Is the Chevy Volt really a good car for America or is it just another piece of GM junk?
Although I really like the idea of a electric vehicle, and feel that they can make a huge dent in the the amount of oil America is currently using, not to mention greenhouse gases, but I do not like the psuedo-electric-car presented to the American public by General Motors. I think we deserve better and should expect better from a company that we just bailed out of their bankruptcy with our taxpayer dollars. I think it is another piece of GM garbage like many other junk vehicles they have produced over the years. Chevy Vega, Chevy Chevette, Chevy Metro/Geo to name a few.
My first thoughts about the Volt is that is was slightly larger than an old 1970's Chevy Vega I used to ride around in, and in actuality it does not get much better gas mileage than the Vega. Volt claims 95mpg but in actuality it only gets about 40 mpg, and that is using premium gas. It goes 36 miles on a battery charge, then the 1.4L gas engine takes over to charge the batteries for the rest of the 407 mile cruising range. At today's prices in Atlanta, $4.04 9/10 for premium it costs $37.65 to fill up versus $34.87 for regular gas at $3.74 9/10. But, you still gotta put gas in your Electric Car.
The Volt 1.4L engine is an inline four cylinder designed to drive a generator that produces the electricity to the batteries and keep the car moving along. My question is why such a large motor, was it because GM had a stockpile of 1.4L engines left over from the old Chevy Chevettes or maybe the GEO Metros.
Back in the 70's Datsun was producing the B210 that could easily get 32 mpg on the highway using a 1.4L engine without the complexity of Chevy Volt. It has been almost 40 years since then, and Chevy has only increased MPG by 8 mpg over the old B210. As far as power generation goes, they could have used a 400 - 650cc motorcycle engine or something like that to produce enough energy to spin the generator enough to keep the car going and at last look a 400CC motorbike gets almost 85mpg.
Personally, I think 36 miles on a huge lithium Ion battery is beyond ridiculous and then using a 1.4L engine to charge the battery is even crazier. When you consider the small startup car manufacturer, Tesla Motors builds a car that will go 244 miles on a single charge and has a smaller Lithium-ion battery pack than the Volt, it makes you wonder what GM is doing with all of their bailout billions they needed. They are sure getting their butt kicked by a small American company that wanted to design a "real electric car".
As far as this consumer is concerned, the Chevy Volt is a joke and without major modifications, it will get left behind by the real car companies, that are designing real electric cars. Don't waste your $35,000. on a Volt.
|
