Nissan Scoffs At Chevy Volt: Our Leaf Will Get 367 MPG

"Seems like a bit too much smack talking for two cars that don't even exist yet." I wouldn't say they don't exist yet. I haven't followed the Leaf very closely, but the Volt seems to be more physically there than say, oh... the Tesla Model S. Still, with EPA ratings still in flux (and ultimately meaningless to consumers) this trash talk is pretty silly.

How is mpg calculated for a pure electric car? Do they average electricity costs across the country, or pick the cheapest? Same questions with gas. My meter certainly doesn't read in gallons of electricity.

Did Nissan explain that the car will only be sold in select markets where charging infrastucture is set up? Of course they didn't. They also didn't mention you may have to lease the car like the MiniE or FCX. Nissan is planning to roll out a few thousand for the US based on what I read. This car will not be widely available for consumer purchase. They are just jealous. They also forgot to mention it can only go 100m- period.

I'll second the comment that wonders how you calculate mpg on a purely electric vehicle.

Yea, I know they're having fun, but...

As much as I don't like the 230mpg claim, at least GM is following the EPA rules for making that claim. Nissan is not.

Oh yeah? Well my bicycle gets 4 million miles per gallon. Beat that!

This just shows how ridiculous and misleading GM's 230mpg claim was to begin with.

You can't rate a battery using miles per gallon.

They should have just used 2 ratings: a range rating for the battery and a mpg rating for the gasoline mode.

This fight seems a bit pointless to me. And they haven't even released these cars yet either, which makes it more pointless.

GM had something better -- the EV1 with a range of 50-60 miles. ;)

In a way, GM is lying -- let's do the math.

miles per gallon = miles driven divided by gallons used.

If you used zero gallons because you traveled less than 40 miles, YOU ARE DIVIDING BY ZERO = BADNESS

Actually, estreka, your bike is like my bike: it gets infinity MPG!

http://www.threadless.com/product/562/Infinity_MPG

"They should have just used 2 ratings: a range rating for the battery and a mpg rating for the gasoline mode." They need an EPA compatible rating for CAFE regulations, and that is about all the 230 number is good for.

they should rate all cars as miles per kilowatt hour.
MPKWH.
distance per unit energy.

Cuz you ain't paying less, whatever form the energy comes in.
11 cents per kwh my butt.

1 gallon gasoline = 115,000 BTU = 33.7 kWh
If 1 kWh = "11 cents", then 33.7 kWh = $3.70.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_per_gallon_of_gasoline_equivalent

"1 gallon" of electricity costs $3.70. Gas prices will have to stay high for electricity to work, assuming electricity even costs a mere "11 cents"... in Middleofnowhere, Kansas, maybe.

oh but wait, they claim 230-367 mpg... so theoretically electricity would cost less... as long as it's "11 cents per gallon."

In my world it's 22 cents per gallon for regular tier, so i'll assume it's 25 cents per gallon if i'm in an electric car owning tier. That makes the Volt 101.2 mpg price equivalent.

...but is that equivalent to EPA 2007 mpg or EPA 2008+ mpg... or 1950 mpg...
Our "mpg" is just a measurement test the American EPA created.
In UK their "mpg" is just a measurement test the UK government created. What "mpg" world do the electric cars live in?

And how much does a high amp charge box cost? Another $1,500 like a phill?

lol@GM

The real question is: how much fuel will the Volt have to burn to generate the electricity to keep it going once the initial charge depletes? That's probably one big area the EPA will look at.

The idea with the Volt is to charge it in the evening, through the night, when electricity rates are lower.

I'd rather pay the premium for the Volt with the peace of mind that when the juice is gone, I'm not stuck somewhere for hours waiting for a recharge... providing you can find just any old place to plug it in.

Besides, from what I've read, you buy the Leaf and LEASE the batteries! Absurd!!

Leaf = short-trip city car
Volt = cross-country cruiser

Volt vs. Leaf? LOL, NO COMPARISON!

Oh, and GM is using an EPA-like system. If that's the case, then the EPA might say the real-world estimates are even higher. Remember when GM posted 30 MPG for the new 4 cylinder Equinox? Well, EPA came out with 32 MPG. If a gas-electric combustion engine driven Prius can get 50 MPG and has SECONDS of electric-only driving, there's no reason an EREV can't get 5 times that amount. EPA-rated 250 MPG? Maybe. Who knows?

I guess we'll all have to wait and see!

"You can't rate a battery using miles per gallon."

Volt uses gas too, its not a purely electric vehicle. That's the whole point here.

Does the volt have a really small gas tank? I keep seeing 300 mile range and I'm wondering why it'd have such a tiny range? I'd expect a car like this to have a range well over 500 miles.

redgeminipa: "The real question is: how much fuel will the Volt have to burn to generate the electricity to keep it going once the initial charge depletes?"

Rumors are saying 50mpg. That's pretty friggin good.

"The idea with the Volt is to charge it in the evening, through the night, when electricity rates are lower."

This I have a hard time with. All the EVs claim this and they all claim electrical rates that are absurdly low. They must live next to a dam. For me to get low nighttime rates, I need to be on a plan that shoves my daytime rates through the roof.

"I'd rather pay the premium for the Volt with the peace of mind that when the juice is gone,"

The Volt is not the vehicle of the future. It's a good transition vehicle to the vehicle of the future. We're not at a point where the vehicle of the future is practical. The Volt will help us get there better than anything else currently offered.

"Besides, from what I've read, you buy the Leaf and LEASE the batteries! Absurd!!"

I don't think it's absurd. I do think that comparing the price of the Leaf to other vehicles, without taking into account the price of the battery, is absurd.

If you're interested in how Nissan and GM are coming up with those numbers, see here:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/automotive_news/4327715.html

The punchline, though, is simply (as quoted from above link):

"It's an artifact of the way the EPA has structured the test cycle. And incidentally, the EPA has said it cannot confirm the Volt's 230 mpg claim until it has tested the vehicle officially. The EPA test normally uses an 11-mile loop to do what is referred to as the Federal Test Procedure (FTP). Based on the results of an 18-month study done by Argonne National Labs, the EPA tests plug-in hybrids like this: Drive the vehicle without recharging, through 51 miles of FTP repeatedly. This means most of this cycle will be on battery power—in the case of the Volt, almost four full FTP tests end-to-end. The total mileage includes, in the case of the Volt, 11 miles or so with the internal combustion engine running. Figure out the total amount of gasoline consumed, and divide for the mileage. If all this seems rather arbitrary, it is. This procedure obviously rewards vehicles with larger battery pack capacity. But it's based on studies that found that 78 percent of drivers go fewer than 40 miles per day. The upcoming Prius PHEV, with an electric-only range of approximately 20 miles, won't look quite so compelling."

Just to follow up, using the method I just mentioned, the Volt would go 40 miles on just battery power, and 11 miles on gasoline power. So in order to come up with the 230 mpg claim, the gasoline engine would have to getting about 49.6 mpg during the final 11 miles of the test look. This is right inline with the ~50 mpg that has been rumored for the engine.

Ultimately, I don't believe that this testing method gives an accurate one to one comparison of driving economy figures between gasoline and electric vehicles. As the article states, it heavily biases vehicles with larger battery packs. In principle, if a car used a battery pack with a range >51 mpg they could claim an economy of infinite mpg under the EPA test cycle. Obviously rediculous. Something better must be developed for rating these vehicles.

Thank you auprof! Finally someone dissecting the methodology from a objective, scientific standpoint. This is what needs to happen if we truly want accurate figures.

auprof,
clearly one can add up the 40 miles of Miles Per kWh, with the 11 miles of Miles Per Gallon.
It makes no sense to ignore the 40 miles of Miles Per kWh, because obviously those miles weren't free.
And as I mentioned above, mpkWh and mpg are compatible units.

1 mpkWh = 33.7 mpg.
So you can add them up. Instead of ignore those 40 miles, which weren't free.

Don't worry; there will be enough affluent eco-weenies to fill the order books of both cars.

billit9,
I agree with you in some respect, it is a better measure of efficiency, but the 1 mpkWh = 33.7 mpg relation is a little miss-leading as well. It merely gives a conversion of miles-per-gallon-used to miles-per-energy-consumed. While a helpful for comparisons of raw efficiency, it lacks a measure of the cost to run the vehicle. For instance, achieving 5 mpkWh could cost different amounts depending on whether the vehicle achieved that number running on only electric power, only gasoline power, or a combination of the two (since the cost of a "gallon" or electricity and gallon of gasoline are different).

If your goal is simply to be "green", you want the lowest mpkWh possible, regardless of cost to run (since even the electricity isn't completely "green" unless you are getting your electricity from wind generation, solar, etc.). But if your desire is for cost savings, the mpkWh lacks a measure of that.

Obviously, costs of both gasoline and electricity change at a nearly constant rate, and vary by region. So making a compelling calculation of cost-per-mile is virtually impossible. I'm not offering a solution to this problem, only to point out that the measure of mpg is useless for comparison of gas and electric vehicles. And while mpkWh is better, it still does not give a good sense of relative cost to run. Which, of course, is what I am interested in if I am going to pony up $40k.

My biggest issue is that when the EPA releases figures, it is done with some authority, giving the impression of scientific rigor. However, they are clearly, as several of us have pointed out, ignoring a significant aspect of the cost of running the vehicle. Unacceptable.

If I buy a Volt, I plan to pair it up with a solar system for my house, so my recharging will not only be green, but also free. My commute is 54 miles per day, round trip. Assuming the 40 mile all-electric range of the Volt, I would be running on gas power for only 14 miles. Assuming the Volt gets 40 MPG highway (probably conservative - I think it'll do much better since there is virtually no drivetrain energy loss with no transmission, differential, etc.) I would be using 0.375 gallons per day, which at $2.75/gallon works out to $5.00 per week in fuel costs, and $240 per year. Electricity would be free as I'm using solar power. Contrast this with $2,418 in annual fuel costs for the vehicle I'm driving now ('99 Suburban diesel) on the same commute, and I'll be saving $2,178 per year in fuel with the Volt. And I'll be saving an additional $2,000 per year in my home's electricity usage.

Granted this won't be cheap: $40k for the Volt, and $35k for the solar system, but this is before government tax incentives and rebates, which will push the Volt price down to about $35k, and the solar system to about $25k. Based on the $4,000 per year in fuel/electricity savings, the solar system will pay for itself in about 6 1/2 years. The entire system (Volt and solar array) will pay for itself in 8 1/2 years, assuming a Volt costs about $10k more than a comparably sized and equipped traditional powered gas car.

Those are some attractive economics, and it excludes such scenarios that would make it even more attractive such as what happens when gas goes above $2.75/gallon, the resale value of a used Volt, and the value a solar system adds to my house if I sold it.

I'm seriously considering it. And I'm no greenie - at all. I'll still keep my firebreathing gasoline drinking high horsepower toys for the weekends. :D

Stingray,
I agree it would make great sense to have a Volt or other electric car if you can use solar (or a wind turbine) to generate "free" electricity. These systems make sense when they can pay for themselves in 5-10 years (albeit w/tax credits) . I may seriously consider it also, and am not a green lefty... pretty right wing, but like the idea of being independent of the utility co & upcoming tax on carbon). Plus our grid goes down several times per year (storms love overhead lines!). Volt intrigues me but my commute is only 7 miles round-trip; my wife puts 15K per year on her Prius (driving kids around town) and if we ever moved I might commute more. Maybe I'll get a Volt in 4 years after the Prius is paid off....?