ART005

How Natural Gas Can Save the U.S. Economy

Elliot, you are completely missing the point. The Volt can be rated at 2,300 mpg (no typo) and gasoline free for the lifetime of the car and it has the performance of a 25 mpg car at best. It is virtually useless. It's technically useless compared to vehicles having an on board generator and compared to other E.V. without on board generators it horribly underperforms. It is the worst of both worlds, hybrid and E.V.

You are repeating the baseless headlines. The Volt is only 230 mpg if you assume infinite life of the battery and all other costs of the car similar to conventional cars. In the real world the Volt will struggle to achieve over 25 mpg equivalent. You and the headlines assume the battery is a magic free box in which you charge electrons and when you need energy you just discharge what you need. Then you can say use of the charged electrons in the E.V. is more efficient than use of the fuel to charge those electrons if you use the fuel directly in a vehicle as thermal energy to drive a non E.V. Halleluiah, the world will be saved by EV, NOT!!

Every energy aspect of the battery has to be accounted for when evaluating the efficiency of the Volt. It's energy to manufacture, it's lifecycle, it's cost. The yachting industry is very intense in it's true evaluation of deep cell batteries whether they are charged by wind turbine, water turbine, solar PV, shore (grid) or diesel generator. The yachting industry currently factors about $1/kWhr battery cost not including the cost to generate the power going into the battery. Compare that to the real cost to use grid power ~$0.11/kWhr. The battery increases the cost of electricity around 10X. You and the headlines (230 mpg) can ignore it until you buy a Volt and then you'll have to pay for it!! Look at the Volt and CNG Camary discussion above. Counting added engine life, a CNG vehicle is about 90 mpg equivalent, the Volt is under 25 mpg equivalent.

How Natural Gas Can Save the U.S. Economy

Elliot, you are not taking into account the cost of the battery for a full service elec. car with on board generator. You are refering to a misleading definition of efficiency based only on electrons. If you include storage efficiency costs the picture changes dramatically!! See the Camry analyses above (was that your negative vote?)

Elec. vehicles are great for specific dedicated use where an on board generator is not necessary and overall weight of the vehicle can be very small compared to the load. Such as elec. scooters, fork trucks and such. These type of vehicles can easily be charged during their down time and make it through their daily use cycle without having to be recharged during use. Battery powered 4 passenger vehicles with 75+ mph, 300+ mile range are a poor application of E.V. The best answer today for that vehicle is CNG and for city drivers add the Hybrid technology. Actually 300 mile range is a stretch for CNG but quick fill options address most of the shortcoming.

How Natural Gas Can Save the U.S. Economy

Another natural gas vehicle fact not getting much press is how much longer the engine is likely to last burning CNG rather than gasoline. I think the CNG engine lasts twice as long as gasoline engine. Say 400,000 miles vs. 200,000 miles. If a 30 mpg Camry costs $20,000 and uses 6,700 gallons of gasoline (200,000 miles at 30 mpg) @ $2.50/gal = $17,00 lifetime fuel or about the same cost as the car. So if the CNG Camry engine lasts twice as long, that savings discountes the $$/gal(equiv.) another 25%.

How Natural Gas Can Save the U.S. Economy

Good job Fitzman! From the department of the media using headlines to distract population with worthless reporting:

Yesterday Chevy announced 230 mpg Volt with no specifics except $40,000 car available late 2010, the battery should last 10 years, they are making 10 per month or week or something like that....

I would love to get help confirming this but I think the replacement Volt battery costs $15,000. 10 years at 15,000 miles/yr = $0.10/mile battery costs. AT $2.50/gal gasoline the volt is a 25 mpg(equivalent) vehilce if all of its future fuel (gasoline + elec.) were free!! Yeah Chevy technology, the world is saved, NOT, morons!!!

I'm just here to help with the reporting.......