mulad’s Recent Comments

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  OK

  Alrighty.  That's two more down, hopefully.  I suppose the only remaining challenges might be cost and longevity.  I'm pretty sure they want the battery pack to be in the $3000 to $5000 range, probably only half of what it costs today.  Will simple mass production reduce the costs enough?  Possibly.

  Then, the batteries need to last the life of an average car (what, 15 to 18 years?), or probably at least the half-life of an average car (7-10).  There are a lot of simulations that can be done, but that's something that won't be known for certain until the cars have been on the road for a while.  Misjudged, it could end up being a huge cost to the company in the future, depending on how warranties are structured.

  So yeah, to GM, it all comes down to how much money they'll either need to spend to cover repairs (though more likely, they're worried about losing repair income they currently get).On From the guy who wrote the book on the GM EV1, literally posted 2 years, 5 months ago 8 Responses

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  Addressing some weirdnesses

  It's true that the car stops once the batteries are dead, and you have to wait for the recharge.  However, most people don't go on 200+ mile trips very often.  That range would probably cover well over 90% of the population over 90% of the time.

  I agree that an electric with an auxiliary power unit as in the Volt is a good idea though, allowing the flexibility to go on long trips when necessary.

  I think that the apparent mention of a hydrogen "engine" for the Volt is probably just because the writer was attempting to save a little space and avoid getting into an unnecessary discussion about fuel cells.

  Yes, the math doesn't make much sense for GM saying Volt batteries aren't possible.  However, you have to look at all of the requirements they've set out:  a 16kWh pack fitting into a certain volume (which I forget), weighing 400 pounds, and able to handle about 4000 charge cycles.  Current battery technology reaches most of these targets, except perhaps for the 4000-charge number.  They also want to have batteries which would only require passive cooling rather than the active (liquid-based) cooling which is used in other vehicles like the Tesla Roadster.

  Are they trying to make the task seem impossible by wishing away problems that could be easily solved by simple engineering?  Well, yeah, probably...On From the guy who wrote the book on the GM EV1, literally posted 2 years, 5 months ago 8 Responses

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  Other feedstocks

  Corn is not all that great of a source for ethanol.  Ethanol needs to be disconnected from corn.  Using existing techniques, it would probably be more effective to use sugar cane in the south and sugar beets in the north.  Then of course there's cellulosic ethanol and other techniques still being developed.

  But personally, I got a diesel car when I was needing new wheels last year.  Biodiesel makes more sense in a lot of ways, but unfortunately it's still nowhere near as common as ethanol.On Once subsidies and tariffs are removed, watch out posted 2 years, 9 months ago 7 Responses

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  B-roll

  This looks like "b-roll" footage provided by GM and meant to be spliced into news reports about the Volt, where the volume is usually cut out.  I saw the first chunk of this video on YouTube a few days back, and didn't think the car sounded loud (though the sound was "unrefined").  This version of the video does seem louder for some reason...  But, since the only point of reference for sound is that lady going in and out of the house, it's hard to say if my headphones are just at the wrong level.

  Still, my understanding is that the prototype on display at the auto show isn't actually functional.  This thing likely has some random motor thrown in, possibly with significant gear reduction to get enough power to the wheels (it might just be a lowly 5hp motor or something).  Whatever gears are in there might also be temporary and not "broken in" or there just might not be any sound deadening in the vehicle yet.

  The "conspiracy" is simply that the vehicle has only been in development for less than a year and still has years to go to reach production.  Like Ryan said, they're just showing off the body in the video, and demonstrating how customers would plug it in every day.On It ain't pretty posted 2 years, 9 months ago 3 Responses