Chevy Volt is not doing too well.

[EBJ]

Next comes the demands for Ford to bring back the Model T.

But with a modern power-plant.... the Model "E".
now that would be sweet.

[Ykick]

I've driven a Model T and it's a different animal than anything you could imagine. If you understand the transmission pedals, you'd appreciate those stories about farmers driving 'em through barn doors.

[yopappamon]

I've driven a Model T and it's a different animal than anything you could imagine. If you understand the transmission pedals, you'd appreciate those stories about farmers driving 'em through barn doors.

Three pedals and none are the accellerator!
Brake, Reverse, and (Low/neutral/High gear) if I remember right. Two levers on the column, Throttle and Spark advance.

[Ykick]

I've driven a Model T and it's a different animal than anything you could imagine. If you understand the transmission pedals, you'd appreciate those stories about farmers driving 'em through barn doors.

Three pedals and none are the accellerator!
Brake, Reverse, and (Low/neutral/High gear) if I remember right. Two levers on the column, Throttle and Spark advance.

LOL... Yeah, somebody knows! And thank heaven for the cam on the handbrake that sorta holds forward pedal in neutral and the brakes don't do much for reverse.

[yopappamon]

LOL... Yeah, somebody knows! And thank heaven for the cam on the handbrake that sorta holds forward pedal in neutral and the brakes don't do much for reverse.

Lol, my 92 year old dad has had a 1921 T for over 50 years. I've never driven it but seen him do it for years.

About 40 years ago (I was about 11) he handed me the manual and a disassembled transmission and had me put the planetary gears back together. I got my start with electronics playing with a model T magneto.

[Ykick]

LOL... Yeah, somebody knows! And thank heaven for the cam on the handbrake that sorta holds forward pedal in neutral and the brakes don't do much for reverse.

Lol, my 92 year old dad has had a 1921 T for over 50 years. I've never driven it but seen him do it for years.

About 40 years ago (I was about 11) he handed me the manual and a disassembled transmission and had me put the planetary gears back together. I got my start with electronics playing with a model T magneto.

We're about the same age but years ago my father in law bought a 1924 T from a farm auction cheap, turned to me and asked if I could get it running. Well, I did and then figured out how to drive it about 50 miles home. Fun little buggy but high center of gravity and it seemed like 1:1 steering wheel ratio. I had it up on 2 wheels once!

Somebody had added an electric start to it over the years so when I got it home and connected a battery, switched the ignition on - damn wood coil boxes started buzzing and made me jump out of my skin! Later learned they were called buzzer boxes. LOL...

I got pretty good about starting it with the crank though. Once you set the ignition timing full retard and primed a little fuel into the intake it usually fired up and ran slow idle.

Crazy car, the idea that you were supposed to hold the forward pedal in neutral (mid-travel) while pressing on the reverse pedal sends shivers up my spine! Can you imagine DOT allowing something like that today?

Sorry folks to bring this up and go off tangent - good memories and somewhat as if history's repeating itself with Volt compared to the Model T.

[TylerDurden]

Sorry folks to bring this up and go off tangent - good memories and somewhat as if history's repeating itself with Volt compared to the Model T.

No worries.

But I don't think the Volt will be the "everyman's car" that the T was. If only.

It's a great notion tho: the electric T or Beetle of the 21st Century.

[Ykick]

Sorry folks to bring this up and go off tangent - good memories and somewhat as if history's repeating itself with Volt compared to the Model T.

No worries.

But I don't think the Volt will be the "everyman's car" that the T was. If only.

It's a great notion tho: the electric T or Beetle of the 21st Century.

I have hope, probably after visiting with my Volt coworker today. He reported 20k miles, 166 gallons of gasoline burnt so far and 'would've been much less except the city parking garage has concocted some ridiculous formula that simply makes it significantly cheaper to drive home on gasoline and charge at home. Now, nobody uses the charger there anymore. Figures...

He guesses about $50/month on his electric bill but noted he used to spend $500/month on gasoline. During the span of warm days recently he said it went back up to 45 miles on battery. But in the cold, drops to 20-25 miles.

[Dauntless]

The Model T had it's own form of "Regenerative braking." Or should that be "Degenerative?" The brake is inside the transmission, to lock up the driveline to the solid axle.

It was that type of engineering that worked well enough on dirt trails at 10mph but didn't hold up on paved roads that caused the sudden fall of the Model T. After its' biggest sales year of 1924 and seeing itself something close to 2/3rds of all cars on American roads, the T was discontinued in 1927 and immediately people began parking them in the yard and not bothering with them. Magazine offered contests in the best uses for Model T's, such as fumigators hooking the tailpipe up to their tarps and the legendary demolition derby and car polo that helped thin their numbers.

So I don't remember how many of my elderly teachers told variations of this story, not sure if any of them really did this. But so many claimed that, during the 1930's, they'd paid such amounts as $10 for a Model T that had sat in their neighbor hood for years. The transmission brake I understand to be fairly easy to fabricate a replacement, but not all of these teachers were the type to build electric bikes, etc. Instead they just started using that iittle pedal that backed them up. . .

. . . .Which was hard on the transmission. It always ends with "So I was going downhill, using the reverse to slow it down a bit, then there was this 'Crunch' and the pedal went to the floor, there I was speeding up. . . ." to the point where they hit a house or something. It's a wonder there are ANY Model T's in existence today. But a prototype toy maker at Mattel has one, it's a spectacular thing.



If Ford was going to bring something back as an electric, it should be the Deuce itself, a John Dillenger package Model 18. I just keep thinking that the major car makers could go electric with replicas of their cars from the 30's. Such as a 1930 Buick, Maybe. (Joke involved.) Audi, Mercedes. . . .

[TylerDurden]

On one hand, I was thinking of a contemporary "everyman's" car: a stripped-down, affordable, compact sedan, like the Focus electric or similar.

On the other hand, replicas often don't need to meet current DOT regs for crashworthiness; a big reason why cars are so heavy.

[TonyReynolds]

Well, the Ford Focus electric is like the Leaf: Strictly electric and limited range AND, the same base price as the Volt.

I told a friend yesterday that the Volt, when one thinks about it, is really two cars in one, and that is reason enough (in my book) to prefer it over the Focus Electric, Leaf or the Prius Plug-In. You get your mid-range electric commuter and you get your 35-40 MPG road sedan as well. Sure, my '05 Passatt TDI gets 35-40 MPG too, but it only gets about 25-28 in town.

The jury is still out for me. Still doing research...

Oh, and as for the Model T, the picture shown above is a Model A, whoch came AFTER the Model T. Here is the Model T:

[Dauntless]

Are you referring to the Model 18 picture as a Model A? The Model 18 had a lot of common parts with the Model B that was on the market at the same time, but it was the first production line V8, often referred to as the V8. If you go to a gathering of the old cars and see the old Ford with the large 'V8' logo, that's the Model 18.

The Model 18 is immortalized as 'The Deuce' because it was the 2nd model that Ford had available at the time. For almost 20 years Ford had the Model T available in different packages but it was still the T. The public was soon saying "I could'a had a V8' before the juice even existed. Combined with the beefed up suspension it was a big hit with the moonshiners like 'Rapid Roy' Hall, who didn't really have to work on the car to outrun the local cops in their 4 cylinder pursuit vehicles. When hot rodding picked up steam in the late 1940's, the most popular old car to rebuild was the 1932-35 Model B, by then readily known as the Duece.

Henry Ford claimed that none other than John Dillenger wrote hm a thank you letter for his Model 18, claiming it got him out of quite a few tight spots. Meanwhile, the car was also a hit with the mob in Chicago, also gaining notoriety as the 'Ganster-mobile.' How ironic that the earlier concept car Volt was being referred to as a 'Gangster-mobile.' I just think if it looked like that people would be demanding theirs right now

[REdiculous]

My parents were really excited about the Volt, having owned many Chevys, until they realized it's little more than the Chevy version of the Prius.

If you ever need the engine to engage the wheels, you did something wrong imo...get a bigger electric motor or whatever...

[TonyReynolds]

My parents were really excited about the Volt, having owned many Chevys, until they realized it's little more than the Chevy version of the Prius.

This isn't correct.

The Prius and the Volt operate completely differently. The Volt engine operates at constant RMP to drive a generator, not the drivetrain.

EDIT: I parially retract this; see post below...

The Prius, even the plug-in version, can't drive as far or as fast in pure electric mode.

Not saying it's necessarily better, depends on the person and their driving needs, but to say that it's little more than a Chevy version of the Prius isn't right. The Prius is still primarily a gas-engined car. It simply uses regenerative brking to charge a small battery that drives an electric motor to get going from a dead stop. Most people drive the Prius mostly in gas mode. It gets better overall mileage because most of the gas required in stop and go goes to accelerating the car and its payload from a dead stop to speed.

The Volt is a different beast.

That said, though the Voilt would fit my needs quite nicely, I did manage to get 42.7 MPG (average) on this morning's commute, the best I've managed with my Passat TDI, but I'm hyper-miling to get that, shifting to neutral to coast down grades...

[REdiculous]

Under heavy loads the Volt can engage the wheels w/ the engine to help the electric motor, or so I've heard. Seems like wasted effort. And it runs high priced fuel, even if it's sipping it. We tend to prefer regular gas and diesel/kerosene - if it's *only* a genset, why isn't it a small diesel?

[TonyReynolds]

if it's *only* a genset, why isn't it a small diesel?

Good question; That would be my preference as well...

[TonyReynolds]

My parents were really excited about the Volt, having owned many Chevys, until they realized it's little more than the Chevy version of the Prius...

Well, as it turns out, it is and it isn't...

Motor Trend
October 12, 2010

By Frank Markus

“It’s not a hybrid! It’s an electric car with a range-extending, gas-powered generator onboard.” That was the party line during most of the masterfully orchestrated press rollout of what we’ve been promised will be the most thoroughly new car since, what, the Chrysler Turbine? The Lunar Rover? Well, the cat is now out of the bag, and guess what? It is a hybrid, after all. Yes, Virginia, the Chevy Volt’s gas engine does turn the wheels. Sometimes.

On paper, the Voltec drivetrain has more in common with a Prius (and other Toyota, Ford, or Nissan Altima hybrids) than anyone suspected. Each system employs a single planetary gear set, a gasoline-powered piston engine, and two electric motor/generators. But the way Chevy connects them is entirely different, and—if you ask me—superior.

A planetary (or epicyclic if you’re British) gear set consists of a solid “sun” gear, with teeth on the outside, a hollow “ring” gear with teeth on the inside, and some number of little planet gears rotating around the sun and also enmeshed with the ring gear. The planets themselves are connected by a “planet carrier.” When you turn one of these three elements and stop a second one from turning, the third element turns at a different speed. By varying which elements are turned or driven and which are held, you can get three ratios out of one planetary gear set. If instead of stopping a particular element, you turn it at a different speed, you can achieve continuously variable ratios, as the Prius does.

Here’s the huge fundamental difference: Toyota connects each of its electric motors and its gas engine to a different planetary element with the wheels and the bigger electric motor both connected to the ring gear. This means that, at some point in the gearing equation, the engine must turn on to move its element (the planet carrier) or the smaller motor/generator will start spinning too fast.

Chevy’s engine and motor/generator both remain decoupled from the whole works most of the time.

The Volt’s 149-horse electric motor spins the sun gear. When starting off, the ring is locked to the case and power flows to the wheels through the planet carrier, providing more mechanical advantage than the Prius’ 80-horse electric motor gets driving the wheels directly. At about 70 mph, the Chevy’s motor is starting to spin too fast to be efficient, so the ring gear unlocks from the case and locks to the smaller motor/generator. Now both e-motors spin, propelling the Volt to 101 mph turning at reasonable rpm in electric mode. The Prius’ gas engine must start turning when vehicle speed exceeds 62 mph.

Once the Volt’s battery is depleted, the engine fires up and clutches to the generator to produce the power required to drive the car. 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.

Chevrolet’s approach permits full EV capability over 30-40 real-world miles—something Toyota will never be able to claim with its current Hybrid Synergy Drive system. As such, it represents a bridge between the gasoline present and the electro-commuter future. But is it as good a car as it is a philosophical bridge?"

[rochesterricer]

Record high Volt sales in March

http://www.chargedevs.com/content/news- ... ales-march

Faced with an oversupply of Volts, GM plans to suspend production of the new PHEV for three weeks in July, instead of the traditional two-week holiday. The company has already idled the Volt production line at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant for five weeks to allow demand to catch up with supply.

However, the Volt had a record month in March, selling 2,228 units, so GM may cancel the summer shutdown if sales stay strong. According to Ward’s AutoInfoBank, GM had enough Volts in its inventory at the end of February to supply dealers for 154 days. A 60-day supply is considered optimal.

Automakers have learned (the hard way) the wisdom of modern “just in time” inventory management, but it’s a feat that’s not so easy to pull off with a complicated fashion accessory such as an automobile. And the Volt is no ordinary automobile – it’s been compared to the iPhone, the Space Shuttle and a political football. Workers on the Volt production line may have to get used to an erratic work schedule.

[TonyReynolds]

I found a 2011, new, in Shoreline, Washington yesterday for $38K. Not bad for a loaded car with all of the rebates, etc. that applied to that model year. I suspect that as the price of gas rises, sales will pick up and deals will be harder to come by.

There is no difference bewteen the 2011 and 2012 except for options packages; functionally the cars are the same.

I've run a whole bunch of numbers on keeping my Passat TDI versus going with a Volt. Though they each pencil out equal at $5 per gallon over 10 years for total cost of ownership, as the average price per gallon rises, the Volt pulls ahead in economy. What I can't account for is lost cost of opportunity for the dollars spent on a Volt to be invested elsewhere. That said, if the net price for a Volt is about $33K (after Fed. tax credit), and my yearly fuel cost (at $5/gal) is about $3,300 (for the TDI), then NOT spending that means that I realize a "paper" return of about 9 or 10% on my "investment". Not bad.

The TDI is a 2005 and although it should conceivably go 300K miles or more, VW TDI's in general become more expensive to work on and maintenance costs go up as the cars age, so I figure 10 year maintenance for the TDI and the Volt to be similar.

I personally think the Volt is a winner and will be an overall success for GM in years to come, either directly, or thru its derivatives...

[TylerDurden]

TDI v. Volt... I prolly go TDI:
300K miles is typical for a maintained Volkswagen diesel. VW sold a lot of em, so parts will be available for decades. You can even convert to MTDI, by installing a mechanical injection pump and forget about computer worries.

My ex has ~150K on her '03 TDI wagon and still gets >43mpg average. I have an '89 Jetta (non turbo) with 288K that gets >45mpg average. (Yes, I am bragging.)

A small diesel hybrid would be optimal, IMO.

[dnmun]

a small CNG hybrid would be supra optimal. jmho. honda of course.

CNG is making rapid inroads now, and the LNG fueling stations are going up in strategic places and many new class 13 tractors are being built with LNG technology from westport/cummins.

[chilledoutuk]

TDI v. Volt... I prolly go TDI:
300K miles is typical for a maintained Volkswagen diesel. VW sold a lot of em, so parts will be available for decades. You can even convert to MTDI, by installing a mechanical injection pump and forget about computer worries.

My ex has ~150K on her '03 TDI wagon and still gets >43mpg average. I have an '89 Jetta (non turbo) with 288K that gets >45mpg average. (Yes, I am bragging.)

A small diesel hybrid would be optimal, IMO.

you must be in the usa to say that tbh the volt doesn't have an amazing battery range but its just a start i would expect GM to make future versions with much better battery range and faster charging capability.

Diesel is so expensive here in the uk that the volt/ampera etc all seem extremely attractive to many people.

I think europe and japan will be huge markets for ev vehicles because of our insane gas prices 2.5 times that of us prices.

[Ykick]

The main thing that tips it for me is electricity and CNG being domestically produced. Wanna stimulate the economy? Let's stop sending HUGE amounts of money out of our country and keep it here! Seems simple enough and 'hope I live to see the day...

[TonyReynolds]

The main thing that tips it for me is electricity and CNG being domestically produced. Wanna stimulate the economy? Let's stop sending HUGE amounts of money out of our country and keep it here! Seems simple enough and 'hope I live to see the day...

Me too; I think this is absolutely essential.

I've been reading a LOT of Volt forums, and it seems like most people fall into the 'love it' or 'hate it' camps, with very little in the 'hate it' group in the way of real contribution. They seem to take particular glee in parroting mis-information about the car, GM, electrics in general, or the economics of the Volt versus the Cruz, which is absolutely specious. Almost NO ONE mentions the above, that electricity is produced domestically, of commodities (coal, hydro, nuclear, wind) that are all available HERE, not from people that hate us, or that require massive amounts of money and military infrastructure to bring in from somewhere else.

[Toshi]

I test drove a Chevy Volt a few months ago, and wrote about it at that time on another forum (thus the present tense):

I test drove a Chevy Volt today.



It looks sharp, I'll grant it that. Hearing nothing but the faint electric motor whine when the dealer pulled it out of the garage was very cool, too. (For those of you familiar with Toyota hybrids, it sounded a bit like the high-frequency whine that the HSD makes when regenerating.)

Then I hopped in. Although it's a small car, based on the Cruze, it felt big enough inside in the front seats: plenty of legroom and headroom alike. The ergonomics were all fine, too, apart from the shifter being oddly smack dab in the center of the dashboard and the parking brake being this little, weenie electronic deal. The dashboard was unconventional, too, with a central, squareish LCD display, a "floating ball" to show power consumption/regeneration on the right, and a battery state-of-charge indicator on the left. Didn't look bad overall at all, however, and the center console, in grey in this particular car rather than the iPod-white of the showcars, was pleasant enough as well.

Similarly pleasant was the powertrain part of the driving experience: despite a nominal curb weight of 3800 lbs it didn't feel heavy. In fact it had a bit of a kick, with a nice shove in the back on throttle tip in, no doubt thanks to electric motors' max-torque-at-0-rpm characteristic. My entire, brief test drive was spent in EV-only mode so I can't comment on how raucous the engine is or isn't.



All was not fun and games, however: the A-pillars are mammoth and the roofline low. It doesn't feel airy at all in the interior. Its ambience, if you will, is actually more similar to a sporty car like a current-gen Mustang, in that the roof feels pulled down tight. The front valence scrapes pulling out of driveways. The rear legroom is fine but headroom, thanks to the sloping aero-friendly roofline, is tight. There's no rear center seat: this is a strictly 4 passenger vehicle.

Finally, it's not cheap at all: The one I test drove, with leather and a backup camera as extras, was just shy of $44,000. Even with the $7,500 Federal tax credit for cars with sufficiently large battery packs--I hesitate to call them EVs due to semantics--that's still far from cheap.

So what's the verdict? I commend Chevrolet's engineers on making such an unconventional vehicle so thoroughly normal feeling: for all the world it feels like a muscular version of a Prius when in EV-only mode, with the same no-shifting-necessary seamless feeling of "thrust." The compromises made to styling, namely a swoopy roofline and high beltline, and safety, what with the overly robust appearing A pillars and thick C pillars, make it less inviting to drive than it could be, on the other hand. The price is the final killer: Even on affluent Long Island the salesman said he's sold all of 4 so far.

1 Volt per month. Sounds about right. Good luck, General Motors.

I'm a huge fan of the volt.

If I had the cash I'd get it over a prius or leaf. (because I do make the occasional 400 mile trip, and can't afford 2 cars)
But, then comes the plug-in prius....

Sounds like you need a Zipcar membership for those occasional 400 mile trips. Buy for the 99% scenario, not the 1%.

I've run a whole bunch of numbers on keeping my Passat TDI versus going with a Volt. Though they each pencil out equal at $5 per gallon over 10 years for total cost of ownership, as the average price per gallon rises, the Volt pulls ahead in economy. What I can't account for is lost cost of opportunity for the dollars spent on a Volt to be invested elsewhere. That said, if the net price for a Volt is about $33K (after Fed. tax credit), and my yearly fuel cost (at $5/gal) is about $3,300 (for the TDI), then NOT spending that means that I realize a "paper" return of about 9 or 10% on my "investment". Not bad.

I'd love to see your numbers. I can't fathom how maintenance costs, even on an older TDI, along with marginal fuel savings could account for net savings such that the purchase price of a brand new car could be entirely recouped.

It's a luxury to have a new car. You're going to pay for it. If it's worth it to you to save the fuel then knock yourself out. If you just want to save money then driving your TDI into the ground has to be the cheapest option...