Government Motors' Volt...

[Nightshade]

...has no juice.

Consumer Reports: GM's Volt 'doesn't really make a lot of sense'

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110228/AUTO01/102280401

"Made in America" may well be a mark of shame and rightfully so if all we can produce is this crap excuse of a car.

The titans of Detroit have fallen far.

[Isaac]

You're about as creative as a door knob, TB! But that's ok, because I'm here for you.

He was said the five hour time to recharge the Volt was "annoying" and was also critical of the power of the Volt heating system.

Most of these problems, including the cost of purchasing the vehicle, should be expected! It's an experiment. Everyone knows that! When we've mastered making electric cars and their batteries, you'll know, because you'll own one. It will be mandatory. /thread


edit:
It might be possible to charge your cars wirelessly. I don't know how, but the fact that could be an option is pretty cool! Let em experiment!

[Will Robinson]

Nothing wrong with an electric car...IF...you have a place to plug it in.
Well, I'll do you one better than show you where to plug it in. I'll solve a bunch of our problems at the same time:

Put a nuclear powered substation in every Walmart parking lot (you name the location/you get the idea)..plug it into the grid...provide the production of power as a free service of government...(government uses incentives and funding to get energy/oil companies to propel our mutual transition to voltage from carbon)....let the existing electric utilities continue to provide delivery of the now free energy...everyones power bill goes down by a substantial margin you only pay delivery to the utility company they get the product free....almost every business and manufacturing facility cuts their cost to produce their product by at least 30% . The positive effect of suddenly free electricity are deep and bountiful. (ok, practically free, everyone pays the delivery fee to the utility)
The manufacturing jobs come back because the cost of doing business on free power now competes with cheap foreign labor, the economy roars. The price of oil drops to $10 a barrel and the middle east goes back to funding terrorists with whatever profit they can scrape up from selling dates, goat cheese and sand.

Send your donations to: My brilliant plan saved the world.com

[flip]

Can I have Australia?

[SilverFJ]

Electric cars will never have the torque I need to do my job.

[Grendel]

Are you sure ? ... ...

[snoopy]

It's true. The biggest of the big equipment is actually driven by motors, which are powered by a generator. The advantage that motors have over engines is that they have better torque/power/efficiency at low speeds. I believe that they generally have better efficiency that reciprocating engines, too. A lot of really big earth moving equipment is also direct-drive electric at each wheel.

I think the reason that it isn't accessible to the consumer is that it isn't as efficient to convert gas-electric-torque until you start talking about very large amounts of power. Also, electric components that can handle the kind of current necessary gets pretty expensive pretty fast.

The volt's range problem is in the batteries, not really in the drive system. It's really hard to beat the energy concentration of gasoline and the convenience of 5 minute's worth of pumping to replenish your supply. It sounds like the cold hurts the charge/discharge ability of the batteries.

[Isaac]

Electric cars will never have the torque I need to do my job.

Never? Sounds like your prediction is influenced more by emotion than logic...

[Tunnelcat]

The Volt sounds like it would work just fine for me around my town. I do mostly short stints of driving, less than 10 miles, so I would never need the gas engine. But the problem crops up if everybody started plugging in an electric car at night, our present electrical infrastructure would blow a circuit breaker or two.

TB, MotorWeek gave the Volt the "Best Car of 2011" award. A pretty good start for an all new technology vehicle.

http://www.chevroletvoltage.com/index.p ... -year.html

If gas prices keep going up, demand for the Volt may too.

SilverFJ, you've obviously never seen the Tesla Sports car, 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster

Or the experimental tzero, with 177 lbs-ft of torque:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Propulsion_tzero

They may not be practical or cheap cars now, but they show the technology might be feasible in the future.

[Isaac]

If gas prices keep going up, demand for the Volt may too.

if saudi arabia goes egypt...

[Tunnelcat]

if saudi arabia goes egypt...

Hmmmmmmmmm. Might want to buy some GM stock, because they are way ahead of everyone else when Americans suddenly decide gas is too expensive and they still want to drive a car, not a horse.

[Ferno]

Electric cars will never have the torque I need to do my job.

yup, it's electric.

-----

The volt actually has three problems. First, the type of engine. it should have been a rotary, not piston driven. That saves weight and lowers the amount of moving parts. Add to that the high RPM a rotary can obtain which can translate into more power generated. Second is the batteries. wrong type of cells used. Instead of the lithium iron type, they really should have gone with the lithium magnesium nanophosphate type.

and the worst offender is the design. A malibu based design? who would want to buy that bland looking car?

[Tunnelcat]

The volt actually has three problems. First, the type of engine. it should have been a rotary, not piston driven. That saves weight and lowers the amount of moving parts. Add to that the high RPM a rotary can obtain which can translate into more power generated. Second is the batteries. wrong type of cells used. Instead of the lithium iron type, they really should have gone with the lithium magnesium nanophosphate type.

and the worst offender is the design. A malibu based design? who would want to buy that bland looking car?

Yeah, a rotary engine would be sexy and lithium mostly comes from Chile and China, so we'd be beholden to them for sources of lithium. But as for styling, at least the Volt doesn't look like an angry catfish about to eat you, like most of the Asian cars look like right now.

[Nightshade]

As far as I know, the batteries are still too short on capacity to make them as practical and as light as gasoline.

I'm all for electric- as long as its done right (and as cheaply as possible.)

[Heretic]

Do I see an oxymoron in the last post.

[Burlyman]

You're about as creative as a door knob, TB! But that's ok, because I'm here for you.

Nuh uh ^_~

*sings* I'm dippin' in my Tesla...