Who owns or is planning to own a chevrolet volt?

[westwall]

It appears that the VOLT is not even good for the environment....

According to the EPA the 4-seat Volt is capable of driving 35 miles on its 16 kilowatt hours (kWh) of stored electric charge. The Volt’s gas-only fuel economy rating is 37 mpg.

Since two oxygen atoms from the atmosphere combine with each carbon atom when gasoline is burned, a gallon of gas produces about 19.6 lbs. of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. So when operating on gasoline, the Volt produces 0.53 lbs. of CO2 per mile (19.6 lbs. of CO2 per gallon divided by 37 miles per gallon).

Since we can’t quantify accurately just how much transmission loss there is between electricity generation and charging points, we’ll assume an impossible 100 percent efficiency at the charger to work out the CO2 emissions for the Volt’s 16 kWh stored charge.

In 2007, national “average” CO2 emissions were 2.16 lbs per kWh from coal-fired generation and 1.01 lbs per kW for gas-fired generation. according to Power Systems Analysis. Given that 44.46 percent of electricity in the U.S. is coal-fired and 23.31 percent is gas-fired, on a national basis, then, the mean emission of CO2 per kWh is 1.2 lbs/kWh. (2.16 lbs/kWh x 0.4446 = 0.96 lbs/kWh from coal, plus 1.01 lbs/kWh x 0.2331 = 0.24 lbs/kWh from gas).

The Volt’s “emissions mileage” from its stored charge is then 16 kWh x 1.2 lbs/kWh divided by 35 MPG = 0.55 lb CO2/mile.

So on an “average” basis, the Volt emits more CO2 from battery use than from gasoline use (0.55 lbs/mile vs. 0.53 lbs/mile).

Detailing the greenwashed Chevy Volt | JunkScience.com

Only if you live somewhere that gets 44% or more of it's power from coal-fired power plants.

Which is 95% of the world.

 

[westwall]

For a lot of people you are absolutely correct. But for so many others the Volt could be an only car every bit as much as a Toyota Corolla or Ford Focus hatchback. A lot of people have those as an only car. If you drive 50 miles a day on average (over 90% of the US driving population drives 40 miles or less per day) the Volt can work. What differentiates it from Corolla or Focus (at least until the Focus Electric is available) is that you can do most of your driving without burning a drop of gas. My wife has proven that over the past 47 days. 2.7 gallons in 47 days? The problem with that is what?

And for the couple of times a year that we take a road trip we COULD take the Volt if we wanted to, because after the electricity is used up, it gets 40 mpg on the highway. The Focus Electric wouldn't work in that situation. So for around town, the Volt is better than the Focus. On the highway the Volt is better than the Focus Electric. I think that says a lot about the car.

The difference being, of course, you can buy three Focus's for the cost of one Volt. How many decades do you have to drive it to pay back the difference? Oh yeah, longer than the car will be around.

To me that's a rather large problem. Not to mention your electricity comes from a fossil fuel powered plant in most cases. So yes, you do indeed spend less on gas but you make up for it with the electricity you use, the pollution generated in making the car in the first place (significantly more than that F350 you claim to hate) and finally the toxic mess of the battery pack when it wears out in 8 years.

All in all, it's terrible from a financial POV and environmentally it's horrible. But, hey, we always knew it wasn't about saving the planet anyway. Didn't we.

We lease my wife's Volt. It costs @ $100 more than our second choice car. It costs us $40/month in electricity. We've used 2.7 gallons of gas in 47 days and will probably have to fill up for the first time in <gulp> July. So for $140 more per month than our 2nd choice vehicle, we can drive a vehicle that almost never needs gas.

As for the F350....I don't hate them. I do prefer the F-150 or Silverado / Sierra 1500.....I just don't need or want one......And you'd have to prove that it is less polluting than even a basic car the size of a Volt, let alone a Volt. Hint.....I am an automotive engineer and I totally understand the concept of carbon emissions, well-to-wheels "-analysis" and the misconception that all electric car and hybrid batteries will end up in landfills. They won't. No more so than the catalytic converter that is on your F-350 or any other of the millions of cars disposed of since the late 1970's (they have chromium, Plutonium, and palladium in them, you know. All are horrible for the environment).

For starters, batteries in most hybrids and all electric vehicles are designed to NOT deplete all of their storage capacity for reasons too mundane to go into here. What that means is when they are no longer useable in a car, they have unused capacity that is useable as energy storage in power generating plants, windmill farms, and to support stationary generators.

And you get to plug in at friendly restaraunts for free and you get a wonderful taxpayer payed rebate. Your point? As far as the other supposedly useful applications of the worn out battery pack I suggest you look into it a little further......you will be surprised that there is more propaganda than fact behind the claims.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

It appears that the VOLT is not even good for the environment....

Detailing the greenwashed Chevy Volt | JunkScience.com

Only if you live somewhere that gets 44% or more of it's power from coal-fired power plants.

Which is 95% of the world.

No, it's not.

It's not even half of this country.

About 1 in 3 Americans live somewhere where more than 44% of power comes from coal.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

More in fact.

Completely false.

A Chevy volt, in electric mode, gets the equivalent of 93 miles per gallon.

The environmental cost to manufacture the battery pack is worse than the impact to make the pickup truck. Plus the lithium is truly a limited resource (and primarily comes from China). But hey don't let a little thing like facts get in your way.

Even if that was true (it's not), we're not talking about "environmental impact". We're talking about energy efficiency.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

I'll take my F350 over a Chevy Dolt any day.

And I'll take my Chevy Volt over an F350 anyday. See what we just did there? We both exercised freedom of choice. Your choice didn't hurt me.....my choice didn't hurt you. Wasn't that fun?

If the Volt has a marketable niche and floats on its own swimming muscles, more power to your freedom of choice. However, when my freedom of choice is pinched to pay the subsidy on everybody's Volt, then your freedom of choice actually -does- hurt me, albeit minimally. In principle, freedom of choice isn't the only thing being exercised here by a -long- shot.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

From a schadenfreude kinda perspective, it is a little funny that the president's GM experiment involves trying to boost Volt sales while the executive branch's energy policies do everything they can to hinder coal. If we could force everyone to power their Volts with wind and (LOL!) bio-diesel from algae farms, we can make Volts way more environmentally beneficial while at the same time making petrol cars way more economical by comparison =). It's win-win! Smug hippies can break their shoulders patting themselves on the back for being as green as possible while rolling through the Starbucks drive-through, and Fuck-the-Environment-Because-Its-a-Democrat-Ideal partisan wing-nuts can laugh at the silly hippies for being dumb enough to pay such exorbitant fuel prices (not to mention 6 bucks for a latte).

This is either one of the silliest bits of duality out of the Obama administration thus far. . . or straight fuckin -genius-

 

[martinjlm]

It appears that the VOLT is not even good for the environment....

According to the EPA the 4-seat Volt is capable of driving 35 miles on its 16 kilowatt hours (kWh) of stored electric charge. The Volt’s gas-only fuel economy rating is 37 mpg.

Since two oxygen atoms from the atmosphere combine with each carbon atom when gasoline is burned, a gallon of gas produces about 19.6 lbs. of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. So when operating on gasoline, the Volt produces 0.53 lbs. of CO2 per mile (19.6 lbs. of CO2 per gallon divided by 37 miles per gallon).

Since we can’t quantify accurately just how much transmission loss there is between electricity generation and charging points, we’ll assume an impossible 100 percent efficiency at the charger to work out the CO2 emissions for the Volt’s 16 kWh stored charge.

In 2007, national “average” CO2 emissions were 2.16 lbs per kWh from coal-fired generation and 1.01 lbs per kW for gas-fired generation. according to Power Systems Analysis. Given that 44.46 percent of electricity in the U.S. is coal-fired and 23.31 percent is gas-fired, on a national basis, then, the mean emission of CO2 per kWh is 1.2 lbs/kWh. (2.16 lbs/kWh x 0.4446 = 0.96 lbs/kWh from coal, plus 1.01 lbs/kWh x 0.2331 = 0.24 lbs/kWh from gas).

The Volt’s “emissions mileage” from its stored charge is then 16 kWh x 1.2 lbs/kWh divided by 35 MPG = 0.55 lb CO2/mile.

So on an “average” basis, the Volt emits more CO2 from battery use than from gasoline use (0.55 lbs/mile vs. 0.53 lbs/mile).

You are assuming Volt depletes ALL of its battery to drive 35 miles. It does not. It uses 9.6 kWh max. Period. Ever. So substituting the correct number into your equation will get you......

The Volt’s “emissions mileage” from its stored charge is then 9.6 kWh x 1.2 lbs/kWh divided by 35 miles = 0.329 lb CO2/mile.

 

[martinjlm]

More in fact.

Completely false.

A Chevy volt, in electric mode, gets the equivalent of 93 miles per gallon.

The environmental cost to manufacture the battery pack is worse than the impact to make the pickup truck. Plus the lithium is truly a limited resource (and primarily comes from China). But hey don't let a little thing like facts get in your way.

Actually, lithium is quite plentiful, with large reserves found in Venezuela and other South American countries and also in the US. China has far from a controlling interest in lithium. There are other rare earth materials that China has a strong position on, but lithium is not a rare earth metal and China does not control it.

 

[martinjlm]

....................
Not to mention it doesn't save fuel, you have to pay to have its charger installed and all drives must be round trip since there is no place to plug it in.

Now that I have enough posts to link pictures, I can respond to this one. Picture is worth a thousand words.....or maybe at least 640 of them.

This picture is taken on Day 53 of my wife's use of a Volt. She hasn't purchased any gas yet and has only used 2.7 gallons of the 9 gallons that were in it when we took delivery. This amounts to 640 miles for every gallon of gas used so far.

This is accomplished driving on average 33 miles per day. Seems to me that would qualify as "saving gas". If she had a different car that got 33 miles per gallon, she would have needed to buy 53 gallons of gas. At $3.90/gallon, that would've been $207 spent on gas to date. Instead we've spent about $71 on electricity.

 

[percysunshine]

'= 0.329 lb CO2/mile.'

A slow moving tree can eat that in a second.

 

[westwall]

Completely false.

A Chevy volt, in electric mode, gets the equivalent of 93 miles per gallon.

The environmental cost to manufacture the battery pack is worse than the impact to make the pickup truck. Plus the lithium is truly a limited resource (and primarily comes from China). But hey don't let a little thing like facts get in your way.

Actually, lithium is quite plentiful, with large reserves found in Venezuela and other South American countries and also in the US. China has far from a controlling interest in lithium. There are other rare earth materials that China has a strong position on, but lithium is not a rare earth metal and China does not control it.

35 million tons worldwide is not plentiful. It is adequate for the current needs. In fact right now production is lagging demand. The problem arises when lithium is used for all of the different batteries that will be made for the various green techs. And of course as the article makes clear there is much mining involved. Last time I looked that entails environmental damage.


"Ultimately, the disparity between resources and production should yield for some expansion. Unfortunately, though, it's not necessarily that simple. While simple supply and demand would mandate that if there's demand for a resource it will be harvested, lithium harvest is no simple matter. It takes an expenditure of millions of dollars of high tech refining equipment, as well as a suitable transportation network. Until more major parties step up to the plate with such big capital investments, prices for electric vehicles, medication, and portable electronics will likely remain relatively high."


DailyTech - Lithium Deposits Plentiful for EV Boom, But Prices Remain High

 

[Old Rocks]

Lithium is hardly the only material that can be used in batteries. As the battery technology progresses, there will be other more common matterials, such as zinc, that are used. The present zinc-air batteries are high density batteries, if they can be made large enough for EV's, they allready exceed the present lithium batteries. There is a company right here in Portland, Oregon, working on that right now.

ReVolt

 

[westwall]

Lithium is hardly the only material that can be used in batteries. As the battery technology progresses, there will be other more common matterials, such as zinc, that are used. The present zinc-air batteries are high density batteries, if they can be made large enough for EV's, they allready exceed the present lithium batteries. There is a company right here in Portland, Oregon, working on that right now.

ReVolt

Zinc has to be mined too. You're trading one form of environmental damage for another. Can you not see that? That is the fundamental disconnect with all of you. You would rather invest billions and billions into developing something new, that doesn't reduce pollution, instead of making what is allready there, allready becoming less polluting then the tech that is supposed to replace it, and more importantly has allready had the billions and billions invested in developing the infrastructure.

Madness personified.

 

[martinjlm]

Unfortunate that the "argument" keeps shifting. First it was a question of whether the car is a viable product. It is. Then it was a question of whether or not the car saves gas. It does. Then it was a question of how much incremental electric supply cost does it drive. Not much. Then it was "gee, they shut the plant down so they must not be making them anymore". The plant is back up, March was the best sales month since the car launched and April is on track to be better.

Now it's whether or not there's enough lithium in China (oops...China isn't relevant...ok...the world) to sustain production. Two things here.....

ONE: Similar to oil, coal, neodymium, dysprosium, magnesium, palladium, platinum, and every other mined resource that is used in the content and/or manufacturing processes of ALL motor vehicles, the health of the "supply" depends on whether you are aligned with the buyers, producers, or consumers of the commodity and how hard it is to acquire the next level of supply.

TWO: There is lots of lithium in ocean beds. Just like there's oil off shore. At what point is it worth pursuing? Thing is, lithium is used in much smaller amounts per vehicle than oil and because it is not consumed in the combustion process it doesn't need to be replenished every several days in millions of vehicles.

 

[Old Rocks]

Lithium is hardly the only material that can be used in batteries. As the battery technology progresses, there will be other more common matterials, such as zinc, that are used. The present zinc-air batteries are high density batteries, if they can be made large enough for EV's, they allready exceed the present lithium batteries. There is a company right here in Portland, Oregon, working on that right now.

ReVolt

Zinc has to be mined too. You're trading one form of environmental damage for another. Can you not see that? That is the fundamental disconnect with all of you. You would rather invest billions and billions into developing something new, that doesn't reduce pollution, instead of making what is allready there, allready becoming less polluting then the tech that is supposed to replace it, and more importantly has allready had the billions and billions invested in developing the infrastructure.

Madness personified.

The old idiot once again posts nonsense. Zinc or Lithium in a battery is recyclable. It is not destroyed, it does not pollute from it's use. Oil, once burned, is gone. And it pollutes in the burning. And we mine to get the materials for our present vehicles. So, Walleyes is simply stating that mining is good if the vehicle is a polluting ICE, but bad if the vehicle is a non-polluting EV. Interesting logic.

 

[Old Rocks]

Unfortunate that the "argument" keeps shifting. First it was a question of whether the car is a viable product. It is. Then it was a question of whether or not the car saves gas. It does. Then it was a question of how much incremental electric supply cost does it drive. Not much. Then it was "gee, they shut the plant down so they must not be making them anymore". The plant is back up, March was the best sales month since the car launched and April is on track to be better.

Now it's whether or not there's enough lithium in China (oops...China isn't relevant...ok...the world) to sustain production. Two things here.....

ONE: Similar to oil, coal, neodymium, dysprosium, magnesium, palladium, platinum, and every other mined resource that is used in the content and/or manufacturing processes of ALL motor vehicles, the health of the "supply" depends on whether you are aligned with the buyers, producers, or consumers of the commodity and how hard it is to acquire the next level of supply.

TWO: There is lots of lithium in ocean beds. Just like there's oil off shore. At what point is it worth pursuing? Thing is, lithium is used in much smaller amounts per vehicle than oil and because it is not consumed in the combustion process it doesn't need to be replenished every several days in millions of vehicles.

Interesting point, how much lithium is in the seawater itself?

 

[whitehall]

Personally I don't trust the technology at this point in time but the radical left has turned it into a political issue. They aren't content to whine about the previous administration but now they blame right wing politics for ruining their rides on the beautiful little hummer that can get you to the grocery store about as fast as a riding mower and you only have to plug it in every thirty miles.

 

[westwall]

Unfortunate that the "argument" keeps shifting. First it was a question of whether the car is a viable product. It is. Then it was a question of whether or not the car saves gas. It does. Then it was a question of how much incremental electric supply cost does it drive. Not much. Then it was "gee, they shut the plant down so they must not be making them anymore". The plant is back up, March was the best sales month since the car launched and April is on track to be better.

Now it's whether or not there's enough lithium in China (oops...China isn't relevant...ok...the world) to sustain production. Two things here.....

ONE: Similar to oil, coal, neodymium, dysprosium, magnesium, palladium, platinum, and every other mined resource that is used in the content and/or manufacturing processes of ALL motor vehicles, the health of the "supply" depends on whether you are aligned with the buyers, producers, or consumers of the commodity and how hard it is to acquire the next level of supply.

TWO: There is lots of lithium in ocean beds. Just like there's oil off shore. At what point is it worth pursuing? Thing is, lithium is used in much smaller amounts per vehicle than oil and because it is not consumed in the combustion process it doesn't need to be replenished every several days in millions of vehicles.

If what you are saying is true why aren't the cars flying off the lots? If what you are saying is true, the public would be buying them faster than they could be made.

 

[martinjlm]

Unfortunate that the "argument" keeps shifting. First it was a question of whether the car is a viable product. It is. Then it was a question of whether or not the car saves gas. It does. Then it was a question of how much incremental electric supply cost does it drive. Not much. Then it was "gee, they shut the plant down so they must not be making them anymore". The plant is back up, March was the best sales month since the car launched and April is on track to be better.

Now it's whether or not there's enough lithium in China (oops...China isn't relevant...ok...the world) to sustain production. Two things here.....

ONE: Similar to oil, coal, neodymium, dysprosium, magnesium, palladium, platinum, and every other mined resource that is used in the content and/or manufacturing processes of ALL motor vehicles, the health of the "supply" depends on whether you are aligned with the buyers, producers, or consumers of the commodity and how hard it is to acquire the next level of supply.

TWO: There is lots of lithium in ocean beds. Just like there's oil off shore. At what point is it worth pursuing? Thing is, lithium is used in much smaller amounts per vehicle than oil and because it is not consumed in the combustion process it doesn't need to be replenished every several days in millions of vehicles.

If what you are saying is true why aren't the cars flying off the lots? If what you are saying is true, the public would be buying them faster than they could be made.

I'll assume that by "the cars" you mean the Chevrolet Volt. They are selling at pretty much the expected rate. The plant was originally intended to produce about 30-35,000 per year. The number was increased to around 60,000 to account for additional sales of the Opel Ampera in Europe. BTW....Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera were recently named 2012 European Car of the Year. First time ever for an American car. http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/03/volt-ampera-europe-car-year/ But I digress...back to your question...

Since the plant was temporarily idled then restarted, Volts have been selling very well. About 2,400 sold in March. April is not over yet, but it is expected to do even better in April. In March, only the Prius outsold the Volt in the category of hybrid and/or electric vehicles. In other words, Volt outsold Civic Hybrid, Fusion Hybrid, Sonata Hybrid, Escape Hybrid, Nissan Leaf (which also gets a $7,500 tax credit....why no conversation on that?). Volt has a sticker price higher than all of these vehicles, yet it outsold all of them and appears to be gaining momentum.

That answer your question?

 

[martinjlm]

Unfortunate that the "argument" keeps shifting. First it was a question of whether the car is a viable product. It is. Then it was a question of whether or not the car saves gas. It does. Then it was a question of how much incremental electric supply cost does it drive. Not much. Then it was "gee, they shut the plant down so they must not be making them anymore". The plant is back up, March was the best sales month since the car launched and April is on track to be better.

Now it's whether or not there's enough lithium in China (oops...China isn't relevant...ok...the world) to sustain production. Two things here.....

ONE: Similar to oil, coal, neodymium, dysprosium, magnesium, palladium, platinum, and every other mined resource that is used in the content and/or manufacturing processes of ALL motor vehicles, the health of the "supply" depends on whether you are aligned with the buyers, producers, or consumers of the commodity and how hard it is to acquire the next level of supply.

TWO: There is lots of lithium in ocean beds. Just like there's oil off shore. At what point is it worth pursuing? Thing is, lithium is used in much smaller amounts per vehicle than oil and because it is not consumed in the combustion process it doesn't need to be replenished every several days in millions of vehicles.

Interesting point, how much lithium is in the seawater itself?

I don't think it is in the seawater. I think it is in the mineral deposits in the ocean floor. Could be wrong on this. It was info I came across a while ago while looking for something else.