GM Electric

Submitted by sticks on Mon, 01/08/2007 - 09:24

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Technology

I figure that this is something that atrox would approve of.... GM's electric, named Volt, looks to be like it will be a production car. Some of the features: Pure electric... The gas (e85-capabale) engine that it has is not coupled to the drivetrain at all. Pluggable - recharges in 6 1/2 hrs from a home 110v line Mileage - 40 miles on the charge of the batteries alone or a whopping 640 miles with the engine charging the batteries as you drive up to 70 mph. Seems pretty impressive to me, but I'll freely admit that I've not looked much at them... The linked story has more details and seems to point to actual production in the not too distant future.... Initial story found on /. Writeup on the Volt

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RE: GM Electric

Submitted by atrox (not verified) on Mon, 01/08/2007 - 17:59.

Actually, I know this will make me come off whiny and irritating as hell (but that never stopped me before ;)) - but I think "pluggable" is stupid. I know pluggable is getting a lot of press lately, and people are talking about hybrid gas-electrics that *also* plug in (and some company sells plug in kits for Prius' now) - but pluggable just means "I am going to use coal instead of gas" in 99% of the country. Now, if we could stop using coal power plants (or cut back), and start the giant solar array in Arizona project, or the huge wind farms off the coasts THEN pluggable would be cool as hell. As it is, pluggable is stupid. Though I do have to say the Volt is mighty impressive in its own right.

RE: GM Electric

Submitted by jeepmutt (not verified) on Tue, 01/09/2007 - 07:16.

jesus christ, how the hell else are you going to recharge the batteries? You have to have a way to get the magic juice into the car... This one gives you two options, the slightly better e-85 stuff or the plug. If you're a class a tree hugger living off the grid, you still have to have a way to get the juice into the damned car. Hence a plug. A car that is not pluggable is just wasting time. This one is beyond whiny, although it certainly hits "irritating as hell"

RE: GM Electric

Submitted by atrox (not verified) on Tue, 01/09/2007 - 10:00.

Man, read the post, geeze. I am not against the "plug" itself, but the fact that the plug is really just a connection to a coal powered power plant, under current circumstances, and that is LAME AS HELL (still a fossil fuel, still environmentally bad news, still inefficient - overall STUPID). If the plug connects to a geothermal, hydro, wind, solar, etc type grid then heck yeah it's cool. But ignoring where the electricity comes from is asinine.

RE: GM Electric

Submitted by jeepmutt (not verified) on Tue, 01/09/2007 - 11:46.

I did read the post... it was a nitpicky thing to bitch about so I got all preachy and off-topic. Seems like thats how most of these types of arguments go :)

RE: GM Electric

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 01/24/2007 - 13:05.

Today\'s coal plant has a heat effeciency of more than 35%, those supercritical power plant has head effeciency of more than 40%, ultra critical power plant has 48% heat effeciency. That means, 48% of energy contained in the fuel is transfered into electricity. Even taking into account of losses during transmission, it\'s still much more than the less than 20% heat effeiciency of internal combustion automobile. So the argument that using plug-in hybrid merely transfers the pollution is invalid.

RE: GM Electric

Submitted by atrox (not verified) on Wed, 01/24/2007 - 13:23.

"So the argument that using plug-in hybrid merely transfers the pollution is invalid." No it isn't. You are presenting a false dichotomy. I never implied or said that plugin-electric was worse than an internal combustion engine. I said, we need to get over BOTH of these stupid technologies (coal power plants, and gasoline fed internal combustion engines) to really solve the problem. Once again, coal AND gas, are not the way to go, regardless of which one of those two is "better" with "heat effeciency" [sic] and "head effeciency" [sic].