-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Pure BEV Dogma
- Thread starter bonnie
- Start date
Drucifer
Active Member
I can't believe I am agreeing with JRP3 on something, but it is a really good point that GM is being much more clear about how the Volt works in Gen. 2 than it was with the original Gen. 1 version.
This is how GM was positioning the Volt to journalists literally from day one when it was introduced as a concept car in Detroit in 2007:
GM Media Online
Obviously some things changed between the concept and the finished production car in December 2010 such as adding a power-split mode, switching from a 3 cylinder 1.0L turbo to a 4 cylinder 1.4L non-turbo engine and redesigning the body for better aerodynamics and manufacturability.
GM Media Online
Obviously some things changed between the concept and the finished production car in December 2010 such as adding a power-split mode, switching from a 3 cylinder 1.0L turbo to a 4 cylinder 1.4L non-turbo engine and redesigning the body for better aerodynamics and manufacturability.
Last edited:
There are still people who think that hybrid = crap to drive. At the time of development it was even worse. Plus, the Volt Gen 1's gas mileage is really very unspecial. So they wanted to marketect the H word away.
They did actually have one commercial that showed a Volt owner at a gas station with other confused customers thinking that it didn't take gas. OK, it showed some attempt at humor, maybe intending it to be one of those commercials where people are made to feel smart for getting the message, but I don't think it helped. Or maybe it's just that they didn't show it much.
The Volt's a PEV+H rather than an HEV+P, and GM had good reason to emphasize EV first, but they failed miserably at it. They wanted to sell to the 96.5%, but ended up with the 3.5% being the biggest conquest group anyway, because the 3.5% were the ones who could easily get the concept. Marketing only ever emphasized "go to the gas station less", they didn't actually try to explain the EREV/EV-first concept outside of the initial launch, and despite supposedly wanting to sell to people who quite likely had never even been in an HEV, they never actually tried to sell the electric driving experience, which is actually the key strength of the Volt.
Last edited:
If I owned a "pure EV" vehicle with 250 mi range at 75-80mph in the mountains (SoCal to Vegas), I'd still have to burn gasoline and need more than one vehicle.
So if I own an EV and burn gasoline/diesel, am I "pure"? Or does the Extended Range option just take up more space in the driveway?
Pure EV folk will not have full sized pickups or full sized vans/SUVs in the near future unless they go with a dual mode version.
While a Dual Mode crew cab pickup could serve 100% of your driving needs, and run mostly Electric Miles, it can't be a BEV today with the battery weight required for heavy loading.
Man, there are a lot of posts that need responses in this thread, but aggregating a number of them to point out that some the arguments being made are silly:
The categorization of a platform is dependent on how it ARCHITECTED.
Not how somebody decides to use it. Not by demonstrating some subset of it's capability by removing other components.
Driving only 10% of the car's overall advertised range to avoid engaging the engine does not make it an EV, any more than shutting the engine down in a plane makes it a glider.
Removing the engine from a Hybrid to demonstrate it can run at full speed on it's battery, does not change it's qualification to an EV, any more so than sawing off the back of a sedan makes it a truck.
There are 10,593 more examples I could easily come up with where prostituting a product by either modifying it or not using it in the way it was intended does not n the inherent classification of the product the way in which it was designed.
The categorization of a platform is dependent on how it ARCHITECTED.
Not how somebody decides to use it. Not by demonstrating some subset of it's capability by removing other components.
Driving only 10% of the car's overall advertised range to avoid engaging the engine does not make it an EV, any more than shutting the engine down in a plane makes it a glider.
Removing the engine from a Hybrid to demonstrate it can run at full speed on it's battery, does not change it's qualification to an EV, any more so than sawing off the back of a sedan makes it a truck.
There are 10,593 more examples I could easily come up with where prostituting a product by either modifying it or not using it in the way it was intended does not n the inherent classification of the product the way in which it was designed.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Seems that it's only some of the Volt owners who are the ones hung up with this idea of "purity". The rest of us are just trying to make the simple point that design and construction dictate vehicle definition, not individual possible use patterns. To be quite clear your individual usage scenario of a plugin hybrid or an EV or anything else is irrelevant to it's classification. Driving a Volt using gasoline only does not make it an ICE any more than driving it using electricity only makes it an EV. That fact has nothing to do with "purity". I'll keep pointing that out until everyone gets it.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
We had this exact discussion before. While if you dig you can find some references where GM mentions the engine (it'll be very bizarre if this was not true, as even if GM puts it in a footnote somewhere it has to be there to not be false advertising), GM treated "hybrid" or PHEV like it was a dirty word whenever journalists used it to describe the Volt.
I believe I mentioned it in an exchange with you before:
It was because of GM's silly insistence that people not call it a hybrid and focus on calling it an "EV" or "electric car" with "extended range" that you have people thinking it was a short range 40 mile EV. Yes, most (all?) people who thought that did not end up owning Volts, but if GM positioned the car as a PHEV, that might be different.
At least from the initial results, GM's marketing with Gen 2 (which says hybrid and PHEV loud and clear) seems to be working much better.
Last edited:
GM has had tragic luck with "Hybrid" sales, and other brands of badged "Hybrid" are also weak sales. They don't save money for many years if ever.
You want to kill a technology? Put Hybrid on it.
Let's do the Best Hybrid on the Market Today (one of the few that shows a profit and acceptance): The #1 Prius stripper edition vs it's gas counterpart, the Corolla (which sells twice as many cars as Prius does):
Performance is similar.
Prius is $24,200 and 50 mpg.
Corolla is $17,230 and 37 mpg.
Assuming 15,000 miles a year, and gasoline is at $3.00/gallon, it takes 22 years (331,000 miles) for the Prius to break even.
And that's one of the cheapest Hybrids and one of the more expensive EconoBoxes.
Do some of the "Hybrid" SUV's if you want a real chuckle. Payback is way over 50 years between the Standard and Hybrid versions of the same model.
GM made a Hybrid full-sized Pickup with great reviews. Excellent truck, but the word Hybrid on it killed it. Built in AC power for onsite use of power tools, better $ savings on fuel, seamless operation, powerful.
I'm not sure badging a Volt as a Hybrid would increase sales. History shows the opposite.
If they would have called the Volt a Hybrid, the public would assume:
It is either slow and costs more, or fast and costs much more.
There is a Gas Only model available for less money.
It doesn't act like an electromotive powertrain at all, it acts like a gas car that turns the motor on and off constantly.
If you need to drive somewhere, you need enough gas range to get there.
Simply put, the Volt does not have a powertrain that fits the existing real world Hybrid status quo.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
The Prius hybrid obviously did not kill the technology and was in fact the first successful iteration of it.
Some would argue GM was trying to do the same thing with the "EV" moniker by putting it on the Volt.
rolosrevenge
Dr. EVS
This thread would make an excellent case study on confirmation bias and semantics on people's perceptions of reality.
Strangely enough, putting EV on the Spark EV pretty much killed that. Think Fiat and many other compact Compliance EV's found out the same thing. The Spark is one of the quicker, better rated, and cheapest EV's on the market and can be had for about $14k.
Even though the Automatic Trans ICE Spark is deadly, pathetically slow, handles worse, and sells for the same OTD after all taxes and rebates, the ICE outsells the EV model.
And the Poison Hybrid Badge has affected dozens of models across all brands.
The Volt has no EV, Hybrid, Fashion Avatar, Green, etc, badging.
Cliff Notes: Putting an EV badge on an ICE-based anything cuts sales. Putting a Hybrid badge on them does the same.
1. Then GM succeeded.
2. "EV badge on an ICE-based anything". That's actually part of the problem. An ICE-morphed-to-EV is far less compelling than an originally-designed-as-EV offering.
rolosrevenge
Dr. EVS
This is why a ground up EV, or at least an ostensibly ground up EV, is the way to go. Nissan has had great success with the Leaf, even though it's largely based on the Versa.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Last I knew the Spark EV was only available in a few states so any comparison with the Spark ICE, available in all states, proves nothing. It's also a very limited range EV. Make it a 200+ mile range EV and sell it in all states and I'd bet it would outsell the ICE version.
mknox
Well-Known Member
I have to disagree. The electric utility I was working for at the time was interested in getting a Volt way before they were in production and everything we knew about it included the fact that it had an ICE range extender. There was never any mystery around that. I even recall catch phrases in advertising like "Electric when you want it... gas when you need it" or something like that.
- - - Updated - - -
Well, there is a big question in my mind abut people being "mislead".
- - - Updated - - -
I met a guy who insisted my Model S was a hybrid because it had two sources of energy: the battery and the regenerative brakes. I ended up walking away from the conversation because there was just no convincing him.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I've spoken with too many people who thought the Volt was a $40K EV with 40 miles of range. Certain parts of the media also promoted this idea, along with the idea that the Volt could run out of charge and leave people stranded. That never happened with the Prius.
mknox
Well-Known Member
DuncanWatson
Member
If the spark had been available in 50 states I would have likely been driving it instead of my ford focus ev.
Similar threads
