Volt Car FTW

Moving transportation off of crude oil is vital; pick your reason: energy prices, national security, war, military spending, pollution, environmental devastation, CO2... Whether your political views run left or right, down the middle or indifferent, there are reasons to support moving off of gasoline. Tea Party members can support the reduction in this massively government subsidized energy source. Tree Huggers can support the cleaner air. The indifferent can enjoy the decline (or at least slower rise) in gasoline prices as demand is decreased and competition is increased.

Toward the goal of moving away from oil, the Chevrolet Volt is an important car for America for two primary reasons. First, it allows electricity to be the primary fuel without any of the concerns that many people have about pure electric vehicles. The Volt is a plug-in hybrid* that can be "fueled" by electricity or gasoline. If the car has been plugged in, then the Volt uses its battery power for the first 25 to 50 miles (usually about 35 miles) of travel. If you need to drive more and don't want to stop to plug in then the Volt has a gas tank and an on-board gasoline generator that can move you another 340 miles down the road. At that point it operates like any gas car in that you can fill up at any gasoline station and keep on driving. The next time you plug in the car, it goes back to using cheaper, cleaner electricity. It is the best of both worlds.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation most Americans drive less than 30 miles each day. This means that with the Volt, most days will be completely gasoline free. Electricity will be used for commuting and all the in-town short trips, while gasoline will be there when you need it for a road trip to Vegas. If you are unsure of, or cannot use a full-electric car, then a plug-in hybrid with an electric range to cover "most days" is a great way to move the majority of your driving to electrical power and still have the safety net of all those quick-fill gas stations.

The second reason that the Volt is important, specifically to America, is that it is made by an American Company that has a loyal following. If a new technology like this had been introduced by a foreign car company, there are some people that would never consider it and even disparage it. The Volt has taken a couple of knocks from Rush Limbaugh, but Chevy diehards will ignore this completely. As their ads say "Chevy Runs Deep".

Americans know that General Motors is here to stay. As the recent US government bailout and resurrection IPO proved, GM is not going away. They will be here to honor their warranties and service their vehicles. Additionally, potential US customers know that the vehicles are being assembled in an American factory and that their payments are, at least in part, going in to the pockets of American workers.

The Volt reaches out to an audience that has never been interested in a car like the Prius. For example, when NASCAR's Rick Hendrick bought the first publicly available Volt in a charity auction, an entire segment of America was introduced to this car technology as something really cool. Yes, it is different technology than the Chevy that their Dad drove, but it comes from that same company and carries the same bow-tie logo that they trust.

The Volt will be the first opportunity for many people to experience an electric motor bigger than a golf cart. In a Volt you can feel the high-torque electric motor acceleration. The Volt will be the first chance for many to have the "EV Grin." In short, it is fun to drive. Plus it has a lower fuel bill and a quieter ride.

The Volt will also give people a choice of how they fuel their driving. They can plug in, filling up on locally generated electrons, putting money into their local economy. Or they can pump up, knowing that most of that money is going out of the country and some of it is going to regimes that don't like our freedoms or way of life. The point is the Volt gives them a choice.

Conclusions
The Volt is an eloquent machine that Americans can be proud of. When plugged in nightly, the Volt is fueled with enough locally generated electrons for most people's daily driving to be "energy independent." Because the Volt can be run on gasoline too, there is no need to be concerned about range limitations or charging times. Many people that would have ignored "yet-another-foreign-hybrid" will give a Chevy a chance.

References
Volt Specifications
Rick Hendrick Buys a Volt

Rick Hendrick fields 4 Sprint Cup teams:

• Five time consecutive Sprint Cup Champion in the Lowe's #48 Chevrolet Impala SS driven by Jimmie Johnson.
• Four Time Sprint Cup champion #24 Jeff Gordon
• #5 Chevrolet driven by Mark Martin
• and #88 driven by NASCAR’s most popular driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.

* Call it a range extended electric vehicle (REEV) if you'd like.

Plug-in Hybrid Types Compared

One year from today, you should be able to walk on to the lot and buy a Chevy Volt or a Nissan Leaf or one of many other cars that have a plug. There is a lot of confusion about the new world of plug-in cars.

In this Green Car Reports article, the author attempts to clear things up by saying that the Chevy Volt is not a hybrid. He is wrong; it is a hybrid, just not the same type that have been in the market. In the comments, he is corrected and admits that he was trying to simplify things by avoiding "technically accurate esoteric" terms that "the general car-buying public" would not understand.

If you are reading this, I am going to assume you are smart and can handle technically accurate and esoteric.

First, there are a lot of different ways to propel a vehicle including flywheels, fuel cells, compressed air and many many more. This discussion will only focus on internal combustion and battery electric (and the combinations thereof) because these are the car types that are planned to be on the mass market in 2011.

When examining vehicles, we'll look at two things:

• The Fuel(s): the external energy inputs to the vehicle.
• The Drivetrain: the engine and/or motors that propel the vehicle.

Fuel(s)		Drivetrain(s)		Name or Example
	Gas		Gas	good ol' internal combustion (ICE)
	Gas	Electric	Gas	HEV - Toyota Prius	Hybrids
Electric	Gas	Electric	Gas	Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle* (PHEV)
Electric	Gas	Electric		EREV - Chevy Volt
Electric		Electric		Battery Electric Vehicle - Nissan Leaf

Line 1 ICE - Gas fuel powers the drivetrain: this is simply the internal combustion vehicle that dominates our roadways today. No explanation needed.

Line 2 HEV - Fuel = Gas, Drivetrain = Both: This is the Hybrid Gas-Electric Vehicle. The "gas" portion of that description is usually just assumed, leaving it label HEV. These came to the US with the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius in 2000. At the time this writing, HEVs are still less than 3% of new vehicle sales, but you surely have seen one by now. These vehicles are parallel-series hybrids meaning that the power from the gasoline engine can be directed to either drive the wheels or to run the generator to charge the batteries. Even though this vehicle has batteries, the initial source of all of the energy comes from the gasoline put in the tank. Electricity is generated from regenerative braking and running the engine as a generator.

The two above are mass produced cars that are on the road today. The rest of the list is rare and generally less understood.

Line 3 PHEV: this is the plug-in version of the HEV. To make a point the complete name would be plug-in parallel-series gas-electric hybrid vehicle (PPSGEHV). You are not likely to see that lengthy description used anywhere else, so just stick to PHEV. The simplest way to explain a PHEV is start with an HEV and add more battery capacity and a charger to charger them.

Line 4 EREV: is the Plug-in series hybrid. It is also where the Chevy Volt sits. GM has branded this category the Extended Range Electric vehicle (EREV) and their internal technology as "Voltec". Chrysler refers to this category as Range Extended Electric Vehicle (REEV). This category has only an electric drivetrain. All propulsion is provided by an electric motor. The batteries provide power for an initial range and then a gasoline (or diesel or ethanol) generator provides the electricity for operation. The generator runs at an optimal speed that is independent of the vehicle's demands. Any surplus energy that the generator creates is sent to the batteries.

Although the generator does provide energy to the batteries, it does not charge them up completely. Doing so would use gasoline and reduce the MPG of the vehicle. That defeats the purpose. So, if the batteries become replenished due to the generator and regenerative breaking to a threshold above "customer empty", then operation returns back to battery powered mode. The generator and fuel act as a safety net range extender, not as a complete battery charging system.

These transitions of the generator turning off and on will not be readily noticeable to drivers or passengers. If you have driven an HEV like the Toyota Prius, then you know the engine turns on and off often based on driving speed. The transitions of the EREV generator will be related to the battery charge level, rather than the vehicle speed.

Line 5 BEV: This last line is the battery electric vehicle (BEV). These vehicles are not a hybrid. They are fueled by electricity and propelled by an electric motor. This category includes Tesla's Roadster and Model S and the Nissan Leaf. The vehicles have a fixed range and must be plugged in when the batteries are depleted.

Categories

The vehicles can be categorized in many ways:

Internal Combustion: ICE

Hybrids: HEV, PHEV, & EREV

Plug-in: PHEV, EREV & BEV

Plug-in Vehicles: The last 3 rows include "electric" as a fuel type. Put simply, these are cars with plugs. This is a useful categorization for discussing the electrification of personal transportation. Depending on the design of the PHEV or EREV, they can use electricity for just the few miles, up to most of a days driving. And BEVs are completely propelled by electricity. What all the Plug-in vehicles have in common is that they use grid electricity to displace liquid fuels.

The Plug-in Vehicle category includes Plug-in hybrids such as the BYD F6DM and Hymotion modified Priuses. And it includes EREVs like the Chevy Volt and the (now cancelled) Chrysler ENVI line.

There you have it. If the vehicle uses more than one fuel type OR has more than one propulsion engine type, it is a hybrid. That is a simple definition; the complexity is in all the ways that these can be combined.

Is The Chevy Volt Headed For The Trough of Disillusionment?

GM is planning to release the Chevy Volt in November 2010. Put simply, the Volt is a battery electric car with a built in generator. It can drive up to 40 miles per charge on just the batteries and then the generator kicks in. Like a conventional gas car, you can drive until the tank is empty and you can refill at any gas station and keep going as far as you like. Unlike a conventional car though, you can also plug it in, charge it up and then start driving from battery power again.

Did you catch the subtle wording above? The Volt can travel "up to" 40 miles. There is no guarantee that you get 40 miles out of that full charge. However, the "your mileage may vary" disclaimer is blatantly missing from press releases and other media. In fact, if you comb the mass o' videos and articles about the Volt, even the "up to" bit is often not present or only stated the first time. How far can you actually expect to really drive in electric mode? Who knows, that is not what GM is talking about.

GM recently kicked off the "230" marketing campaign. They claimed the vehicle would rate at 230 miles per gallon. That would be great, but it takes some creative accounting to get there. In electric mode, the EPA rated the Volt at 4 miles per kilowatt-hour. Using this number with the Automotive X Prize conversion to miles per gallon equivalent energy (MPGe) and the vehicle rates at just under 150 MPGe in all electric mode. Note that no actual gasoline is being used; this is just a measure of the energy spent. Then when the Volt turns on the generator, it does use gasoline with each mile. This is called Charge Sustaining Mode (CSM). When GM announced the Volt in 2007, they estimated that it would rate approximately 50 MPG in city CSM operation. GM has not updated this number for the actual production vehicle, so we'll use this estimate.

Using these two values, you can see that with short trips in the electric mode you can about 150 MPGe and as you continue past the battery range, the generator kicks in and the efficiency drops to 50 MPG. This means that all trips will fall between 50 to 150 MPGe. A 50 mile trip would be about 105 MPGe and a 200 mile trip would be about 55 MPGe.

Undaunted by this reality, the 230 flag was waved high. GM had a media event, did press releases, appeared on CNN Money and other TV shows to promote 230. But is this hype the right thing for them to do? I want the Volt to be a highly successful vehicle. It greatly reduces oil use and the associated pollution. This is good for national security and the air we breathe, but is building up the hype around the Volt only guaranteeing that it will be a disappointment?

Below is a graph of the Gartner Hype Cycle. This curve applies to many new technologies and the Extended Range Electric Vehicle certainly qualifies as new tech. The graph shows how a product can become highly anticipated and then not deliver on the wild expectations.

Note that these wild expectations don't even need to be from the company in question. The expectation could be set by the media or word-of-mouth. GM is saying 40 miles all electric and 230 MPG, there is a large portion of the population that are going to take this at face-value and expect it when this car hits the streets.

In hope of setting realistic expectations, here is a reality check, my attempt to cut through the hype.

1) The electric range will be less than 40 miles most of the time. And definitely less than 40 miles if:

• you have a lead foot - fast acceleration eats watt-hours
• your 40 miles includes highway driving - in other EVs, freeway-speed driving decreases the range by about 20%
• there will be some degradation as the batteries age - 80% capacity after 10 years would not surprise me

2) The gasoline mode (CSM) the fuel efficiency will be about 50 MPG. The official CSM MPG has not yet been published, you can expect highway to be lower than city. If you plan to drive the car 200 miles between overnight charges, you will only get about 55 MPGe. That is not bad (unless you expected 230 MPG).

Remember there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. The 230 number might have appeared in one obscure corner of an engineer's spreadsheet, but that does not mean it is what you will really get in daily driving. Much of the media and blogosphere called shenanigans on GM's 230 MPG claims. GM might think this was unfriendly media, but perhaps it has been the best thing that could happen.

More than ever, how you drive will greatly impact your consumption. You can get from 50 to 150 MPGe, still sounds like a marketable (hype reduced) car to me. Throw in foreign oil reduction and you have a car that can appeal to both flag wavers and tree huggers.

Related

"Patriotic Environmentalist", not an Oxymoron

Plug into the Coming Electric Vehicle Revolution

Although gas prices have fallen dramatically since last summer, many automakers are still moving ahead with plans to introduce plug-in vehicles. As Wired put it in a review of the 2009 Detroit auto show "The future of the automobile was sealed at North America's biggest auto show, where all of the hottest new cars and concepts had extension cords."

Coming Soon?

The showroom floor is not the same as the dealership floor. They are not here yet. Will they make it this time? Henry Ford was fascinated with electric cars and collaborated with his close friend Thomas Edison on an ultimately unsuccessful plan to bring one to mass market. If you change the names above, that could be the story of many EV start-ups or even the major car company's today. They have dreams of bringing a practical, affordable, electrically powered, mass produced car to market.

So why is this time different? There are advances both technologically and politically. At the bottom of this post there are dozens of links to stories of auto makers' plug-in plans and municipalities installing plug-in infrastructure.

Electron Tipping Point

This time it looks like there is momentum that will not be quiesced by cheap gasoline. As Andy Grove, of Intel fame, put it "the drumbeat of electric transportation ...is like nothing I've ever seen in my life. It must be done. Everything else is secondary". Electron fueled transportation is domestic, cleaner, (and still) cheaper. This time it is over the tipping point. The links below tell of cities, states, and even entire countries deploying infrastructure for plug-in transportation. None of the auto companies want to miss out on this industry's 'inflection point'.

The big guys have to play in this new space to protect their position and the little guys are hoping that an early to market solution can help them move up in the rankings. No one can afford to ignore what might be the next big car market. 

Hydrogen War Over

It may not be over for good, but there is at least a 5 year truce. Politically, the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle has been used to defer the battery electric car. Only now are the automakers realizing that fuel cell cars are at least another decade away and they have been "a decade away" since the 1960's. No longer can automakers wait. The Toyota Prius has shown what is possible and every automaker wants to be the next one to have a big hit car. They can no longer wait for hydrogen. Even Iceland, where they were trying to build the "hydrogen economy" is looking for plug-in cars. They have a hydrogen infrastructure but the cars are currently just too expensive.  Tesla Roadsters are bashed for being expensive, well for the true cost of a hydrogen fuel cell car, you can buy 9 or 10 Roadsters. Fuel cells will get cheaper, call me back in about a decade. This political fight is over for now. Hydrogen has lost. 

Electric Car V3.0

Electric cars are not new, in the early 1900's most cars on the road were electric. Ford's wife even drove one. Then in the late 1990's, thanks to California's zero emission mandate, EVs made a brief comeback. See Who Killed the Electric Car? to find out how that ended. 

Technologically, several things have improved for plug-in cars since the GM EV1; batteries are lighter and cheaper, carbon fiber materials... However, the one thing that I think is the most important change since the 1990s is the range extender. If you have never driven an EV, to hear that it has a 50, 60, or even 90, or 100 mile range, sounds short. Most people drive less than 40 miles per day, but if you tell them that is ALL they could drive, well, they don't like it. We Americans love freedom and the ability to jump in your car and drive off to anywhere is a strong representation of that freedom. The extended range EV (E-REV or REEV) gives you this freedom, while having an electric range that meets most days driving needs.

E-REV now, EV later

For Joe (or Jane) American, after owning an E-REV it will become obvious how infrequently you need more range, then if it fits your driving needs, your next car could be a pure EV. Then for those few times you do need more range you can rent or borrow an E-REV car or have a "gasser" in your family fleet that you only use when you must. Battery technology continues to improve 6-8% per year. That is 6-8% more range, or cheaper per year. You will be able to buy a significant range EV at a reasonable price within a decade. E-REVs bridge the gap as affordable EV solutions can be developed and charging infrastructure can be rolled out. 

Driving an E-REV will change the way you look at fueling up at the pump. Say you forgot to plug-in, so now you have to stop for gas. You'll have to pay at the pump; all the time thinking "why didn't I plug it in? I could be driving now instead of sitting here and I could have paid one fourth the price." The best way to get better habits is by reward and punishment. Plugging in rewards you with the "EV grin" and filling up at the pump punishes your time and wallet.

E-REVs are a natural progression. It is going to take time to build up a charging network and to develop fast charging technology. We have a network of fueling stations now. E-REVs allow us to take advantage of it. Even if only for the peace of mind in knowing that you can pull-in and fuel up if your batteries drain.

Renewable Electron Economy

Don't get me wrong, to all my EV driving buddies out there, you are ahead of the curve. Eventually maybe people will come to see the "freedom" of gasoline as an illusion. Dependency on foreign oil is a ball and chain. We are borrowing money from China and sending it to the middle east. Let's kick off the renewable electron economy and move to a hometown powered, no war required, smart grid, EV transportation system that creates green collar jobs.

Enjoy the links below, here are a few of the more interesting quotes: 

“Investment banker Morgan Stanley forecasts 5,000 plug-in cars will be on the road in 2010, 30,000 in 2011 and 100,000 by 2012. Lowenthal describes those projections as conservative.”

“The company’s ambitious “low carbon” agenda calls for cranking out one million hybrids a year within the first half of the next decade and accelerating the development of small electric vehicles for mass production…”

“Our view is that oil production will peak in the near future. We need to develop power trains for alternative energy sources...”

"President Obama said he would like to see 1 million electric and plug-in cars on America's highways by 2015."

Links Galore

Industry

  Automakers Go Electric

  Automakers Sing the Body Electric

  Drive for electric gathers speed

  Will Electric Vehicles Be the Next 'It' Cars?

Auto Companies

  BMW Mini E

  Chrysler's plan to beat the Chevy Volt (2) (3)

  Ford accelerates electric-vehicle plans (2)

  GM and Chrysler's future business plans include EVs and hybrids

  Lotus

  Nissan

  Mercedes

  Miles Electric 

  Toyota (2)

  Electrifying the Nation by Tony Passowats of GM

Locations

  Australia

  Beijing

  Berlin

  Canada

  Germany

  Hawaii

  Indianapolis

  Ireland

  Israel

  Japan (2)

  New Zealand

  Norway (2)

  Portugal

  Oregon

  San Jose

  Switzerland

  Texas

  Washington DC

  20 Cities "Get Ready"

  28 US States Have Charging System Sales Office

Other

  Electric Car History

  Electricity Vending Machines