Why The Volt Is The Wrong Horse In The Right Race: This Week’s Report From 20 Paws Ranch
Many automakers have been slow to embrace hybrids and for some who have the technology doesn’t seem to run a whole lot deeper than a badge with a green leaf on the trunk lid. A conspicuous exception has been Toyota, which introduced the fuel stingy Prius in the U.S. in 2001 and now offers hybrids throughout its Lexus lineup.
There are many ways to skin the hybrid cat and Toyota’s approach has been through the ingenious Atkinson cycle gasoline-electric system that optimizes economy while not sacrificing performance. We’ve had a Lexus CT200h with the system for seven months and are averaging 45 miles to the gallon highway and 50 city — or about 20 bucks to a fill-up — at a time when gasoline prices are going through the roof.
Then there is General Motors, which marketed the EV1 electric car in small numbers between 1996 and 1999 but, depending upon who you want to believe, decided that this niche market wasn’t profitable enough or self-sabotaged the car despite growing public interest. It was a stupid move in any event, but not the last that the General would make when it came to a hybrid market that is now growing by leaps and bounds.
GM belatedly reentered the hybrid fray last year with the Volt, an electric car with a standby gasoline engine that gets a boffo 94 miles to the gallon but has a puny 39 mile electric-only range and an outrageous $39,195 sticker price, nearly $10,000 more than an entry-level Lexus CT200h that is substantially better equipped. Tax credits apply only to more affluent buyers.
The goal was to sell 45,000 Volts this year, but GM sold a mere 8,000 in 2011 and only 1,000 or so in February and again in March. (Some 15,556 Priuses were sold in its first full year in the U.S., a time when gasoline was a fraction of the price it is today.) One reason for sluggish Volt sales is a recall for potential fires in the car’s battery pack, but the biggest reason is that despite its slick engineering GM has priced the Volt out of the market at a time when people want an economical and affordable ride.
Some auto press pundits have suggested the GM lower the cost of the Volt by subsidizing it with the profits from its brisk-selling pickup trucks, but this is a non-starter that arch competitor Ford would use to its benefit.
It probably has not helped — although it can’t hurt that much — that the Volt has become a whipping boy for Republicans because the Obama administration has used it to tout the resurgence of the American auto industry.
Rush Limbaugh has blasted the car as part of a nefarious White House plot to take away the precious right of Americans to own gas guzzlers, while Newt Gingrich has noted that it is too small for a gun rack.
“As for the Volt, it is emblematic of a larger problem the GOP has: the sense that they are rooting for America to fail,” Paul Begala, Democratic strategist and adviser to President Obama’s super PAC. “When a good jobs report comes out, Mitt Romney looks sad. When Clint Eastwood makes an unapologetic, patriotic Super Bowl ad for Chrysler, Karl Rove says it makes him sick. They booed a gay soldier at a GOP debate, and didn’t even want to give the President his due for ordering the mission that killed bin Laden. One wonders if they will be rooting for communist China during the summer Olympics.”
Indeed.
GM has announced that it is halting production of the Volt until sometime this month, so as to maintain “proper inventory levels” (cough, cough), but sales could improve should gasoline prices continue to go through the roof.
Or not. Toyota has introduced a plug-in version of the Prius in Japan that is selling poorly while its conventional hybrid continues to sell briskly. That has everything to do with the price: A whopping 3,400,000 yen ($41,000), which is more or less that the Volt costs.
which is the name of his mountain hideaway, appears on Mondays.
Share This
Too bad GM can’t make a true 21st century car that serves it’s intended function and sells at a reasonable price. Until they do I’ll keep driving my old 1.5L Mazda which is dependable, paid for, and gets 35mpg. As for all the people who complain about high gas prices? Wherever I go I am surrounded by people driving full-size pickups and SUV’s. I’m not about to take any of their complaints seriously.
As for the GOP rooting for America to fail, it’s hard to argue with that. Just look at what they’ve said, done, and been against for the past 20 years. Maybe one day voters will figure this out. I won’t hold my breath though. There is too much pressure on them to remain uninformed and badly informed. I don’t think most of them know whether they are coming or going. They’re starting to worry about it a bit more though…
i would like a corvette, a bout a foot higher off the ground with 4WD and 85mpg, and never needs oil change, wndow wiper fluid, or new tires, and can go 0-160 in 6 secs, and can turn on a dime and has spikes that come out if anyone tries to park too close, has a rad sound system that you can blast but no one outside car can hear your music and this car costs exactly 19.99 (miniature) and 29.99 full size. With side car with iprom sparkle paint to match.
Dr. E:
What? No fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror?
I am sooooooo sorry, Dr. E. My in-laws gave me the last one as a birthday present 3 1/2 years ago. And yes, Shaun, it does have fuzzy dice (although no hanging testicles).
I gotta say the Volt is my favorite hybrid and is on paper the best of the bunch out there. Even though it has only about 40 miles on battery, I thought they did a nice solution to add a geneator to extend the range. 40 miles fits withing a lot of peoples commutes. Also, it allows it to do away with all the mechanics of combustion engines, no oil changes, belt replacements, tune ups, ect…. Prius type hybrids basically add a large electrical system to all the problems of a standard combustion car, and things like the Leaf don’t have a backup so when its battery runs out you can really be stuck if you can find an outlet. Volt seemed to be the best middle ground. I am sad the price is so high and yea thats going to take it off the market. But if anyone else comes out with a series hybrid instead of a parallel hybrid I’d be in the market for one.
slamfu:
Well, you understand the technology perhaps better than I do.
The Volt is indeed a good buy for people with short commutes, while you make a valid point about Prius-based systems. What took us from skeptics to buyers when we bought our Lexus hybrid was the 10-year warranty on the battery pack.
What I continue to fail to understand is how back-from-the-dead GM could price its most innovative vehicle beyond the reach of much of its market.
If I had to guess, and its a total guess, is that GM really shot its electrical programs in the foot in the 90′s in their really awful bid to sweep their electric cars under the rug. If half of what we see in “who killed the electric car” is true, then that appears to be the case. They let the other manufacturers get roughly a decade head start on that technology which could be why the prices are so much higher. Also, there could be a strong anti-electric car group within GM that is not helping things along. It really does seem surprising that the Volt couldn’t be made cheaper since its basically done away with most of the traditional combustion engine stuff, and it makes me sad. If they had the price around $25k they’d be the best seller out there. It really does have the best of both worlds. My only complaint is I wish the generator was available in diesel so I could convert it to run on veggie oil like my friends’ and their little fleet of diesel Mercedez station wagons.
The Chevy Volt is a very innovative automobile, and can operate as an electric vehicle, a series hybrid, or a parallel hybrid. There is no other vehicle out that can switch between these three modes. It does have 1.4-liter 80hp 4 cylinder engine sourced from the Opel Family 0 that can be used as to power a generator in series mode, or to supplement the electric traction motor at higher speeds in parallel mode(it is really hard to beat the efficiency of an internal combustion engine directly powering the drive wheels at higher speeds.) This engine was not changed to optimize it for the Volt, if they had the time to design an optimize gasoline “sustainer” engine GM likely would have achieved higher fuel economy. The Volt, like all hybrids, is more expensive because it has two complete drive trains installed.
To state that GM re-entered the hybrid market with the Volt is wrong. GM had several hybrids on the market before the Volt was introduced, although most tended towards the hybrids and were installed in large SUVs and trucks (vehicles that could use the most fuel economy help.)
As for the fire hazard of the Volt, here’s what the NHTSA said after their investigation of their Volt fire:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/2012/NHTSA+Statement+on+Conclusion+of+Chevy+Volt+Investigation
Leaving a potentially damaged charged battery pack to sit exposed to the elements for 3 weeks was careless and went against GM’s post crash procedures. They would not do to the same with a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle, the fuel is drained as soon as possible to reduce the risk of fire. I’d be much more concerned about fire in a gasoline or diesel power vehicle than in an electric vehicle. Also consider that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (the group that publishes vehicle crash ratings that get so much coverage) will not run a crash test with fuel in the vehicle because the risk of fire is too great.
My day job is designing the electronic controls for hybrid drive train systems. (Unless you have a Class A, B, or heavy equipment operators license you probably won’t have a chance to drive the vehicles my systems go on.) It is extremely difficult to add in a second drive train and make the vehicle obtain better fuel economy than the internal combustion engine, although it is quite easy to make them get worse! In the future you will be seeing much more technology coming soon from “simple” start/stop systems (shuts off the engine when the vehicle is stopped, starts it back up when the brake is released) to much more advanced multi-speed/multi-clutch transmissions, lower drag drive trains, and more advanced energy storage systems. But virtually all of these are present in the current Chevy Volt.
Darn, thought I had that all edited correctly – The second paragraph is missing a key word. It should read:
To state that GM re-entered the hybrid market with the Volt is wrong. GM had several hybrids on the market before the Volt was introduced, although most tended towards mild hybrids and were installed in large SUVs and trucks (vehicles that could use the most fuel economy help.)
I mean, like really really shaun? here where I live, fuzzy dice are outlawed. Seriously. The government really is insane. What next, no grocery bags over one foot tall in back seat?
and Rcoutme, ok, well please take me for a drive if you got the last one. Lucky dog.