The Good, The Bad And The Ugly: Some European Perspective On The Chevy Volt

Martin Schwoerer
by Martin Schwoerer

We live in annoyingly ideological times, in which people get worked up about gay marriage, Christopher Bangle, or what religion their neighbor belongs to. This is foreign to me. If it works for you, then go for it, I always say. You like some wheels, you buy ’em; if you don’t, don’t.

So, it’s hard for me to understand what the fuss is about the Chevrolet Volt. It’s just a car, for Pete’s sake! On the other hand, I am a notorious gearhead and can appreciate the importance of what seems to be a totally new automotive concept. It’s new, but does it point toward the future? Let’s discuss it.

The Bad:

The way GM wants to introduce a revolution

Automotive revolutions don’t work this way. You don’t introduce new technical principles by installing them in mid-segment cars. Indeed, there is a historical pattern of how successful innovations are introduced into cars. Car makers put really new stuff like anti-blocking brakes, or air bags, or fuel injection, or turbocharging into their most expensive cars, first. They can charge a real premium for the new gizmos and let the wealthy early-adopters do the long-term testing. After a while, the manufacturer finds out how to make the new technology reliable and inexpensive. Which is then made available for everybody.

Trying to sell something really new to the masses first doesn’t work. Look at the Wankel engine, or the Audi A2, or at sandwich-layout Mercedes’, or at the Chevy Corvair.

So, I am skeptical about the viability of introducing range-extender technology in a mid-priced car. You’d need a Toyota-like attention for detail and long-term quality to pull it off.

The Volt’s batteries

Lithium-Ion batteries are great because they pack a lot of power per pound. But they’re bad because we do not know very much about long-term reliability. Do you have a twelve-year old laptop that works well? Toyota doesn’t trust Li-Ion enough to put it in the Prius. Why should I trust GM when they say it’ll work out OK in the Volt? (Given that I don’t trust GM anyway).

The Good:

The Volt’s concept

The technical elegance of the concept of the range-extended EV is irresistible. In contrast to the Prius, it means you are truly “electric-first”: you (normally) begin in electric mode and switch only to gasoline propulsion when you run out of juice. Just look at the numbers: over 80% of car trips could be electric-first (assuming the electric range of the Volt).

More numbers: 90% of the time, cars are stationary. Since your car is parked most of the time, you should be able to utilize cheap peak electricity, like when the sun is shining on photovoltaic cells, or when the wind is blowing on windmills. If the concept of the smart grid works out, then you might even sell juice from your batteries when the utilities need it.

Most pure EVs are extremely lightweight and small: otherwise they’d have lousy range. A range-extended EV can be bigger, heavier and safer. With a range-extended EV, you don’t need so many expensive batteries: all you need is enough for your average daily distance.

As are all EVs, the Volt is green. It has no tailpipe emissions and much less brake-dust particulates (since most braking energy is recuperated back to the batteries), most of the time. Very little noise, either. All there is, is smokestack emissions (that are easier to reduce than what comes out of a car).

If that’s not good enough for you, then pay a premium for your utility’s low-CO2 program. Or go photo: even in dim European sunshine, even at the presently low rate of photovoltaic efficiency, all you need for a Volt-size car is 75 square meters to drive 15,000 yearly KMs.

The Volt’s timing

For the first time in history, there will soon be millions and millions of people in China and in India who will be driving cars. Don’t be surprised if the amount of cars on the world’s roads doubles in the next two decade. Sure, there is plenty of fuel, but do you really expect gasoline prices to stay low when demand doubles? Do you really want to purchase a consumer durable that runs on a fuel that might double in price? That doesn’t sound sensible to me.

Neither does it sound sensible to me to keep on sending billions of gasoline Dollars to Wahhabi nutcases, which allows them to finance Jihads, which cost us billions of Dollars to fight. (I am not mentioning lost lives because I want to keep this discussion cool and level-headed).

The Volt’s execution

I haven’t driven it, but most people who have say it works pretty well. It has an acceptable range, an acceptable price-per-mile if you’re a commuter, and the range extender works in an unobtrusive manner. This ain’t your uncle’s Oldsmobile Diesel.

Drumroll: The Ugly

Sorry to be provocative, but I’d like to address what I call the anti-EV clichés.

Diesel is just as good as electric

No it isn’t. Ever been to a city where most people drive Diesel cars? They are loud and they stink. Ever driven a bicycle behind a Diesel taxi that is accelerating strongly because the light just turned amber? Then you have made acquaintance with the overboost fart, i.e. a soot cloud that somehow hasn’t found its way into emission regulations.

We’ll have hydrogen cars soon

That’s bullshit, too.

The Volt is too expensive

If the cost-per-mile equation doesn’t add up for you, then I agree. (But then don’t go buying that $75,000 BMW, please.) And don’t complain when gas prices double.

Blind people will get run over by quiet cars

You’re kidding me, right?

The Volt gets worse range when you turn on the heater or the air-con

For propulsion, electric power is highly effective, while combustion engines have only 15-20% energy efficiency. For heating purposes, it’s the other way around. If you need a lot of heat, get a Webasto (or similar) heating unit. Let’s not overthink this.

Bob Lutz said the Volt would get 230 MPG, but it doesn’t

And your computer says it has a 160 GB hard disc, but came with only 145 GB usable space. For what it’s worth, the EU certified the Volt (Ampera) for 147 MPG. Next!

The Volt is not sexy. I want a V8

I can appreciate strong acceleration, but anybody who thinks they need a car that tells the world that they have large breasts or big hairy balls is a Sad Person.

GM is a commie company and the Volt is built by UAW assholes

So, the world would be a better place if Detroit had 75% unemployment and GM had been liquidated in the middle of the worst post-war recession? As I said in the beginning, I’m not interested in ideological discussions.

We’re conflicted. So what?

You could say this piece is full of contradictions. What, he likes the Volt in principle (but doesn’t like the company?) He says range-extended EVs are the future (but doesn’t know which type is best)? Sure. We’re talking about a new technological concept that carries hopes and risks. It won’t go away by hating the Volt.

Martin Schwoerer
Martin Schwoerer

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  • William Penney William Penney on Feb 14, 2011

    The car itself sound fine, but the name would be better for a purely electric car and the Volt looks ugly. But since not that many people share my strict car styling tastes the Volt may save GM. I hope GM pulls this off right, it'd be nice to see them do something right for once.

  • JustPassinThru JustPassinThru on Feb 14, 2011

    The Volt is going to be what happens when wishful thinking and government subsidy replace true engineering breakthrough in the consumer-product market. There are a couple of flaws here not noted. First - and I'm not a thermal engineer and don't play on on TTAC - but from what I've read, today's internal-combustion engines have thermal efficiencies that approach 30 percent; not ten-to-fifteen percent. Second - and nobody likes to mention this - all that "green" electricity, is generated mostly with COAL. And again, wishing windmills success won't make them work. If we "decorated" every hillside in the nation with a wind-far, we'd STILL need backup coal-fired plants - wind is unpredictable and it's often at highest demand when wind is becalmed. A coal-fired plant on secondary standby is still producing emissions - a cold startup takes many hours. The thermal efficiency for a coal, or gas, or oil, consuming plant is less than 10 percent. And there are HUGE losses in transmitting current over distances - I don't have the figures handy, but I remember reading that transmitting electric power from Texas to California a few years ago added up to a 90 percent loss. That is, ten percent of the ten percent actually makes it to the outlet. There's other issues, such as the environmental and other costs of using lithium-ion batteries in such large quantities. Is the cost of handling spent batteries going to become an onerous environmental cost-of-ownership? There are WAY too many questions here; and no logical answers forthcoming.

  • Arthur Dailey Good. Whatever upsets the Chinese government is fine with me. And yes they are probably monitoring this thread/site.
  • Jalop1991 WTO--the BBB of the international trade world.
  • Dukeisduke If this is really a supplier issue (Dana-Spicer? American Axle?), Kia should step up and say they're going to repair the vehicles (the electronic parking brake change is a temporary fix) and lean on or sue the supplier to force them to reimburse Kia Motors for the cost of the recall.Neglecting the shaft repairs are just going to make for some expensive repairs for the owners down the road.
  • MaintenanceCosts But we were all told that Joe Biden does whatever China commands him to!
  • Rick T. If we really cared that much about climate change, shouldn't we letting in as many EV's as possible as cheaply as possible?
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