chevy builds a homer.

Will the battery last 10 years? 20 years?
I spend $50 week on gasoline, and I don't have to worry about running out of fuel during the day!
At 60 KM per charge, that is ample for most days, but if I wanted to get to my daughters cabon, it is 100Km away! I was sure I saw a battery operated car that had a 240 KM span! it was a pretty good looking sportscar look, and it was appx $100,000 . Way more economical, and with harper's kick back you would get $500 off!

yup.. the Tesla

Deank wrote:". It just shifts the control from the Onstar service rep straight to the
owner. Instead of them placing a call to your car (which is how Onstar
works btw), you place the call yourself."

A Call with a Sattelite vs a call with technology that everyone has in their hands is an enormous difference.

Actually they only use Sat for the GPS, the entire communication is done over CDMA cellular phone technology. No different than the technology in your MTS phone. If you are in an area with no coverage you will not be able to contact Onstar. They do not use a Sat phone for communications. Those are hugely expensive.

rosencrentz wrote:Will the battery last 10 years? 20 years?
I spend $50 week on gasoline, and I don't have to worry about running out of fuel during the day!
At 60 KM per charge, that is ample for most days, but if I wanted to get to my daughters cabon, it is 100Km away! I was sure I saw a battery operated car that had a 240 KM span! it was a pretty good looking sportscar look, and it was appx $100,000 . Way more economical, and with harper's kick back you would get $500 off!

With the Volt though you still have the option to run on gas once your battery runs dry. The onboard gas engine kicks in after 60km to charge the battery pack, giving a total range of 500km on gas at 50MPG. So you still have the option to run it like a regular car for long trips, and like an electric for your daily driving.

grumpyrom wrote:

Deank wrote:". It just shifts the control from the Onstar service rep straight to the
owner. Instead of them placing a call to your car (which is how Onstar
works btw), you place the call yourself."

A Call with a Sattelite vs a call with technology that everyone has in their hands is an enormous difference.

Actually they only use Sat for the GPS, the entire communication is done over CDMA cellular phone technology. No different than the technology in your MTS phone. If you are in an area with no coverage you will not be able to contact Onstar. They do not use a Sat phone for communications. Those are hugely expensive.

ahh.. well I guess I best go and starting hacking then

http://www.gizmag.com/toshiba-fast-tracks-scib-battery-technology/15667/


"The SCiB™ – or Super Charge ion Battery – is a rechargeable lithium-ion
battery that boasts minimal capacity loss even after 6,000
charge-discharge cycles, high levels of safety and rapid charging
capability with the ability to charge to 90 percent of capacity in as
fast as 5 minutes."

I'm guessing you saw that on Fark.com this morning as well eh?

yup

http://jalopnik.com/5610373/hackers-wirelessly-crash-cars-computer-at-highway-speeds


A team of university researchers has been able to hack into a car's
warning systems via wireless sensors, sending fake tire pressure
messages at highway speeds and eventually frying an onboard computer.
The dawn of the carhacker approaches.

Deank wrote:"The SCiB™ – or Super Charge ion Battery – is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that boasts minimal capacity loss even after 6,000 charge-discharge cycles, high levels of safety and rapid charging capability with the ability to charge to 90 percent of capacity in as fast as 5 minutes."

Of course a lithium-ion battery will degrade to near-uselessness after three years, regardless of the number of charge-discharge cycles. They'll degrade even just sitting on the shelf. Factor in the price of a new battery system, when pricing a new vehicle.

It'll be a while before electric vehicles cost less to own than gas vehicles. Very few people pay cash for a car; most finance it. With electric vehicles costing an extra $15,000 or so, that and the interest charges more than eat up the savings from using hydro instead of gas.

And there's another expense coming: A few years back Oregon put a tax on hybrid vehicles. Since they used less gas, they weren't paying their fair share of road maintenance through gas taxes. Expect the same thing here.

i have a 20 year old 4 banger that claims to get 40 mpg on any flat hiway.
should i trade it in for something that gets 20% better mileage?

tick wrote:i have a 20 year old 4 banger that claims to get 40 mpg on any flat hiway.
should i trade it in for something that gets 20% better mileage?

Absolutely not. Unless you want to make some sort of statement or are a staunch supporter of furthering GM's R&D for this car, it's not feasible to do. I'm getting the same mileage you are 33 city / 41 hwy in a Civic. ( that's in US gallons too ). Why on earth would I want to lay out 30k on some hybrid to achieve just a little more?

i couldn't trade up if i wanted to and if i wanted to i'd be to lazy to,so i won't.
i thought this topic was chew builds a homer and was about a crazy zionist building a gollum.


off topic .. tonights sky map ..

http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar

Your not getting a "little better" mileage with the Volt, you can basically do 95% of your city driving using ZERO fuel. Thats a heck of a lot more than 40mpg. You'd likely have to run the battery down every now and then on purpose just so the fuel in your tank doesn't go bad. Considering your hydro for charging it will run at most $30/month assuming 60km a day and you could get around 1800km a month for $30 and never use a drop of fuel. You go on a road trip and your still looking at at LEAST 50 mpg depending on how far you go past that first free 60km. I wouldnt rush to replace a Civic with it, but there's no other car on the market that will come anywhere close to the cost per kilometer of the Volt. For someone like me the fuel savings alone would subsidize around 60 % of the lease cost on it at least. It's not a vehicle I would ever finance or pay cash for but the lease optiom is very compelling.

I truly hope it works out to what GM is claiming. Real world application for the claims remain to be seen for me. I want to see a decent battery that'll handle me running the A/C , playing music through a decent stereo. All that good power sucking stuff.

I'm slow to this because I'm an auto enthusiast when it comes to internal combustion engines. Gas guzzlers, or fuel misers. I'm not liking the idea of dead silent automobiles moving about. I also wonder what the effect of taking all of the current autos in use now and having them become electric, what the long term effect on electricity prices will be? Less pollution though.

I'm just gonna miss all the noise. The days of the I/C engine are numbered. We could only be a decade or two away from that day.

I agree, I wont be a guinea pig and line up to buy one in the first year or two but if if lives up to the promises it's something I would look at in the third or fourth model year once all the production bugs are workes out. Most vehicles suck the first model year. As far as the ICE goes I think it'll still be around for some time in performance and heavy duty applications. I just think it will be completely replaced for most "daily driver" uses in the short term ( 10 to 20) years.

you can get cars that do power sucking now????


count me in.

Can an electric car provide decent A/C? Heat? We live in a province of extremes. I wonder how a battery operated car would do in Winnipeg...

They'll do fine...if you have a long extension cord.