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RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
There's certainly a reason to be concerned whether they will demonstrate the same longevity, when GM has increased the usable SoC from 65% to something over 75% (I've seen claims of 76-78%, and my own calcs come out in the same range).
I know of nothing that indicates that increasing the range of cycling from 65% of SOC to 75% or even more has any significant impact on durability, so I will assume you are making this up until you produce some evidence to indicate that there is a *real* concern here. <snip>
Reg, ask yourself "Why did GM limit the Gen 1 Volt's usable SoC to 65%, if they could have either used a smaller battery for the same AER and reduced the price (or made a greater profit), or else increased the AER for the same price?" Using a wider SoC range will increase degradation on any Li-ion battery - the only question is by how much. Maybe GM has determined that the difference between 65% and 76-78% isn't significant for their current batteries, or maybe they figure with the good rep they've established with the gen 1's pack they can afford to accept greater degradation (and more warranty claims) with the 2nd gen. in order to make the (initial) AER look better. That may well be the approach Nissan took with the 30kWh battery; given their track record it wouldn't surprise me. We know that GM is fully capable of penny-pinching for short -term profits even when it negatively affects them (or their customer's safety) long-term, so it's definitely a possibility. We simply don't know.

As for the Clarity, I worry about all PEVs' battery longevity until proven otherwise, unless they have a robust capacity warranty. Certain design features can make adequate longevity more likely, but only large amounts of real-world customer data will provide the necessary proof.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Based on what? There's already been an extended discussion of research, tests done, etc. for various SoCs/temps/chemistries, but unless they are done using the Volt 2's specific chemistry and other pack details in the specific conditions, the results are at best only general. To date we simply lack real-world (not accelerated lab) tests for the necessary period of time for the 2nd gen. Volt. When we get out to 4-5 years, we'll have a better idea.

Based on real world experience with various lithium batteries. Nissan seems to have set the benchmark low with the "Canary" pack for longevity, and they don't seem to have degraded any faster at 80%. The Volt already has a good track record for battery longevity, so there is no reason at all to think that the packs will start to degrade faster under what is still a very reasonable SOC range. Toyota has had great success with a similar charge range in the regular Prius, and NiMH packs are more temperamental than lithium packs over long periods.
The NiMh battery in the HEV Prius is a power not an energy battery, and unlike Li-ion, NiMh requires full cycling to maintain capacity. HEV batteries are designed for very different usage cycles, and shouldn't be compared to PHEV/BEV batteries. Even if they have similar basic chemistry, the details tend to be very different. Here's the abstract of an IEEE paper from 2002, discussing the 1st gen Insight' and Prius' pack management:

Abstract:
This study describes the results from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) chassis dynamometer testing of a 2000 model year Honda Insight and 2001 model year Toyota Prius. The tests were conducted for the purpose of evaluating the battery thermal performance, assessing the impact of air conditioning on fuel economy and emissions, and providing information for NREL's Advanced Vehicle Simulator (ADVISOR). A comparative study of the battery usage and thermal performance of the battery packs used in these two vehicles during chassis dynamometer testing is presented. Specially designed charge and discharge chassis dynamometer test cycles revealed that the Insight limited battery usage to 60% of rated capacity, while the Prius limited battery usage to 40% of the rated capacity. The Prius uses substantially more pack energy over a given driving cycle but at the same time maintains the pack within a tight target state of charge (SOC) of 54% to 56%. The Insight does not appear to force the battery to a specific target SOC. The Prius battery contributes a higher percentage of the power needed for propulsion. The study also found that while both vehicles have adequate battery thermal management system for mild driving conditions, the Prius thermal management is more robust, and the Insight thermal management limits pack performance in certain conditions.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/986408/?reload=true&section=abstract

As knowledge has been gained, they may have been able to use more of the SoC range in subsequent HEV Prius generations, but I don't have anything to hand that shows that. INL's test of the 4.4kWh battery in the 2013 PiP showed that it used a max. of 2.5kW (under charge, 2.9 kWh from the wall, of which 2.6kWh went into the battery), or 57% to 59% SoC range. Note that the PiP's Li-ion battery falls in between a power and energy battery: https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/03/f20/fact2013toyotapriusphev.pdf
 
GRA said:
Reg, ask yourself "Why did GM limit the Gen 1 Volt's usable SoC to 65%, if they could have either used a smaller battery for the same AER and reduced the price (or made a greater profit), or else increased the AER for the same price?"
That's an easy one: They were being conservative. The other part of the answer is that GM used cycling tests to determine the life of their batteries while completely ignoring the effects of calendar losses. At the end of the day, I have to conclude that allowing the battery to discharge to 10% SOC instead of 20% SOC likely results in little to no NET change in capacity loss because while cycling losses may increase, calendar losses should be reduced at the lower SOCs.
GRA said:
As for the Clarity, I worry about all PEVs' battery longevity until proven otherwise, unless they have a robust capacity warranty. Certain design features can make adequate longevity more likely, but only large amounts of real-world customer data will provide the necessary proof.
The Chevy Volt has proven battery durability. The time to worry about that is past. Volt Gen 2 has been out for a couple of years and the batteries are doing great. Compare the Volt's performance with the reports coming in on the 30-kWh LEAF.
 
In an earlier post I wrote:
The NiMh battery in the HEV Prius is a power not an energy battery, and unlike Li-ion, NiMh requires full cycling to maintain capacity.
For some reason while I was writing NiMh I was thinking (sintered plate) NiCd. NiMh has no memory effect (nor does pocket plate NiCd). It would be idiotic of Toyota or Honda to limit the usable SoC range to 40 or 60% if NiMh was subject to memory effect. Apologies for the mis-statement. The rest is correct.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
Reg, ask yourself "Why did GM limit the Gen 1 Volt's usable SoC to 65%, if they could have either used a smaller battery for the same AER and reduced the price (or made a greater profit), or else increased the AER for the same price?"
That's an easy one: They were being conservative. The other part of the answer is that GM used cycling tests to determine the life of their batteries while completely ignoring the effects of calendar losses. At the end of the day, I have to conclude that allowing the battery to discharge to 10% SOC instead of 20% SOC likely results in little to no NET change in capacity loss because while cycling losses may increase, calendar losses should be reduced at the lower SOCs.
GRA said:
As for the Clarity, I worry about all PEVs' battery longevity until proven otherwise, unless they have a robust capacity warranty. Certain design features can make adequate longevity more likely, but only large amounts of real-world customer data will provide the necessary proof.
The Chevy Volt has proven battery durability. The time to worry about that is past. Volt Gen 2 has been out for a couple of years and the batteries are doing great. Compare the Volt's performance with the reports coming in on the 30-kWh LEAF.
Yes, GM was being conservative with the 1st gen Volt , as every company should have been IMO, but that doesn't answer the question of why they felt that was necessary or desirable, if using an extra 13% isn't an issue. The 1st gen Volt has proven to have good battery longevity, although they have certainly degraded. Here's a post from GM-Volt.com describing INL's end of test results on four 2013 Volts:
Idaho National Laboratory's long-term battery pack testing of four 2013 Chevy Volts has reached end-of-test with the results linked in .pdf format above.

At quick glance, seems the worst performer was VIN #3491 which experienced @10% loss of Measured
Average Energy Capacity (kWh) dropping from a baseline of 16.7 kWh down to 15.0 kWh after 137,741 miles while the best performing, VIN #1078, only lost @8% (16.6 kWh baseline down to 15.2 kWh after logging 121,434 miles)

Going by this last measured data point for the worst Volt performer VIN #3491,

At 137,741 miles 16.7 kWh - 15.0 kWh = 1.7 kWh loss / 16.7 kWh = @10% total capacity loss

@10% / 137,741 miles = .0000726 capacity loss per mile

Following this established metric, we could roughly calculate our Volts should experience 25% capacity loss occuring at 25 / .0000726 = @350k miles and would this mean it is possible the battery pack in our Gen1 Volts will only be able to get 50% or half their original range clear out at an amazing @650k miles 50 / .0000726 = 688,705 miles baring no major battery pack failure!?
You can find the whole thread here: http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?253634-GM-deceiving-us-on-Volt-s-battery-degradation-No
but they are only talking about the 1st gen. cars. I've been unable to find a thread looking at 2nd gen. Volt packs with anything like that detail; I suspect they're still too new.

What has not been proved as of yet is how much if any additional degradation may be happening with the 2nd gen batteries, which are being worked harder.
 
GRA said:
At 137,741 miles 16.7 kWh - 15.0 kWh = 1.7 kWh loss / 16.7 kWh = @10% total capacity loss

@10% / 137,741 miles = .0000726 capacity loss per mile

Why per mile, and not per EV mile? Most miles were "charge sustaining", or the gasoline engine was just keeping the battery pack cool while hauling it around.

EV miles = 15,637

https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/phevop2013Volt3491PHEV.pdf

That would be 25% loss at 39k EV miles, not quite so exciting. Probably should include some of the "mixed mode" miles, even though most of the energy for these came from gasoline. And the total of miles isn't at the end of the test, so would need to adjust as well, or ideally get the end of test totals of types of miles. So should adjust for all of that. Knock yourself out.
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
At 137,741 miles 16.7 kWh - 15.0 kWh = 1.7 kWh loss / 16.7 kWh = @10% total capacity loss

@10% / 137,741 miles = .0000726 capacity loss per mile

Why per mile, and not per EV mile? Most miles were "charge sustaining", or the gasoline engine was just keeping the battery pack cool while hauling it around.

EV miles = 15,637

https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/phevop2013Volt3491PHEV.pdf

That would be 25% loss at 39k EV miles, not quite so exciting. Probably should include some of the "mixed mode" miles, even though most of the energy for these came from gasoline. And the total of miles isn't at the end of the test, so would need to adjust as well, or ideally get the end of test totals of types of miles. So should adjust for all of that. Knock yourself out.
No need, just confirms my point.
 
GRA said:
No need, just confirms my point.
This confirms my point: Zero Battery Degradation Replacements Giving Chevy Volts an Edge

That article was written at about the same time as the link you provided. Zero. None. Nada. Simply put, Chevy provided a 150,000 degradation warranty to many of their customers and had NO claims in the first four years on the road.

Again, the Honda Clarity battery system is the one to worry about since Honda is a company with a history of not standing behind their batteries that wear out. Both the original and the new Chevy Volt have stellar battery-degradation records.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
No need, just confirms my point.
This confirms my point: Zero Battery Degradation Replacements Giving Chevy Volts an Edge

That article was written at about the same time as the link you provided. Zero. None. Nada. Simply put, Chevy provided a 150,000 degradation warranty to many of their customers and had NO claims in the first four years on the road.

Again, the Honda Clarity battery system is the one to worry about since Honda is a company with a history of not standing behind their batteries that wear out. Both the original and the new Chevy Volt have stellar battery-degradation records.
Reg, I believe I was the person who posted that story back when it first came out. :D What it tells us is that owing to GM limiting the usable SoC range to ca. 65% along with an active TMS the 1st Gen. Volt's degradation has been relatively good. Of course, the fact that GM had to certify and warranty the Volt's emission control system, which included the battery, for 150k miles to get CARB certification as a TZEV undoubtedly played a part - the 2011 Volt didn't have that certification because GM didn't have time to do it before the car was introduced.

None of this tells us what's going to happen with the 2nd gen. battery, which uses a greater SoC range of 76-78% of total capacity (GM says 14 kWh/18.4kWh, or 76%. See GM's comparison here: https://media.gm.com/content/dam/Media/microsites/product/Volt_2016/doc/VOLT_BATTERY.pdf Some sources have claimed they've seen up to 14.4kWh usable, or 78%), which is known to increase the rate of degradation - else, there would have been no reason for GM to limit the first gen. pack to 65%. As to Honda, as I've already said several times, absent any track record (based on the same tech and large numbers of vehicles), no one should count on longevity beyond the strength of the warranty. There were so few Accord PHEVs sold that we have almost no info about their packs, and the numbers probably aren't statistically significant in any case. One thing I was not aware of until reading the CARB T.A.R. I started a thread about is that Honda used the same cells for the Accord PHEV as they did the Fit EV. Only they and Mitsubishi (with the Outlander/iMiEV) have done this - everyone else uses different cells for BEVs and PHEVs. See pg. 20 here: https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/acc/mtr/appendix_c.pdf
 
GRA said:
None of this tells us what's going to happen with the 2nd gen. battery,...
Nonsense. Volt Gen 2 has been on the road for two years now. If there were a degradation problem, we would have heard about it by now. If you think there is one, just provide the links to the customer complaints.

A company's attitude toward supporting their product is more important than the technology they use. Honda was the first mover in hybrid cars and demonstrated that they would not support their product. As a result, they lost the market to Toyota. If they want to regain market share, they need to prove that their product works. Chevrolet has already done that in spades.

Please don't keep trying to turn reality upside down. As a person who has refused to purchase ANY vehicle with a traction battery for nearly two decades of availability, you come here are and malign the products on the market and proclaim that something in the future will best them. Yet your signature reads "The 'best' is the enemy of 'good enough'". You need to take note of what that actually means.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
None of this tells us what's going to happen with the 2nd gen. battery,...
Nonsense. Volt Gen 2 has been on the road for two years now. If there were a degradation problem, we would have heard about it by now. If you think there is one, just provide the links to the customer complaints.

A company's attitude toward supporting their product is more important than the technology they use.
Actually, both are important, for the customer and the company. For example, Nissan battery design failed the customer owing to both its tech and the company's lack of support. Tesla has had their share of problems with their tech (not the battery), but has had excellent support. GM has done a great job with the tech on the Volt, so customer support hasn't been an issue so far. Given GM's generally poor record in that area over the past three decades or so, that's a good thing.

RegGuheert said:
Honda was the first mover in hybrid cars and demonstrated that they would not support their product. As a result, they lost the market to Toyota. If they want to regain market share, they need to prove that their product works. Chevrolet has already done that in spades.
I agree that the 1st Gen. Volt has held up well, and hope that the 2nd Gen. does as well, but that remains unproven. As it is, probably the most reliable car I've ever owned was the '65 Impala that was passed on to me from my dad (a self-described 'GM man') and which served the family for 23 years and 240k miles before being sold still in good working order, but that doesn't mean that '70s-'80s Impalas (and GM products generally) weren't crap - they were.

RegGuheert said:
Please don't keep trying to turn reality upside down. As a person who has refused to purchase ANY vehicle with a traction battery for nearly two decades of availability, you come here are and malign the products on the market and proclaim that something in the future will best them. Yet your signature reads "The 'best' is the enemy of 'good enough'". You need to take note of what that actually means.
Re my refusing to purchase any PEV (or FCEV) to date, as I've noted many times before, until some manufacturer makes an AFV that meets my requirements at a price I can afford and am willing to pay, with the necessary infrastructure to support it, of course I'm not going to blow tens of thousands of dollars on one. Is that sort of wasteful spending the kind of thing you do?

Where have I ever maligned the Volt's tech (other than its touchscreen HVAC/infotainment controls, which were largely replaced by physical controls in Gen 2)? I've said repeatedly that I thought GM took exactly the right approach when designing the Volt 1's battery pack. My concern is that they are being considerably less conservative with the way they are using the 2nd gen. pack, going for the 'best' instead of the 'good enough'. 'Good enough' with the greater capacity 2nd gen. battery but the same usable SOC range as the 1st gen. would provide 45 miles AER rather than 53.

Maybe they're confident that the new pack (which employs a larger % of NMC to LMO) will hold up as well as the previous pack did despite the less conservative SoC range; I certainly hope it does, as that will provide a cost, weight and volume advantage going forward. After all, the ideal battery would allow use of 100% of its total capacity all the time with no degradation, as is the case with ICEs powered by liquid fossil fuels. But they are taking an approach which is known to result in greater degradation for existing battery tech, so until we have long-term data to compare to the 1st gen batteries, I have reason to worry that they may throw away the excellent reputation advantage they gained with the 1st gen. battery, for short-term profit. That GM (along with most corporations) has done this repeatedly in the past is incontestable.

[Edit] Found AVTL's tests for the 2016 Volt battery:

https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/batteryVolt1377.pdf
https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/batteryVolt4657.pdf
https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/batteryVolt4673.pdf
https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/batteryVolt4913.pdf

There are also tests of the 2015 Accord Hybrid battery out to about 104k miles which show about the same % degradation as the Volts but at about 3 times the range, but as those are HEV batteries they aren't strictly comparable: https://avt.inl.gov/content/pubs-vehicles
 
GRA said:
Maybe they're confident that the new pack (which employs a larger % of NMC to LMO) will hold up as well as the previous pack did despite the less conservative SoC range; I certainly hope it does, as that will provide a cost, weight and volume advantage going forward.
I really don't think GM's goal was to have the new pack "hold up as well as the previous pack did". Rather I think their goal was to perform a cost take-out exercise while providing enhanced capabilities versus the Gen 1 Volt yet still exceeding customer expectations. This can be accomplished even if the new battery degrades slightly faster than the original one did. They certainly have the expertise, the data and the track record to make that trade-off effectively.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
Maybe they're confident that the new pack (which employs a larger % of NMC to LMO) will hold up as well as the previous pack did despite the less conservative SoC range; I certainly hope it does, as that will provide a cost, weight and volume advantage going forward.
I really don't think GM's goal was to have the new pack "hold up as well as the previous pack did". Rather I think their goal was to perform a cost take-out exercise while providing enhanced capabilities versus the Gen 1 Volt yet still exceeding customer expectations. This can be accomplished even if the new battery degrades slightly faster than the original one did. They certainly have the expertise, the data and the track record to make that trade-off effectively.
That's the question - which is more valuable to the consumer, a smaller SoC range which results in smaller usable capacity when new, but the same usable capacity for a longer period of time; or maximizing the initial (EPA) range, while possibly suffering faster degradation and winding up with less capacity over the long haul? The latter is undoubtedly preferable from a sales perspective, which is why Nissan removed the 80% "long-life" setting from the 2013+ LEAF.

I happen to think that most Volt 1 customers have been very pleased that their batteries haven't suffered any degradation (noticeable to them), which means that people can ignore it. LEAF customers, OTOH, have had to deal with rapidly declining range and have been unhappy about it. Last I checked the average time that the initial owner of a new car kept it was up to 79 months, which is about where the earliest Volts are now, so designing the pack to show no owner-noticeable degradation for at least that time seems like a good idea to me with eight, ten or more years even better; average age of the vehicles in the LD fleet is now 11.6 years IIRR. I wonder which approach customers would opt for, if given the choice between the more conservative approach or the extra 8 miles of range when new. Of course, it's possible to arrange charging so that the battery isn't charged to its maximum voltage, but I suspect most customers (who are not denizens of EV forums) are unaware of this, or that there might be a reason to do so. That will certainly be the case going forward as PEVs cross over to the mainstream.
 
I received an automated email today from my local Honda dealer. They expect to have the PHEV on hand by the end of December. I'll definitely be checking it out. The CMax lease is up next summer, but I doubt my wife would part with it. And now that Ford stopped making them, we may just buy out the lease.
 
Via IEVS and GCR, 459 Clarity BEVs were sold/leased in November! Beats me why. Also, 5 PHEVs were apparently delivered, and no FCEVs. We finally have an explanation of why no FCEVs have been leased for the past two months, via GCR:
. . .Natalie Kumaratne, a senior environment and safety specialist for American Honda.

As an aside, no hydrogen-powered Claritys were delivered in November for the second month in a row. "New Clarity Fuel Cell shipments have been delayed pending a software update," Kumaratne said. "This brief delay will not affect our planned production volume, and we're working hard to meet the expectations of customers eagerly awaiting their cars," she continued. "We expect to quickly catch back up with planned deliveries shortly after the update becomes available. . . ."
 
edatoakrun said:
GRA said:
Via IEVS and GCR, 459 Clarity BEVs were sold/leased in November! Beats me why...
If you were a BEV driver, you might understand...
I would understand why I'd pay more for less range than any other 2nd gen BEV? I'm not a current BEV driver, but I've driven them, and I understand what value for money is - the Clarity BEV doesn't have it, especially when compared to the PHEV.
 
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