says GM
on 01-03-2009 5:03

LOL Yea they said the same thing about cellphones too Celtic.

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