Posted by Mike Hunter on February 5, 2009, 3:02 pm
You mean like Toyota, Honda and every other manufacture has been doing for
the past ten years, selling the vehicles buyers wanted to buy? Honda even
tried to make a "truck" out of a car, because THAT is what buyer wanted to
buy LOL
>> My hat's off to GM if they can make it a success.
> Promise them anything, but sell them a SUV?
Posted by Mike Hunter on February 5, 2009, 3:03 pm
A guess we can assume you know nothing about the Volt, right?
> Yeah, right, only problem is, it can't run on batteries only, it will run
> for a few miles and then become a regular hybrid, it is expected to cost
> about $40,00-$48,000 and apparently, really only get about 40 mpg. OOPS
> sorry folks, did we waste your bailout money.
>> It's an interesting article about how the car with a possible 100MPG+*
>> rating come into being.
>>
>> "It was the equivalent of an Apollo moon shot: The company was going
>> to invent a propulsion system and design an entirely new vehicle at
>> the same time. "We don't normally let people do that," notes GM CEO
>> Rick Wagoner. But despite those misgivings, Wagoner and his team had
>> now set a goal of unveiling a new design-not a fanciful concept car,
>> but a real car that could go into production-at the January 2007
>> Detroit auto show, only nine or 10 months away. By the standards of
>> the automotive industry, that would require blazing speed."
>>
>> Full article:
>>
http://www.motortrend.com/features/consumer/112_0904_chevrolet_volt_inside_story/index.html
>>
>> * EPA Closer to Giving the Chevy Volt at Least a 100 mpg Rating:
>>
http://gm-volt.com/2008/10/13/epa-closer-to-giving-the-chevy-volt-at-least-a-100-mpg-rating/
>
Posted by Mike Hunter on February 5, 2009, 3:33 pm
Did you calculate how long you could have driven a Carolla, with the $5,000
premium you paid to buy your Pruis, before you would have spend any
additional funds on gasoline? I seems to me you could have driven the
Corolla for at least four years on that $5,000 before you spent ANY money
for gas
> There are several ways to figure the economy of the Volt, but perhaps the
> most realistic is to forget about published MPG (really intended as a
> comparative datum) and consider $ per 10k miles. Such a calculation will
> include your local rate for electricity, and will consider your driving
> habits over a period of time.
> I did that for my Prius, and discovered that it costs about 5c a mile for
> fuel. Remember, 100% of the Prius propulsion energy comes from gasoline.
> There is no other source whatsoever, but the hybrid system permits the use
> of a highly efficient ICE that has poor acceleration characteristics,
> supported by an electric motor which has maximum torque at zero rpm. The
> Volt, on the other hand, can be 100% plug-in for average days (for me),
> with the ICE entering the equation only when I drive further than, say, 40
> miles between charges.
> If GM's Volt project delivers its promoted configuration, it will cost ME
> less than 3c per mile.
> Neither figure includes maintenance, depreciation, (in)convenience, etc.,
> but an ICE that is designed to run at constant rpm can be amazingly
> durable, and electric motors are usually good for hundreds of thousands of
> hours. I won't talk about the battery...
> Does it make sense to pay $40k to save $0.02 per mile? At 20k miles per
> year that's $400, or 1% of the car's purchase price. So, the answer is NO.
> But it's an engineering wonder that fascinates this early adopter - which
> is why I bought my '04 Prius in Oct '03 when it first hit the market. $$
> benefits over time were secondary but gratifying.
> I'd order a Volt today if my local Chevy dealer would accept the deposit.
> Ike
Posted by Ray O on February 5, 2009, 3:39 pm
> Did you calculate how long you could have driven a Carolla, with the
> $5,000 premium you paid to buy your Pruis, before you would have spend any
> additional funds on gasoline? I seems to me you could have driven the
> Corolla for at least four years on that $5,000 before you spent ANY money
> for gas
Or buy 2 Corollas for the price of Volt.
--
Ray O
(correct punctuation to reply)
Posted by Ike on February 5, 2009, 6:45 pm
Sure, but that's not why this early adopter (engineer) bought the Prius.
I quickly installed indicators on various system functions, and a
ScanGauge, to make operating it more satisfying. It was years later that
gas prices skyrocketed. Somewhere in there, the state provided HOV-lane
stickers, which was a cherry on top of the cake. I could (and still can)
drive by myself in the HOV lanes.
So calculating the five-year costs of the Prius vs. a Corolla would not
influence the decision.
Back to your point, in my opinion the Prius is more comparable to the
Camry than the Corolla, so the difference is much less. And, there were
nifty features on the Prius that weren't on the Camry - at any price.
All in all, the Prius has been a good experience.
Mike Hunter wrote:
> Did you calculate how long you could have driven a Carolla, with the $5,000
> premium you paid to buy your Pruis, before you would have spend any
> additional funds on gasoline? I seems to me you could have driven the
> Corolla for at least four years on that $5,000 before you spent ANY money
> for gas
>
>
>> There are several ways to figure the economy of the Volt, but perhaps the
>> most realistic is to forget about published MPG (really intended as a
>> comparative datum) and consider $ per 10k miles. Such a calculation will
>> include your local rate for electricity, and will consider your driving
>> habits over a period of time.
>>
>> I did that for my Prius, and discovered that it costs about 5c a mile for
>> fuel. Remember, 100% of the Prius propulsion energy comes from gasoline.
>> There is no other source whatsoever, but the hybrid system permits the use
>> of a highly efficient ICE that has poor acceleration characteristics,
>> supported by an electric motor which has maximum torque at zero rpm. The
>> Volt, on the other hand, can be 100% plug-in for average days (for me),
>> with the ICE entering the equation only when I drive further than, say, 40
>> miles between charges.
>>
>> If GM's Volt project delivers its promoted configuration, it will cost ME
>> less than 3c per mile.
>>
>> Neither figure includes maintenance, depreciation, (in)convenience, etc.,
>> but an ICE that is designed to run at constant rpm can be amazingly
>> durable, and electric motors are usually good for hundreds of thousands of
>> hours. I won't talk about the battery...
>>
>> Does it make sense to pay $40k to save $0.02 per mile? At 20k miles per
>> year that's $400, or 1% of the car's purchase price. So, the answer is NO.
>> But it's an engineering wonder that fascinates this early adopter - which
>> is why I bought my '04 Prius in Oct '03 when it first hit the market. $$
>> benefits over time were secondary but gratifying.
>>
>> I'd order a Volt today if my local Chevy dealer would accept the deposit.
>>
>> Ike
>
>
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> Promise them anything, but sell them a SUV?