After reaching an agreement with the California Air Resources Board recently that would essentially see the Chevy Volt classed as an electric car,
it appears GM has now also worked things out with the EPA. The automaker and the environmental protection agency have been discussing just how extended range EVs like the Volt should be tested to evaluate fuel consumption and emissions. The federal agency responsible for enforcing the emissions and fuel economy standards had wanted to treat the Volt like a hybrid so that the battery would be charged at the end of the test cycle.
Although a new testing methodology has not been finalized,
GM and the EPA have reportedly reached a preliminary agreement on new procedures that would see the Volt get a rating of at least 100 mpg. The new procedures would be applied to all plug-in vehicles and would rely more heavily on the electric drive capabilities than the internal combustion engine.
Update: GM Spokesman Rob Peterson has just let us know that the Seattle Times report is based
on an earlier erroneous, Bloomberg report. GM is still talking to the EPA and nothing has changed in the last two weeks.
[Source:
Seattle Times]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 2:05PM (10/14/2008)
Instead of just having an MPG sticker with one value, they should have a small MPG chart that's more like:
SoC | City - Hwy - Combined
100 | 120 - 80 - 100
75 | 100 - 80 - 90
50 | 80 - 60 - 70
25 | 60 - 40 - 50
0 | 40 - 20 - 30
Maybe have a little graph that has MPG on the Y axis and SoC on the X to show the city/highway/combined efficiency curves...
SoC= State of Charge at start of cycle.
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fnc 2:34PM (10/14/2008)
Makes sense to me, but Americans have a hard enough time with math in one dimension. The sight of a 2-d graph would probably make the average person's head explode.
"Whut's this weird picture on the window fer?"
Dave 2:41PM (10/14/2008)
A chart won't help with GM's CAFE calculations.
.
And anyone who would be willing to spend $40k on a Volt doesnt need a chart.
Brn 9:20AM (10/15/2008)
"Americans have a hard enough time with math in one dimension."
Yes, please blindly bash Americans at every opportunity. Is this where you do your "I'm superior" dance? Get over it.
As to the chart, why make things that complicated? Scroll down and read GoodCheer's comment. It's simple, it's the right answer, and it gets mentioned every time this issue comes up.
Rick 6:44PM (10/15/2008)
The EPA should recognize that the mpg rating will be obsolete soon, and the struggle they are having with the Volt is just the beginning. Even alternative liquid fuels, which can be measured in gallons, will have different energy content and different costs per gallon compared to gasoline. What they need is an entirely different measure, which will be able to easily compare any potential fuel. Luckily, there is one... cost per mile. It very quickly shows the consumer the cost of operating the vehicle, regardless of it's fuel, which is the real purpose of the measurement from the consumer's perspective. Of course, in the case of the Volt, operation of the vehicle not only consumes electricity, but it consumes the battery itself. So whereas the cost of electricity is only about $0.02 per mile, the cost of the battery is something like $0.10 per mile (assuming a $10K battery that will last 100K miles). Still, at $0.12 per mile, it's already comparable to gas for your average 26 mpg ICE vehicle.
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Mark 3:02PM (10/14/2008)
How do they extract MPG's from electric charging? What if it's charged by Solar? Or a natural gas/coal/wood chip/nuclear utility/etc. utility
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GoodCheer 3:11PM (10/14/2008)
Every time this comes up, someone eventually proposes some variation on a 3-number system.
1) Electric range (Charge depleting)
2) City (Charge sustaining)
3) Highway (Charge sustaining).
While it is true that nobody has ever lost money betting against the intelligence of the American public, I think this would be simple enough for people to grasp... with the added benefit of 66% of it looking like the existing numbers.
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tankd0g 4:21PM (10/14/2008)
What difference does it make? If they don't get their magic EPA number, GM is just going to plaster 100mpg all over this car with a little asterisk* anyway. Marketing decided on 100mpg before the car even had 4 wheels.
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Todd 2:35PM (10/16/2008)
Goodcheer's 3 number system - yes this is the obvious solution!!!! First number = "x" miles from the battery. After that it's just a gas powered car, effectively. When used as a gas powered car you get the city/hwy numbers we all know and love. Everything else about "100 MPG" is just distortion of the facts by statistics/averaging.
90% of people know that, 110% of the time....
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cheleball 12:24PM (10/15/2008)
Yeah, what GoodCheer said. It's blindingly obvious.
The only stipulation I'd make is on the units: the electric range number should be specified in miles per kwh, not mpg-e. The former would allow people to figure out about how much it's going to cost them to drive the car, while the latter is only interesting if you want to compare the car's energy efficiency with that of gasoline-driven cars.
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