How GM Lied About The Electric Car

[RRoan]

How GM "Lied" About The Electric Car

How GM "Lied" About The Electric CarThe Chevy Volt has been hailed as General Motors' electric savior. Now, as GM officially rolls out the Volt this week for public consumption, we're told the much-touted fuel economy was misstated and GM "lied" about the car being all-electric.

In the past, and based on GM's claims, we've gone so far as to call the Volt GM's "Jesus Car." And why wouldn't we call it that? We were told the Volt would achieve 230 MPG fuel economy and would always use the electric drivetrain to motivate the wheels — only using the onboard gasoline engine as a "range extender" for charging the batteries. It now turns out that not only were those fuel economy claims misleading, but the gasoline engine is actually used to motivate the wheels — making the Volt potentially nothing more than a very advanced hybrid car and pushing some automotive journalists like Scott Oldham at Edmunds.com to claim "GM lied to the world" about it.

How GM "Lied" About The Electric Car

First of all, let's talk about fuel economy. In August of last year, we heard GM's then-CEO Fritz Henderson claimed with all the marketing might it could muster at a Detroit-area press event, that the Chevy Volt would get 230 MPG in city driving conditions. Now, as the Volt's being tested by the auto trade press, we're seeing some surprisingly low fuel economy figures amid the expected lavish praise buff books are heaping upon the Volt.

Let's see what they've found out. Popular Mechanics saw just 37.5 MPG in city driving. Car and Driver apparently didn't choose to use their wheel time for any city driving — but found with all-electric driving

"...getting on the nearest highway and commuting with the 80-mph flow of traffic-basically the worst-case scenario-yielded 26 miles; a fairly spirited back-road loop netted 31; and a carefully modulated cruise below 60 mph pushed the figure into the upper 30s."

Motor Trend, like the rest of the trade press other than Popular Mechanics, didn't appear to do any testing in city conditions, but did find that

"Without any plugging in, [a weeklong trip to Grandma's house] should return fuel economy in the high 30s to low 40s."

They also parrot GM's new line of 25-50 miles of all-electric — a far cry from the 230 MPG they originally marketed — that the "Volt provides 25-50 miles of real-world electric operation no matter how hard you flog it."

But while even providing only 10% of the fuel economy initially touted, these more real-world figures are merely an exaggeration. The bigger problem is that, as Mr. Oldham now claims, is that GM lied to them about the powertrain.

Since the Volt was first unveiled as a concept car, GM engineers, public relations staff and executives have all claimed adamantly that the internal combustion engine did not motivate the wheels. If that were the case then the Volt would be nothing more than a very advanced hybrid. Even as late into the development cycle as this June, we were told the only drivetrain that motivated the wheels was the electric one. The auto trade press swallowed the line, hook and the sinker. Sam Abulesmaid at Autoblog even ran a piece headlined "Repeat after us: The Chevrolet Volt's gas engine does not drive the wheels!." And why shouldn't he have lapped it up when in online chats, the Volt's chief engineer Andrew Farah was saying:

"you're correct that the electric motor is always powering the wheels, whereas in a typical hybrid vehicle the electric motor and the gasoline engine can power the wheels. The greatest advantage of an extended-range electric vehicle like the Volt is the increased all electric range and the significant total vehicle range combined."

This meant that the gasoline engine was nothing more than a "range extender" designed to charge the batteries which would allow the electric drivetrain to continue to move the car — and allow GM to claim that the Volt was something different, something new and something worthy of taxpayer dollars.

It turns out that's not correct. We're now told by Volt's engineering team that when the Volt's lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 mph the Volt's gasoline engine will directly drive the front wheels along with the electric motors.

That means that for all of the all-electric or extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) hype GM's imbuing in the Volt, it's really nothing more than a plug-in hybrid vehicle. A very advanced plug-in hybrid, but a hybrid nonetheless.

That's enough for Mr. Oldham to claim GM lied to the world and to then go ahead and endorse (via a retweet on Twitter) the all-electric Nissan Leaf (full disclosure — Mr. Oldham's brother works for Nissan) as the only choice for an electric car.

It's enough for us to wonder why GM pushed the 230 MPG number in the first place and why they didn't just come clean on the powertrain this summer when asked a straightforward question.

It's a damned shame that GM mislead people about the Volt, I was quite excited by how much of an advance it would be for electric vehicles.

[Lonestar]

Link?

[aerius]

Yes, no, and careless journalism. From the very beginning the claimed electric only range was 40 miles, period. The over 100mpg figures are what you'd get if and when the car is run on the standardized EPA city cycle, how journalists confused the 230mpg number with the electric only range and somehow try to imply an equivalence between them is beyond me.

Now the serious part is the question of the drivetrain. If it's true that the Volt is just another hybrid then we got a massive problem. So far we have a claim from a what appears to be a blog of some sort, without any photos or documentation to back it up. I'll wait till someone gets a bunch of under the hood pictures when the car's unveiled to see if the engine actually does connect to the wheels.

[RRoan]

Link?

Right, sorry about that.

http://jalopnik.com/5661051/how-gm-lied ... ectric-car

[Master of Ossus]

Now the serious part is the question of the drivetrain. If it's true that the Volt is just another hybrid then we got a massive problem. So far we have a claim from a what appears to be a blog of some sort, without any photos or documentation to back it up. I'll wait till someone gets a bunch of under the hood pictures when the car's unveiled to see if the engine actually does connect to the wheels.

Motortrend seems to have confirmed it.

Above 70 mph, when the generator couples to the ring gear, the engine gets a more efficient direct mechanical connection to the wheels. In defense of Chevy’s earlier stance, the only way this gas engine (or the Prius’) could ever drive the wheels without lots of help from the battery is if you somehow MacGyvered up a way to jam the sun gear to a stop.

And then (separately):

The surprising news is that, after you deplete the 16-kW-hr battery and the engine switches on, a clutch connects the engine and generator to the planetary transmission so the engine can help turn the wheels directly above 70 mph. This improves performance and boosts high-speed efficiency by 10-15 percent.

The article goes on to suggest 30-40mpg in real-world conditions after its electric motor is depleted (first 25-50 miles), which is certainly not an improvement on the Prius, albeit with the benefit of the first little ways (it has a larger battery than even the plug-in Prius, so presumably it can travel even further without recourse to the gasoline engine at <70mph).

[MKSheppard]

At this point; why buy a volt? Just wait two years and get the Toyota Prius plug in hybrid which will give you everything the volt claimed for for only about $24k -- compared to the Volt's $41k.

This really was GM's last chance to reinvent itself technically; and they just fumbled big time.

[Master of Ossus]

At this point; why buy a volt? Just wait two years and get the Toyota Prius plug in hybrid which will give you everything the volt claimed for for only about $24k -- compared to the Volt's $41k.

This really was GM's last chance to reinvent itself technically; and they just fumbled big time.

As Motortrend points out, consumers aren't paying $41k out-of-pocket--Uncle Sam is paying around $7500 of each car, and some states will subsidize part of the rest. Motortrend also points out that it has some significant performance advantages over the Prius (as if that's relevant at all to the target market), and the general tone of their articles was reasonably optimistic about the car. But, yeah, I agree that these are serious issues that will likely doubtless harm its adoption and appeal.

[LaCroix]

So even with a huge market-distorting subsidy by the nation and maybe another one by the states, the car is still ~50% more expensive with little more performance than the out-dated contender, which will be updated soon, anyway. And it does not meet the announced specifics.

That's GM for you.

[aerius]

<snip>The article goes on to suggest 30-40mpg in real-world conditions after its electric motor is depleted (first 25-50 miles), which is certainly not an improvement on the Prius, albeit with the benefit of the first little ways (it has a larger battery than even the plug-in Prius, so presumably it can travel even further without recourse to the gasoline engine at <70mph).

Yeesh, that's gonna be one hell of a PR nightmare for GM.
I gotta wonder if the Volt was like this all along or if the GM bankruptcy last year caused some last minute changes and fuckups.

[Solauren]

I'm inclinded to think the Bankruptcy affected what the final product was going to be.

GM had to get our of bankruptcy, and the changes to the Volt (from what were were told), may have been required to accomplish that.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

<snip>The article goes on to suggest 30-40mpg in real-world conditions after its electric motor is depleted (first 25-50 miles), which is certainly not an improvement on the Prius, albeit with the benefit of the first little ways (it has a larger battery than even the plug-in Prius, so presumably it can travel even further without recourse to the gasoline engine at <70mph).

Yeesh, that's gonna be one hell of a PR nightmare for GM.
I gotta wonder if the Volt was like this all along or if the GM bankruptcy last year caused some last minute changes and fuckups.

I'd say it's the former. The drivetrain is one of those design things you'd nail down pretty early on, and the bits that make it up are all long lead-time parts. I think it was designed from the outset to compete with conventional-drivetrain vehicles. It performs just as well as a gasoline powered vehicle in its size category (unlike the Prius, which performs like most Toyotas . . . i.e. it doesn't.) And its EV-only range, even when the vehicle is driven the way most testosterone-poisoned assholes would drive in city traffic, is something like double the Prius' EV-only range when the latter is driven as carefully as possible. Of course, the Prius destroys the Volt in overall MPG, but the Volt's better on-road performance would give it much greater appeal outside the market of tree-hugging, granola crunching, hippies.

Mind you, the price-tag is a little ridiculous and GM's reliance on Uncle Sugar's kickback to get it down is equally so.

[Mr Bean]

So in essence this thing will get worse gas millage on my twenty five mile commute than my existing Honda Civic Hybrid? (Average speeds HW 69-74) for which I get roughly 45 miles to the galleon (Mostly due to the hills I have to go up and down) I'm reading the Volt gives me twenty miles of using no gas assuming I have some place to plug in at both ends.

[Omega18]

So in essence this thing will get worse gas millage on my twenty five mile commute than my existing Honda Civic Hybrid? (Average speeds HW 69-74) for which I get roughly 45 miles to the galleon (Mostly due to the hills I have to go up and down) I'm reading the Volt gives me twenty miles of using no gas assuming I have some place to plug in at both ends.

You're misreading things as stated.

With the conditions you're talking about you're definately looking at around at least 40 miles on the electric battery, the 25 would be for city stop and go driving at a much less efficient lower speed. While you may burn a tiny amount of gas when going at the speed you're talking about since the gasoline engine kicks in, the amount should be minimal with the electric batter still providing most of the power at the speed you're talking about. (The only real concern would be the exact mechanics of fuel use when you hit that 70 mile per hour limit with your scenario.)

[whackadoodle]

In normal, everyday driving we got 127 miles per gallon (fine, 126.7 mpg). Which is pretty amazing. Broken down, over the course of 299 miles on Los Angeles highways, byways and freeways, the Volt burned 2.36 gallons of gasoline (fine, 2.359 gallons -- we rounded up). Most other cars use up a tank of gas going 299 miles. The Volt, to reiterate, used 2.36 gallons over 299 miles. That's freaking amazing!

...At the end of the journey, we'd covered more than 120 miles. City, hard-core mountain roads and freeway -- we even took the Volt up to its limited top speed of 101 mph. Well, the speedo indicated 102 mph, but we were pointed downhill. Let me also mention that we had the A/C on because it was 100 degrees out. Factoring in the mountainous part of our romp, where Frank and I acted like utter hooligans and neglected (on purpose) to put the Volt in Mountain Mode, we still averaged 74.6 miles per gallon over 122 miles. Sure, that's less than the 126.7 mpg we got driving the car from the office to home, but it's still pretty dang good. Also, remember that if we had simply stopped driving when the battery went dry, our mileage was infinity.

Read more: http://blogs.motortrend.com/6719595/gre ... z12SgPWHLR

Sure, it's still a hybrid and not a true electric, but isn't the point, in the end, to increase fuel efficiency, irregardless of what that fuel is?