Argonne Study Suggests Chevy Volt Would Get 157 MPG

[JohnWxy]

http://www.gm-volt.com/index.php?s=gallon


Researchers at the Argonne National Lab studied four plug-in hybrid car configurations and determined the fuel economy they would get using real-world driving cycles.

The four configurations studied were a 4 kwh and 8 kwh PHEV and a 12 kwh and 16 kwh EREV.

The researchers modelled the cars’ fuel economy if they were driven over cycles taken from 100 actual Kansas city drivers in 2005, collected by the EPA.

The following results were obtained:

1. Split 4 kWh: 71.9 mpg US

2. Split 8 kWh: 101.4 mpg US

3. Series 12 kWh: 156.8 mpg US

4. Series 16 kWh: 191.2 mpg US

[Deja Q]

1. Not bad, for $40,000...

[nightrain]

2. seriously? is that the price?

[JohnWxy]

3. GM has talked of numbers from $30K to $40K. Still very much an estimate. As volume goes up, the

price will come down. A new technology has a huge up-front investment. This presents greater opportunity for volume to bring price reductions, however.


What's interesting is this is somebody other than GM giving an estimate of mpg for the Volt. and Argonne National Laboratory is likely the most authoritative source for estimates of vehicle efficiency.

[nightrain]

4. great improvement MPG-wise. Ouch on the cost. I'd like to finally

watch that film on the electric cars from a few years ago....

[rollingrock]

6. $32.5k

after the $7.5k tax credit.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. The Story Behind Chevy Volt's $40,000 Price Sticker

http://adage.com/article?article_id=138244

The Story Behind Chevy Volt's $40,000 Price Sticker

GM's Bob Lutz On the Challenge of Bringing New Technology to Mainstream Brand

By Dave Guilford
Published: August 03, 2009

DETROIT (AdAge.com) -- In 2006, Bob Lutz was steaming over Toyota's success with the Prius hybrid.

…

"When I said I hope to sell it in the 20s, I just thought, well, if a conventional car of that size with a conventional four-cylinder engine, we can sell it for $15,000 or $16,000, then let's notionally add $8,000 for the battery and we're at $25,000," Lutz said. "That's the way my brain worked on that one."

The higher cost surprised Volt developers, said the person familiar with the program, causing sharp questions from GM financial executives, especially Chief Financial Officer Ray Young. But the program went forward.

…

The Volt's retail base price will be about $40,000, the person familiar with the program said, because "dealers need a couple thousand reasons to pick up the phone and order one." That means that GM will sell the Volt -- at a loss -- to dealers for somewhere in the mid- to upper $30,000s. Transaction prices, the source said, are projected to average about $43,000.

…

[PavePusher]

5. Maybe I missed it, but...

I didn't see anywhere the fuel cost of generating the electricity for the initial charge. No-one ever seems to take that under consideration. Apparently electricity is free and just magically appears in the car.

Next it'll be pink unicorns for everyone.

Come on. 40 miles on a charge? That's pathetic. If we want truely viable electric vehicles the first thing we need to do is NOT build them to current safety standards. (I.E., take out 60-70% of the body weight.) This will have an entirely different social cost that most people probably won't want to pay.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Re: "Apparently electricity is free and just magically appears in the car."

The scientists at Argonne are not the ignorant simpletons you apparently think they are.

If you're interested in a real study (and not a chewed over report of a report of the Reader's Digest version of the abstract of a study) check this out:
http://www.ipd.anl.gov/anlpubs/2009/03/63740.pdf">Well-to-Wheels Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Analysis of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

…

2 ELECTRICITY GENERATION MIX

A key factor in determining the environmental performance of PHEVs is the source of the electricity used to charge the battery. One goal of this analysis is to gather projections of regional generation mixes for a target year so that we can realistically examine how PHEVs will perform in different markets. The type of power plants varies by region, so it is important to examine these vehicles on a regional basis in order to better understand their effects.

A number of recent studies provided projections of the charging demand of PHEVs and matched the projected demand to the estimates of available generation capacities. These studies varied according to the regional scope and intent. Several nationwide studies produced results for all North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) regions (Figure 1), while other studies were limited to specific regions. The generation mix at the time of charging became increasingly uncertain as the time for large-scale PHEV deployment increased, but the large current inventory of power plants, the availability of limited primary energy options for new plants, and the trends in costs and regulations provided guidance for projecting future plant inventories and their dispatch. By estimating the change in generating plant utilization due to PHEV load, these studies estimated the effect of PHEV deployment on reserve margins, fuel use, emissions, and costs.

2.1 FACTORS AFFECTING GENERATION MIX FOR PHEV CHARGING

The generation mix at the time of charging is a strong function of the time of day, time of year, geographic region, vehicle and charger design, load growth patterns, and the associated generation expansion in the years prior to the charging event of interest.

2.1.1 Time of Day

Figure 2, developed by Shelby and Mui, is an illustration of the diurnal peaks of demand for a hypothetical summer day (Shelby and Mui 2007). Sharp summer peaks are caused by air-conditioning demand, although such peaks typically occur in the late afternoon and early evening. However, demand is at a minimum overnight when businesses are closed, lights are off, and air-conditioning load is at its lowest (Hadley 2006).

…

Please follow the link (if you're actually interested in the analysis.) If you're not interested in the analysis, just assume that our national energy labs have some grasp of the obvious. :eyes:

[excess_3]

9. 2 cents per kwh

here is something from Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/energyprices.html

wholesale, -->peak<-- electricity is currently 39 to 46 bucks
per megawatt hour. note. it can go lots higher than that.

fuel costs, coal 2 cents, closer to one cent for Wyoming coal
nuke, essentially zero.

[TheWraith]

10. Not quite "essentially zero."

The cost is close enough to zero when you're talking price of fuel, but add in maintainence and monitoring, and it's closer to 3.8 cents per KWh.

[wtmusic]

11. Ooh, Argonne endorses the Chevy Volt!

What a joke.

Nowhere in the Argonne paper is the Chevy Volt identified by name, or is the engineering of the Volt, its weight, and its efficiencies taken into consideration. These things might just make a little teensy, weensy difference... :eyes:


I see why Chevy might seize on this to include in their PR - it's about the most promising thing that's come out of their empty-shell-of-a-misplaced-phantom-design-concept-idea in the two years they've been hyping it.

The Chevy Volt will never see the light of day, and the reason can be summed up in one word which occurs exactly one time in the Argonne paper: WEIGHT (the paper assumes only hot conditions, and no grade).

[kristopher]

12. I'm bookmarking that post. nt