Fox Tests Volt, Runs Out Of Juice In Lincoln Tunnel

by Bertel Schmitt

Published: February 6th, 2012

GM noted that Fox has issues with the Volt. They give Eric Bolling a Chevy Volt for a week. And this is what GM receives in return. Ingrates.

#BertelSchmitt #Chevrolet #Fox #Volt

Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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6 of 302 comments

Danwat1234 on Mar 04, 2012

You talked about being scared about being electrocuted one time when you wanted to plug the car in while it was raining. The J1772 recharging port is water proof. There is technology in place that makes getting electrocuted impossible. Power won't flow until the computer in the car sees a complete electrical connection, then and only then will it start to flow power. I suppose it might be possible to be electrocuted, but you'd have to get a hammer and a flat head screw driver and try to pierce the insulation of the wire...

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Black83zee on Mar 04, 2012

People on here still don't get it! The Volt is an electric car! The gas motor in it is just for the generator to recharge the batteries! It does not run in the gas motor at all! The gas motor is NOT connected to the drive at all!

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- Danwat1234 on Mar 06, 2012
  
  @black83zee, Actually there is 1 and only 1 condition where the engine will actually power the wheels directly and not act as just a generator. This is when the battery is depleted to it's low level (30% if I remember right), and you are driving on the highway. The computer may calculate that it would be more efficient to directly power the wheels via the engine, rather than have the engine run the generator, and then run power out of the battery into the voltage regulators, and then from the voltage regulators to the electric motors, to the wheels. But other than that, like if the battery has any range left, yea, totally 100% electric drivetrain.
  
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- Baby Koop on Mar 06, 2012
  
  @danwat1234 Both black83zee and danwat1234 are close but not quite right in their assessments. I bought my Volt almost exactly one year ago (March 19th, 2011). At that time they were giving away a book written about the Volt and a flip camera that had the Volt insignia on it. Anyway, in the book they mention that there are 7 or 8 (I forget off the top of my head) unique situations where the engineers at GM knew it was more efficient for the gas engine to provide some direct torque to the wheels. This caused a big stink because some EV enthusiasts thought that even 1 time was dishonoring the promise of the Volt. I personally think it would have been stupid to satisfy these people and to purposefully design a less efficient system that needlessly burned more gas than need be. Regardless, if anybody is really curious about how many instances (7 or 8) and what they are I could perhaps dig that information up from the book. IIRC, the book didn't list all 7 or 8 instances but I think the people over at gm-volt.com made a comprehensive list and it is up on that website.
  
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Joeaverage on Mar 05, 2012

http://news.yahoo.com/gm-suspend-production-chevrolet-volt-212519638.html

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RogerT135 on Jul 17, 2012

I own a Volt. I have a 112 mile daily commute. I plug in at home and while I’m at work. I get 45 miles out of a battery charge. No I don’t drive aggressively, and I moderately use the AC/Heat. But, at the end of the day I went from using 4 gallons of gas a day, on the same commute, to half a gallon of gas. But, somehow I should be convinced that the Volt does not perform as promised. That is a flat out lie. Maybe I’d buy in to all this crap about the heater not working, less than promised range etc. if I didn’t already own a Volt, and didn’t already know different. But, that’s the goal right? Influence the people that don’t know any better about how the car actually performs... P.S. Eric Bolling, nice try, but you’re a moron!!

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