GM Announces Chevy Volt Sticker Price: $41,000

[ABQCOWBOY]

I think I can make an argument that might change your mind.

We all agree that we need to migrate to some kind of energy source other than burning dead things.

But, we aren't certain which of the alternatives will be the one that wins the marketplace. Nobody can say.

And one of the complications, when it comes to our transportation needs, is that every part of the puzzle is dependent on some other part.

Nobody's going to build Hydrogen filling stations until there are millions of Hydrogen cars.

But nobody's going to buy millions of Hydrogen cars, until there are millions of Hydrogen filling stations.

Electricity can be a very good choice as the "currency of exchange". No matter what energy source we use, (nuclear, solar, bio, hydro, dilithium), if can be easily converted into electricity.

And, once our mystery energy is converted into electricity, then it's easy for the consumer to convert it into whatever form of energy he wants. (Mechanical, electrical, thermal.)

It's a universal form of energy, which we already have the distribution network for.

(For relatively long distances, like cross-state. We really don't have a good network for shipping electricity for longer distances. The Obama administration is working on that, something they call the "electric interstate", or some such. Technology that will, supposedly, mean that if it turns out that our new energy source is, say, solar stations in Arizona, then we'll have the ability to ship electricity from AZ to NY, where the demand is.)

No matter where we're getting, say, half of our energy from, 100 years from now, it's guaranteed that we'll be using electricity to distribute it.

Long term, you may be right Larry. I don't know, as you say, very difficult to see what the future holds. Right now, I don't see this as a good answer but I do see it as a direction of potential promise.

[Larry]

Long term, you may be right Larry. I don't know, as you say, very difficult to see what the future holds. Right now, I don't see this as a good answer but I do see it as a direction of potential promise.

Here's another parallel.

In Engineering, any time you design a project that's going to have more than one or two engineers working on it, somebody has to divide the project into sections, and assign different people to different sections.

The way you do that is, you create specifications for the boundaries.

My Dad said that when he was in project management, he really liked to make a relay the dividing point. Tom's job was "whenever X happens, close this relay". Bill's job was "When this relay closes, make it do Y."

He liked to use relays because it's easy to tell whether the relay has closed or not. If X occurs, and Y doesn't happen, then you look at the relay. If the relay closed, then Bill didn't do his job. (The relay closed, but it didn't do Y.) If the relay didn't close, then it's Tom's fault. (X happened, and it didn't close the relay.)

Same thing happens in software. The people who design an operating system publish an "Applications Program Interface". It says things like "If a program wants to open a file on the hard drive, it should do this, and the OS will open the file." The people writing the OS can do whatever they want, as long as their program receives requests in the stated format. The program can do whatever it wants, as long as it requests services using that format.

Think of a standard trailer connector. The specification says that whenever 12 V is present on Pin 1 of the connector, a red light on the left rear corner of the trailer will light up. The car can use whatever system it wants to get that voltage to that pin. The trailer can use whatever system it wants to take that voltage and make the light light up. But any car (that meets the spec) is compatible with any trailer (that meets the spec.)

They specify what the dividing point is.

IMO, if you want to have competition in the "alternative energy" marketplace, (And I really think that's what we want, is competition. We want to encourage several kinds of energy, build actual demonstration plants, and then let them fight it out once we have an actual, up and running, system.), then what you do is encourage the various proponents to build plants which will generate electricity.

And encourage the development of electric cars.

Now, the people who are developing the tech have a known target to work towards. They know what the "output" side of their plant will be.

And, they know that they are guaranteed to have customers when they get there. At a known price.

You think that your windmill is the cheapest form of energy? Fine. Build me one (or more) that will feed X amount of power into the existing power grid, and run them for 5 years.

And the people designing the cars know what the input to their vehicle looks like: A standard wall socket.

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And we know that whichever form of energy turns out to win the competition, and whichever car wins, the energy will put power in the socket, and the car's power cord will fit.

[Teller]

GM just blew it, big time. Once again. Those guys couldn't find their own asses with both hands.

With a vehicle like this, you need to think long term. Keep the initial price down, get lots of people to want it, generate a positive buzz. The return comes later, when you are selling millions of units a year.

Instead, they are going for immediate profits from the niche market. Morons.

Very true. And we need a battery that can go as far as a gas-powered vehicle. When that happens, electric cars will go through the roof in terms of popularity; even with sports car buffs. You can get a lot more torque, and instant torque, from an electric vehicle than one that runs on gas. (As was mentioned, the Tesla Roadster is pretty ridiculous in terms of performance.)

[PeterMP]

I predict they will have so many problems in the first year with the Volt that it maybe fatal to long term success. They rushed that product.

I'd take Nissan's Leaf over GM's Volt.

Any car that uses electricity really isn't helping the environment because most power plants are coal fired or nuclear.

You can do things like this at a power plant.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/algae.html

You can't do that at every car.

[Thiebear]

Every 5 years we will be shocked at the growth..

What is 41k now will be 25k, will be 18k...

what is 100miles will be 242 miles will be unlimited.

I know we are a DRAG on the electric system now....

at some point we'll be using ocean rip tides and all kinds of crazy stuff.

We have to have the MONEY though.. a recession is tough on technology.

I'm dying for the roll on solar that isn't so rigid.

[Larry]

Every 5 years we will be shocked at the growth..

What is 41k now will be 25k, will be 18k...

what is 100miles will be 242 miles will be unlimited.

I know we are a DRAG on the electric system now....

at some point we'll be using ocean rip tides and all kinds of crazy stuff.

We have to have the MONEY though.. a recession is tough on technology.

I'm dying for the roll on solar that isn't so rigid.

Some technology increases rapidly and geometrically.

Nobody can keep up with the drops in hard drive storage capacity. It's been that way for decades.

OTOH, from what I've read, battery capacity really hasn't increased much, in decades.

I hope that this technology catches on. I think that this combination of electric with hybrid backup might be the crack in the dam, so to speak.

I'm not gonna claim that it's guaranteed.

[twa]

Supercapacitors might be the breakthrough technology there,still early yet though

[PeterMP]

Battery technology is going to take a big jump in a few years.

http://www.last100.com/2008/01/15/stanford-research-team-may-have-found-holy-grail-of-battery-technology/

[JohnLockesGhost]

Battery technology is going to take a big jump in a few years.

http://www.last100.com/2008/01/15/stanford-research-team-may-have-found-holy-grail-of-battery-technology/

Very cool.

I remember reading about a similar process regarding hydrogen storage. The article claimed that by using graphite the storage capacity of a tank of hydrogen could increase quite a bit. The hydrogen molecules would settle into the recesses of the graphite allowing it to be more tightly packed. Of course, graphite isn't weightless so it's applications are limited with regard to personal transport.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/25315cc.pdf

[NavyDave]

I'll still drive a SUV like an Escalade or Navigator.

Unless some body in the private sector creates an engine powered by seawater, the govt sponsored electric car is going to be the Edsel, the parachute pants, the FUBU gear, of the 21st century or worse will be just as popular in the USA as Soccer was in the 20th century.

No matter what bogus excuse the global warming scammers come up with the majority of Americans know we have plenty of our own oil domestically to make us dependent on ourselves but mandates and tree hugging lawsuits restrict access or create a disincentive to drill here or harvest oil from slate or tar sand.

[Zguy28]

It'll go 300+ miles on a charge, using gas after the first 40 miles. Under normal usage - short commutes - the user will never have to use gas. For a guy like me, whose commute is 5 miles or less, this car would be great - if it weren't $41,000.

I think this car is a great step forward for GM. Once the economy of scale brings the price down to $25K or so, this will be a really great product. Until then, it's just an expensive very good product.

Does it recharge itself (like from an alternator) while running on gas?

[PokerPacker]

I'm reading Tesla Motors is working on a car that'll be $20-30k

[Larry]

Does it recharge itself (like from an alternator) while running on gas?

Exactly.

For short trips, it's an electric car.

When (if) the batteries get really low, then it fires up a small gasoline engine, which runs the car/charges the batteries. (In effect, it becomes a hybrid.)

When you're commuting or going to the grocery store, it's an electric car. If you want to go to Grandma's, then it's a hybrid.

[mardi gras skin]

When (if) the batteries get really low, then it fires up a small gasoline engine, which runs the car/charges the batteries. (In effect, it becomes a hybrid.)

Is that right? I thought I read that the gas was strictly used to supply the battery with energy and that the car itself doesn't actually run on gas.

Yeah, here it is:

http://gas2.org/2009/06/15/chevy-volt-test-drive-how-gms-electric-car-works-pictures/

How the Chevrolet Volt Works: It’s a real Electric Car

If you aren’t yet familiar with how the Chevy Volt works, let me explain: the most important thing to understand is that it’s a fully electric car—not a hybrid—since the only thing moving the wheels is the electricity provided by a battery pack. The gas engine you see on the left (above) is actually a generator, and only produces enough electricity to maintain a steady charge level when the batteries drop to 30% of their capacity. Without this “range extender”, the Volt would simply be an electric car that stops working after 40 miles.

[Larry]

That's what a hybrid does.

When you're sitting at a red light, it charges a battery. When the light turns green, the power from the generator, and from the battery, accelerate the car.

The reason it's not just like the hybrids is that the typical hybrid doesn't have enough batteries to do much, by themselves. The volt has big enough batteries so that for short trips, the batteries can do it all.

(As I understand it.)

[mardi gras skin]

(As I understand it.)

Yeah, I don't really get it either. I get that the architecture of the volt is radically different than the other cars we commonly refer to as hybrids. But the fact that it still uses gas to generate electricity probably does mean that its a hybrid.

[PokerPacker]

That's what a hybrid does.

When you're sitting at a red light, it charges a battery. When the light turns green, the power from the generator, and from the battery, accelerate the car.

The reason it's not just like the hybrids is that the typical hybrid doesn't have enough batteries to do much, by themselves. The volt has big enough batteries so that for short trips, the batteries can do it all.

(As I understand it.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a hybrid has a gasoline engine and a gasoline transmission that directly power the wheels to go along with the electric motor and transmission that also power the wheels.

[Larry]

OK, checking out the Wiki pages on hybrids (really broad cetegory), and on the technology actually used in things like the Yukon and Prius hybrids:

1) This stuff is way over my head.

2) But what I do see:

The mechanical setup involves a gasoline engine connected to a mechanical transmission, connected to a drive train.

The transmission, however, also contains two devices which can function as motors or generators. These devices can pull power out of the battery, boosting power to the drive train, or put power into the battery. They also, in effect, make the transmission "continuously variable" (it has an infinite number of gear ratios), even though the transmission does actually have four fixed gear ratios.

I think that the Volt actually has no mechanical connection between the gasoline engine and the drive train. Instead, it's gasoline engine - generator - batteries - electric motor.

That may be the "fundamental difference" they're talking.

(At least, it's a theory.)

[zoony]

GM just blew it, big time. Once again. Those guys couldn't find their own asses with both hands.

With a vehicle like this, you need to think long term. Keep the initial price down, get lots of people to want it, generate a positive buzz. The return comes later, when you are selling millions of units a year.

Instead, they are going for immediate profits from the niche market. Morons.

Did you miss the part about the lease offer? Someone definitely blew it here, not GM though

[zoony]

Some real ignorance going on in this thread, seriously.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/27/business/la-fi-autos-volt-20100727

Chevrolet plans to offer a lease program on the Volt with a monthly payment as low as $350 for 36 months plus $2,500 due at lease signing, a deal that could speed up adoption of the new generation of automobiles by making them competitive with traditional gasoline-powered vehicles.......

....

getting leases down in the range of similar offers from gas-powered cars "will make these more attractive for the consumer and increase sales," said Xavier Mosquet, a senior partner with Boston Consulting Group in Detroit.

The leases also make sense for consumers looking to jump into new technology such as the electric vehicles coming on line this year, analysts said.

"The lease payment really opens the Volt to the mass market beyond early adopters," said Jesse Toprak, an analyst at TrueCar Inc., a Santa Monica auto sales and pricing information company.

Consumers who lease limit their risk because they will be able to return the cars to the automaker after three years if they don't perform as expected or have reliability problems, he said. Such a deal protects early adopters from paying a high sticker price for a car that might have a poor resale value because of its performance.

GM has absolutely crushed it with this platform. Just watch.

If the Germans made it, though, I'm sure most of you would be ****ing about why GM can't make one.

......

[Prosperity]

that is definitely pretty affordable, if I had a job I would strongly consider leasing a volt

[mardi gras skin]

Some real ignorance going on in this thread, seriously.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/27/business/la-fi-autos-volt-20100727

Some guy back around post 24 made the same point about the leasing prices.

[zoony]

Some guy back around post 24 made the same point about the leasing prices.

Yah but that guy was far too polite

[mardi gras skin]

Yah but that guy was far too polite

I'll work on that.

[Larry]

Some real ignorance going on in this thread, seriously.

GM has absolutely crushed it with this platform. Just watch.

If the Germans made it, though, I'm sure most of you would be ****ing about why GM can't make one.

......

I could see lots of people going for the lease.

With a lease, you're certain that you're not going to get stuck with a betamax. GM takes that risk.