Chevy Volt
A couple nights ago over a glass of wine and Keith Olbermann, Quadro over at Drunken Manifesto was extolling the virtues of the upcoming Chevy Volt…an ‘electric’ car. Well actually it appears to be a hybrid but it might plug in. Since it is really in the “concept” stage and not scheduled until late 2010 (read 2011 at least) we’ll see what features it really will have. Anyone who follows technology knows what vaporware means. Hell, read the comments in this article for non-journalist reaction to the Chevy Volt. People who comment at Treehugger are much more likely to be attuned to environmental technology than me.
Anyway, this week GM announced a wealth of buyouts (layoffs, cough, cough) and the Daily Kos was there to help us understand it in the context of history.
I, for one, am looking forward to more hybrid vehicles. I’d love to see a hybrid Sienna at some point and our next small car will absolutely be a hybrid, but that isn’t for at least 4-5 more years. But I’m not holding my breath on GM getting into this business anytime soon.
June 2, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Hold on – GM IS ALREADY in the hybrid business, and has been for years now. The following GM cars are currently available with a hybrid powertrain:
Chevy Malibu
Saturn Aura
Chevy Tahoe
Chevy Yukon
Saturn Vue
In fact, it looks like GM is more committed to hybrids than most other car companies, including Honda (who actually removed the hybrid Accord because they didn’t know how to market it effectively), Nissan or Chrysler (who have at best 1 or 2 models). Now, I am not a big fan of GM given their destruction of the EV-1, but the series hybrid is the right way to go, and I disagree with others out there who feel that the average [retarded] consumer will not understand how it works and therefore won’t buy it. Most people know of the term hybrid already, so simply say . . it’s a hybrid. . . .don’t worry about the exact details under the hood . . . but hey, if you drive less than 40 miles/day and plug it in at night, you won’t use ANY gas! If you don’t plug it in, you’ll still get over 45+ MPG and 600+ miles/tank of gas. As long as they don’t market it as an electric car (which will lead most people to believe that they will be stranded if it’s not fully charged), it will do well.
Btw, the Treehugger article is about 18 months old now, which is almost ancient in the hybrid world. Battery technology is advancing rapidly, and high voltage, stable lithium cells will be ready in mass quantities by 2010 (if not sooner, as Toyota is rumored to have them in the 2009 Prius), BUT the question is how expensive will they be? The original promised pricetag of ~30k for the Volt won’t happen unless the government kicks in tax incentives, and THAT is the type of tax incentive we need. Don’t give everyone a frigin check just for being a citizen, which will cost us in the long run and only goes toward paying for elevated fuel and food costs thanks to fucked up policy making. Give people incentives for using less fuel. . .
June 2, 2008 at 12:33 pm
All good points.
Please point me to articles that are more up-to-date on the topic.
Unfortunately I don’t have time right now to comment on all your statements but I am concerned about a few of the cars stated above.
Saturn (both models) state a MPG ~8 miles more than the non-hybrid version. That’s not enough of a savings to make sense economically over the average life of a car.
Tahoe/Yukon – these are obvious choices since they are huge vehicles. Putting a hybrid engine in them likely increased the gas mileage by double digit percentages. But still I doubt they are even close to a reasonable person’s consideration of good gas mileage. It was/is a sop to the CAFE standards, nothing more.
Malibu – I know nothing about this car except my father-in-law drives a non-hybrid one and it is hideous looking. But he really wants another one…maybe I can convince him to go hybrid.
I also agree that people who state the “average” consumer isn’t going to understand a hybrid don’t understand the sticker shock people are getting at the pump. As Slappy said, this article was written 18 months ago when gas was still in the low $2 range. I think the “average” consumer is becoming more and more conversant with the concept of saving gas.
I promise I’ll get together a post talking about and linking to commentary on the available hybrid-style cars. I was disappointed when searching for information on the Chevy Volt about how old the information was. I expect more from the internets and, as such, I guess I should help contribute to that information availability.
June 4, 2008 at 8:03 pm
[...] Chevy Volt – A couple nights ago over a glass of wine and Keith Olbermann, Quadro over at Drunken Manifesto was extolling the virtues of the upcoming Chevy Volt…an ‘electric’ car. Well actually it appears to be a hybrid but it might plug in. … [...]