What gm-volt guys think of MNL ...

[Pipcecil]

I actually see a difference between a PIP (a PHEV) and the Volt (EREV). Even if you remove the stupid "it kicks into gas here..." scenario there is a big difference when:

Both run on battery at first (usually...again, I am making it simple)
When the battery is depleted both USE gas (again, simple).

BUTTTTTT.....when the gas kicks in, the PHEV (PIP) runs like a hybrid - gas engine with electric assist, the Volt runs like an EV still. That is a big difference, the Volt would give you that "electric experience" the entire time (I know the generator makes some sound, etc. but I am keeping it simple!). The PIP will never get that electric feeling past the battery. While some of the public may not care (I just want it to go!), for some, it makes a difference. And I think GM is right to point out that difference.

 

[davewill]

... BUTTTTTT.....when the gas kicks in, the PHEV (PIP) runs like a hybrid - gas engine with electric assist, the Volt runs like an EV still. That is a big difference, the Volt would give you that "electric experience" the entire time (I know the generator makes some sound, etc. but I am keeping it simple!). The PIP will never get that electric feeling past the battery. While some of the public may not care (I just want it to go!), for some, it makes a difference. And I think GM is right to point out that difference.

So, even if a future PIP runs electric for 80 miles, using absolutely zero gas until then, it isn't an EREV since it's not a serial hybrid? Riiiiight.

 

[scottf200]

BUTTTTTT.....when the gas kicks in, the PHEV (PIP) runs like a hybrid - gas engine with electric assist, the Volt runs like an EV still. That is a big difference, the Volt would give you that "electric experience" the entire time (I know the generator makes some sound, etc. but I am keeping it simple!). The PIP will never get that electric feeling past the battery. While some of the public may not care (I just want it to go!), for some, it makes a difference. And I think GM is right to point out that difference.

Excellent point about the "electric experience"!! That was a *design* goal. You get the dynamic quick response feel of an electric motor responding to your foot pressing the accelerator.

Hard for me to honestly believe that any *EV owner does not know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. The "feeling" of driving that way is different.

I actually think the electric dynamic feel of all these electric vehicles is a major plus to converting many of the masses. It is a sporty "responsive" feel and makes you connect to the car. Tell me you EV drivers do NOT know what I'm talking about?!?!?!?

P.S. The Plug-In-Prius changes to ICE at 62 MPH ... that is under 65 which I think is significant for common drivers and highway speeds. Therefore you'll use more gas in a PIP. Again if you have battery power in a Volt, then you can go the max 100 MPH until the battery is depleted.

 

[TomT]

I disagree. I've driven both and, to me, there is no practical difference.

I actually see a difference between a PIP (a PHEV) and the Volt (EREV). Even if you remove the stupid "it kicks into gas here..." scenario there is a big difference

 

[SanDust]

I disagree. I've driven both and, to me, there is no practical difference.

I agree. There is no practical difference between a Corolla and a BMW. And no one should think there is.

 

[TRONZ]

In fact, within their respective electric ranges, it is very difficult to think of anything the LEAF can do that the Volt can't also do without using gas.

... deal with it, TRONZ

Ray

Well Ray, its pretty much impossible to argue with this "logic". Question; what if GM came up with a different marketing statistic number on EV range, like 30, 10 or even 1 mile?!? You would still be able to say the Volt does everything a LEAF does "within their respective electric ranges". But you got me, this "logic" would require almost no EV range and could still be marketed as "The Electric that Goes Farther".

Hint - This is the stupid "logic" that I have trouble dealing with.

 

[TomT]

In the drive trains and the way they operate and feel from the perspective of the driver, there is little difference between a Prius and a Volt... I'll take the Bimmer any day, however, over the Corolla!

I disagree. I've driven both and, to me, there is no practical difference.

I agree. There is no practical difference between a Corolla and a BMW. And no one should think there is.

 

[Herm]

It's been my experience that GM employees get visibly irritated when you call the Volt a hybrid. :lol:

It bothers me too, it is very clear the Volt is a dual mode vehicle.. its a pure BEV until the battery runs down and then switches modes and becomes a hybrid. If you leave the tank permanently empty the Volt will still work perfectly fine. Calling the Volt a hybrid can be attributed to ignorance or just a desire to jab GM.. Nothing wrong with either of those reasons.

What point is there to saying the LEAF and PIP are the same, so long as you stay within limits the LEAF doesn't have? To my way of thinking that makes the LEAF better at avoiding gasoline use.

Its like saying a Ford F150 is a better vehicle than a Leaf because you can easily fetch a sheet of plywood from the local Home Depot.. it happens to be true statement but totally subjective. Within its limits a Leaf=Volt=PIP, yes I decided the limits were 12 miles of range and turtle like acceleration.

 

[Smidge204]

If you leave the tank permanently empty the Volt will still work perfectly fine.

I'd love for someone to actually try this. Empty the tank and glue the fill cap door shut. I dare ya.

It's got two or more power sources. It's a hybrid, even if one of those sources is never used. Calling it anything else is pure marketing.

...it is very difficult to think of anything the LEAF can do that the Volt can't also do...

Carry five people.

(Wasn't that hard... )
=Smidge=

 

[evnow]

I think no one has a problem with the Volt as long as the public knows they are getting a Plug-In Hybrid instead of a BEV.

I have a problem with your statement, TRONZ. There is a middle ground, and the Volt does occupy it.

There are 2 ways to power a car - gas/diesel & electric.

The middle ground is called a hybrid - which uses gas or electric or both depending on various circumstances. Among hybrids, we have plug-in hybrids. Among plug-in hybrids we have serial, parallel and some kind of serial/parallel. Prius, Volt, PIP - all these fall in one of these categories.

This isn't something I made up now. This is the official, standard taxonomy.

 

[evnow]

Walter, if your daily commute is 12 miles, what difference is there between a Leaf and a PIP?

Because we do driving other than commute. My commute is actually (most days) below 12 miles (just about). But I do lot more driving during weekends, evenings etc. Infact that was the reason I bought Leaf over Volt. I figured I can cover a lot more trips in electric in Leaf compared to Volt - and ofcource PIP would cover lesser trips in electric than even Volt.

 

[Herm]

There are 2 ways to power a car - gas/diesel & electric.

CNG, H2 combustion, H2 fuel cells, propane and finally an external combustion engine.

 

[evnow]

There are 2 ways to power a car - gas/diesel & electric.

CNG, H2 combustion, H2 fuel cells, propane and finally an external combustion engine.

Yes - all that other stuff - including pushing. I'm only speaking in the present context.

 

[SanDust]

There are 2 ways to power a car - gas/diesel & electric.

This would be true but I suspect you're not thinking about it in a very logical way. You start from the position that electricity only comes from a battery, in which case what you're really saying is that there are only 2 ways to power a car -- gas/diesel or batteries.

But if by "power" you mean in the technically correct sense, then your statement as written is true, with the caveats that Herm has raised, but it directly contradicts your conclusion. If you want to make a distinction between electricity on the one hand and gas/diesel on the other, then the issue quite simply becomes whether the wheels of a vehicle are turned by an electric motor or by a combustion engine. In this case the Leaf is an electric vehicle because the wheels are always turned by a traction motor. The Volt is likewise an electric vehicle because its wheels are always turned by one or two electric motors. And the FX Clarity is also an electric vehicle because, again, its wheels are always driven by a traction motor. The Prius is a sometimes electric vehicle because sometimes the wheels are driven by a motor and sometimes the wheels are driven by a combustion engine.

This rarely presents a problem because the common references are to a "battery electric vehicle", an "extended range electric vehicle", a "fuel cell electric vehicle", and a "parallel hybrid". If you want to go all Council of Chalcedon on us and argue there can be only one true electric vehicle, you're entitled to your opinion, but since you'd be trying to imbue a technology with a theology most people probably can't be bothered one way or the other. On the other hand, if it floats your boat go for it.

 

[Rusty]

If you want to make a distinction between electricity on the one hand and gas/diesel on the other, then the issue quite simply becomes whether the wheels of a vehicle are turned by an electric motor or by a combustion engine. In this case the Leaf is an electric vehicle because the wheels are always turned by a traction motor. The Volt is likewise an electric vehicle because its wheels are always turned by one or two electric motors. And the FX Clarity is also an electric vehicle because, again, its wheels are always driven by a traction motor. The Prius is a sometimes electric vehicle because sometimes the wheels are driven by a motor and sometimes the wheels are driven by a combustion engine.

Before any other semantic discussions of what makes an electric vehicle, I think we can all agree that (at least some times) the Volt is a parallel hybrid where some of the power to turn the wheels comes from the ICE (the "above 70 MPH CS mode" thing, though in practice it's a lot more complicated than that). And for my posting here let's park the "if it's not always a 100% electric vehicle then it can't ever be called an electric vehicle" camp. We can pick it back up later.

But the "What turns the wheels defines an electric vehicle" position quickly gets sticky too, just by itself. I believe we can (almost) all agree that what powers a diesel/electric train locomotive is diesel. No fuel, no go, no matter what you do. If you take the position that "if the only thing turning the wheels is a motor, it's electric", then you have to call a locomotive an EV. And, not to compare a Karma to a train engine, likewise and all serial production plants, plug-in or not (including FCs and some recent US warships). I don't think I can go there.

If you take the position that an EV is something that can be 100% powered by battery during regular driving (note: EV, not BEV) then the is Leaf one and Volt might be considered one, the PiP not (unless you either never drive it on the freeway or expect to cause a lot of traffic jams), and it gets squishy with the Karma (which would be just like the Volt, if you can possibly find it within yourself to tolerate limiting it to only using less than 200HP).

I'd be happy to say, until we get a bigger sampling of engineering solutions, that it's safe to say the only thing that powers a BEV is a plug-in battery, the only thing that powers a HEV is (currently) gas/diesel, and the state of current implementations is just to sparse to figure out that squishy part in the middle that is PHEVs/Serial Hybrids. What I suspect will happen as additional solution sets come available is that portion of the market will split into better definable terms. For better or worse, I think this is what GM/Fisker tried to do with the EREV/EVER terms. Going back and re-reading Toyota's press releases, I see they announced the PiP as the Prius Plug-in and don't mention EV until they talk about their extended EV mode in the literature (and since Hybrid usually means Hybrid Electric Vehicle I suppose that would be Prius Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle, though PPiHEV might be difficult to pronounce :- ).

The short of it is I think, regardless of how much we care to argue these points in the (probably rather large) pot of building tea we've created in the forums space, it'll probably all sort itself out in the end. And they'll be curmudgeons on all sides in 50 years saying "well sonny, back in my day we call those... ummm... honey, can you get me some prunes?"

 

[LEAFfan]

And I routinely get 100 miles from an 80% charge with my LEAF, not even close to 70. That's for highway speeds around 70mph! I never even went that fast when I had my Honda GX. At 60mph on the freeway, I could easily go over 80 miles in my LEAF!

Just trying to clarify your assertion:
You can drive 100 miles, from an 80% charge, at 70mph ?
And 80 miles, from 80% charge, at 60mph ?

I probably could have made that clearer, but if you read it slowly, the meaning is there. When I said "That's for highway speeds around 70mph!", that's in response to Scott when he said the range of the LEAF is only 70 miles. So I was telling him that one could get 70 miles at 70mph on the freeway. If I used the freeway, I would drive 60mph (in the right lane/light traffic) and would be able to get over 80 miles on a 100% charge. To clarify further, I can easily go 100 miles or more on an 80% charge driving the city streets. I could go close to 140 miles on a 100% charge which I stopped using because there is no proof that only 100% charging balances the cells. I've been using QCs to 80% and those have been balancing my cells much better!

 

[LEAFfan]

I think the point is that yes, the Volt and Leaf are different. So why are some like Scotty calling them both BEV's (just like GM wants to)?
It's not hard to see why GM would like people to "believe" the Volt is an Electric car that goes hundreds of miles on a charge. That would be amazing... if it were true. But this deliberate and repeated mis-informing of the public is very dangerous to the development of real BEV's that really do go hundreds of miles on electric power. I think no one has a problem with the Volt as long as the public knows they are getting a Plug-In Hybrid instead of a BEV. These are VERY different technologies and lead in VERY different directions. When you vote with your wallet to buy and support a manufacturer you are also supporting the direction they have chosen. There is nothing wrong with this but delaying the burning of a gallon of gas each day does not make a car a BEV. Calling it the same technology is irresponsible, dishonest and devisive.

+1 Scott said you could remove the gasoline and run it just on electricity. That's an unbelievable statement. I found two separate articles (and posted what the first one said earlier) and here is the second one I found: "However of particular interest, when going above 70 mph in charge sustaining mode, and the generator gets coupled to the drivetrain, the gas engine participates in the motive force." THAT is from Motor Trend. The other two times the ICE will drive the wheels is in 'mountain mode' and jack rabbit starts. Here's another quote from the Motor Trend Article: "But what will GM's marketing arm, that's been so preoccupied with saying the Volt is an ER-EV that's totally different from all other cars out there, do now that we know the Volt is pretty much a plug-in Prius with a bigger battery pack? For what it's worth, some of the first real-world Volt tests are showing around 33 miles in EV-only mode, compared to the plug-in Prius' 13 or so."

 

[LEAFfan]

I think no one has a problem with the Volt as long as the public knows they are getting a Plug-In Hybrid instead of a BEV.

So far as I know, the following statements are true, ignoring all-electric range limits, but I'm sure someone will correct me if they are not:

• A PIP cannot go 70 mph on a freeway without using gas.
• If a PIP is stuck behind a truck on a two-lane road, and the driver puts his foot to the floor to get around it, it will use gas.
• If you climb a steep hill at 60 mph in a PIP, you will use gas.
• You can do all these things in a Volt without using gas.
• And of course you can do all of them in a LEAF without using gas.

Would I call a Volt a BEV? No, I wouldn't, but it's not an PHEV, either. It's an EREV.
Ray

Ray, I would like to know where you read this and or who told you because all of the articles I've read refute every one of your claims. Motor Trend said it is like a PIP, just with a larger battery pack and I agree with Motor Trend who has much more knowledge about it than you or me. The ICE WILL drive the wheels in at least 3 different situations. Remember, before it was even sold, GM lied and said the ICE would ONLY charge the batteries and would NOT drive the wheels.

 

[LEAFfan]

If you leave the tank permanently empty the Volt will still work perfectly fine.

I'd love for someone to actually try this. Empty the tank and glue the fill cap door shut. I dare ya.
It's got two or more power sources. It's a hybrid, even if one of those sources is never used. Calling it anything else is pure marketing.

...it is very difficult to think of anything the LEAF can do that the Volt can't also do...

Carry five people.
(Wasn't that hard... )
=Smidge=

+1! If you remove the gasoline, I guarantee that you will be sitting along side the road even BEFORE the juice is used up or may not even be able to leave your house if it is really cold that day.

 

[planet4ever]

OK, I think I see where the problem is, LEAFfan. I wrote something that wasn't very clear. I meant it one way, you read it another. I tried to carefully qualify my statements by saying "ignoring all-electric range limits". What I meant by that is that all EVs have a range limit on how far they can go in all-electric mode. For a BEV, its all-electric range is its range, but that value is not what determines whether it is an BEV. For vehicles which are not battery-only, but can be powered by electricity, they may also have an all-electric range, which will usually be less, but again, the value of the range should not be a determinant of what type of a vehicle it is. What I was trying to say, but didn't say very well, was, "let's look at vehicles running in all-electric mode, and ignore what their range is in that mode."

Now do my points make sense?

As to your criticism of Scott's statement, if you remove the gasoline you will never be in charge-sustaining mode. In charge depleting mode, i.e. EV mode, a Volt can go 100 miles an hour without needing the gas engine. A plug-in Prius can't do that, even if the battery is completely charged. Now, I don't really care about 100 mph. My LEAF can't do that, either. The point is that the gas engine is needed for the PIP to reach, or even come close to, its rated power. It is not needed for a Volt to reach its rated power, and using the engine does not result in having more power than using the electricity alone. No, a Volt is not just a PIP with a bigger battery. It's an EV, with a range extender (a.k.a. an ICE). That's what EREV stands for. The ICE is not there to add power; it's there to add range.

Now, if you want to talk about electrical CVTs vs. mechanical CVTs (yes, the Prius and Volt both have electrical) or serial vs. parallel power sources (yes, the Prius is mostly, but not entirely, parallel, and the Volt is mostly, but not entirely, serial) then that is fine, but I consider those engineering details that don't determine what type of a vehicle it is.

Ray