CMU study indicates the Chevy Volt may be too expensive to be effective
Click above for a high res gallery of the 2011 Chevy Volt
Electric vehicle proponents never like to hear news like this, but another study has indicated that plug-in vehicles with longer battery ranges are going to be too expensive to be cost-effective, even though they will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The problem is that the cost of the batteries required to support a 40-mile electric-only range far outweighs the incremental benefit compared to a shorter range plug-in or non-plug hybrid. The cost of a battery pack for a car like the Chevy Volt is estimated to be as much as $15,000, although no one at General Motors is talking about the specific number publicly yet.
While there are certainly people who are willing to go plug-in regardless of the cost, the reality is that most people simply cannot afford to do so no matter how much they might like the idea of helping the environment. Beyond the up-front cost of batteries there also remains the issue of durability. Tesla Motors, for example, is offering a $12,000 battery replacement plan for the Roadster - which has a battery pack that costs around $30,000. General Motors officials have repeatedly expressed confidence that the battery management systems they have developed for the Volt will allow them to meet the 10-year/150,000-mile durability target for the battery. However, accelerated testing in the lab can only tell so much about battery life. Until these vehicles are in the field and exposed to the wide range of conditions that occur over a number of years, no one can be certain.
Gallery: 2011 Chevy Volt
[Source: Bloomberg, Carnegie-Mellon University]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Kid G 1:26PM (2/27/2009)
What I don't understand is why GM refused to go into direct competition with Toyota and Honda with standard hybrid cars as a backup to the Volt program. Ford has been able to bring a car to market at reasonable cost, and I would have thought the Malibu could be modified analogously to the Fusion to provide a true hybrid instead of the half-assed one they came up with. It boggles the mind.
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Dave 5:11PM (2/27/2009)
Isn't that what their two-mode system is for? While it currently seems to be geared for heavier duty use, I would think that they'd be able to reduce the cost of the system effectively in the same time period.
Nick 4:21PM (2/27/2009)
The Cadillac version of this might be more successful, it would be more in line with what people are willing to spend for a car like that.
Here in SoCal, there's plenty of people with tons of money, I expect to see them everywhere. Not sure about other places tho.
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Lad 1:32PM (2/27/2009)
Well then! Why do you think "Better Place" addressed this issue up front? Their idea is to rent the batteries just like the cell phone industry sell minutes. In effect they sell you electrons and maintain the batteries for a monthly charge; there are all kinds of advantages to doing this, including upgrading to the latest battery technology as it become available and changing out the batteries to extent the range of the car. I suggest GM contact Better Place and forage an partnership to solve this problem. The writer is correct Americans will not pay the price GM expects to charge for their EBEV and then pay another $15,000 to replace the batteries. When the batteries go dry, the people will run the car on gasoline only. It's looks as if GM is setting the stage to sell you their ICE Cruze and not the EBEV Volt.
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paulwesterberg 2:09PM (2/27/2009)
pbp does have some good ideas in terms of standardizing battery pack form factors and voltages. Since they own the batteries you can swap our your new pack for some unknown pack without worrying about getting stuck with an old battery.
If you have standard battery packs you can choose between Energizer, Duracell or Samsung, you can choose the range based on what you can afford.
The thing I dont like about pbp is that your are stuck with their contract. In theory if battery packs become cheap then plug in electric cars should be much cheaper($2 per 100 miles, very little regular maintenance) than gas cars. But I expect that if you sign a contract with pbp that the monthly fees will be such that it will be just as expensive as gas vehicles and you will be locked into their system.
Lad 4:15PM (2/27/2009)
Yes! the contract is the thing! However, one must weight the feasibility of buying against renting. Seems to me that a short term contract during the initial technology development period should be seriously considered. Perhaps the time to buy is when you know and can trust the reliability of the product.
I suspect that PBP will expand to cover just about any battery format and form factor after they are established, since their business plan is based on renting the batteries and selling the electrons.
Chris M 5:44PM (2/27/2009)
GM already knows how to do leasing, they don't need help from Project Better Place to set up battery leases.
PBP also is setting up battery swapping facilities, but battery swapping isn't very useful for plug-in hybrids like the Volt. Battery swaps will be used mainly for longer trips, and plug-in hybrids already have a range extender for long trips.
The only areas GM and PBP have a common interest is in public recharging facilities. If GM gets back into the BEV market, then maybe they might have PBP supply the swappable batteries.
Noz 7:21PM (2/27/2009)
Project Better Place is a scam. IF they are modeling their plan after cell phone style minutes purchases and renting out, I'll pass thanks.
I just don't trust PBP.
Chris M 8:57PM (2/27/2009)
Noz, a "scam" implies a criminal intent to defraud by deception, and there is no evidence of any criminal intent or deception in the PBP plans.
Of course, it may or may not be a good deal for consumers, we won't know for sure until we get all the details. Nobody is going to force you to sign up.
A decade from now most of us will be driving electric, and noz will still be waiting for his hydrogen ship to come in.
Noz 4:09AM (2/28/2009)
I thought we already discussed time lines here. And do I wish it were that easy to click our fingers and think the EV world is going to be your savior on all fronts. Let's only hope.
I also have a different definition of scam. Just because it's under the pretense of a business doesn't make it immune to being one.
petecomments 1:51PM (2/27/2009)
How does Aptera do it for relatively low cost?
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jake 2:12PM (2/27/2009)
The Aptera doesn't cost much less, and it isn't classified as a car, so they save a lot of money that way.
Obviously you can't expect the first PHEVs to make the biggest impact since they will be the most expensive. The price will likely go down after a while ($30-20k range is doable depending on the size of the car) and then they can make more impact.
JJReinem 4:29PM (2/27/2009)
The Aptera is a light weight vehicle with a far lower drag coefficient than the Volt. It doesn't take nearly as much energy to get the thing moving. It also has a much smaller battery stack than the Volt, so the initial cost of manufacturing it is lower. The fact that it isn't classified as a car has virtually nothing to do with how much it costs.
paulwesterberg 2:20PM (2/27/2009)
Not exactly an unbiased source...
At CIT, we work hand in hand with industry, engineering solutions to the challenges before society.
General Motors established a research institute, the General Motors Collaborative Research Lab, to collaborate with CIT faculty in developing "smart car" technology.
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MT 2:23PM (2/27/2009)
I wonder what the market is for a pure EV city car with modest performance specs but in the $15k-$20k range. It sure seems the current entries are attempting to be a gas-car replacement, price-be-damned. I'd rather see an EV successor to the original Beetle: dead simple, slow, and affordable. It would also be range-restricted at this point. I guess the Th!nk, Mitsu, and Subaru R1e might fit this description. Start with a basic vehicle that people can afford to buy, even if it involves some sacrifices (gasp!), and improve/refine it over time instead of going for the moon-shot with the first EV's. Even in the US, the Smart carved out a little niche in this price range even with its sacrifices compared to similarly priced cars, and I bet few Smarts travel more than 30 miles at a time. Seems like an EV could find a similar niche.
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paulwesterberg 3:30PM (2/27/2009)
Well sure there is a niche, but the manufacturer wont make gobs of money on it.
Personally I think that traditional car dealerships are dinosaurs. Lots of capital tied up in big parking lots filled with cars and very little information available to the buyer.
You should be able to design, order and pay for a new vehicle over the internet. Test drives should be available from a small pool of demo cars. Electric cars will require much less regular maintenance. All you need is a garage with a couple bays and parking for the demo cars - an old jiffy lube would work well.
me 2:23PM (2/27/2009)
"Here in SoCal, there's plenty of people with tons of money, I expect to see them everywhere."
That might have been the case before the housing bubble. It certainly won't be the case now.
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Carney 2:26PM (2/27/2009)
Electric cars are for now at least too expensive, small and short-ranged to be practical for anyone other than enthusiasts and the wealthy, especially as family vehicles or anything other than sports cars or tiny urban short-rangers. GM is expending heroic effort but I'd be surprised if the Volt meets expectations.
Fears of higher oil coming back are hurting the economy overall and auto sales in particular. Why don't the automakers all add flex fuel capability for a measly $100 per car, thus helping create a market big enough for alcohol pumps to appear at normal gas stations? That would reassure buyers and re ignite the economy, also helping their own bottom lines.
I think part of the reason is cultural, media, and political pressure on non-engineer CEOs. They don't understand the benefits of alcohol and are doing what they are being heavily browbeaten to do: hunker down to try to wring more MPGs out of gasoline engines, and spend vast sums trying to do the same out of batteries. Both serve the needs of media-beloved nerds in Silicon Valley, while uncool corn farmers and the relatively simple $100 flex fuel solution that fills no particular rice bowl get ignored for lack of advocates.
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Noz 7:25PM (2/27/2009)
Because flex fuel doesn't solve anything. The time wasted to get cars on flex fuel is wasted time. I'd rather see time wasted of EV technology than flex fuel.
Flex fuel doesn't solve any emissions problems in the long run either. No matter how you cut it.
And please...don't paste that the link to that ridiculous site of yours. We already know it's a farce.
Carney 3:53PM (3/01/2009)
noz, assertion without evidence ("doesn't solve anything") and name-calling ("ridiculous", "farce") is all you seem reduced to, since you have not refuted any of my claims with facts, numbers, chemical equations, etc.
As has been carefully explained to you, not that evidence seem to matter to you at all, alcohol fuel goes a long way toward solving problems like carbon emissions, smog, ozone smog, acid rain, toxic spills and leaks, and carcinogens and mutagens. It either emits none of those substances, or significantly less, than gasoline does.
Nobody disputes this, so the only thing alcohol opponents are reduced to is claiming that you have to use petroleum to make alcohol. The first thing they ignore is that the tractors, trucks, barges, trains, etc. used in the process could run on alcohol themselves. The second thing they ignore is the wealth of evidence that even in worst case scenarios (using petroleum based fertilizer and only petroleum fuel for related transportation) it has been proven in the most prestigious scientific journal in existence in a study that examined ALL prior literature on the subject that there is at least an 80% reduction in petroleum use by switching to alcohol (when using anti-ethanol zealot David Pimentel's obviously flawed assumptions) and more than a 90% reduction petroleum according to the assumptions and data of nearly all others publishing on the subject.
Thus, again, alcohol is a major leap forward environmentally.
And unlike EVs it is affordable now, suitable for all prices, sizes, classes, ranges, and power levels of vehicles.
I'd have a lot more respect for you if you actually were able to summon a SUBSTANTIVE response or attempted refutation of former NASA rocket scientist and nuclear engineer Dr. Robert Zubrin's points criticizing hydrogen or defending alcohol fuels. And I'll just go right on ahead posting links to The New Atlantis pages on this issue, however much the facts, figures, equations, and logic on there annoy you because they so devastatingly take down the Hydrogen Hoax
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax
and the spurious myths attacking alcohol:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/in-defense-of-biofuels
But to get the full details you really should read his book:
http://www.energyvictory.net/