GM unveals 230mpg vehicle

[Crashoran]

http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/11/auto...ion=2009081108

[Marv800]

Its bullshit LIES they way they determine "230 mpg". Basically, the car will run on batteries (charged by pluggin it into a wall) until it runs out after 40 miles, and then it reverts to gasoline. GM comes up with this arbitrary number by assuming you plug it in for a full charge for about 4 or 5 cycles every time you burn one gallon of gasoline.

Hell, GM could have just said it goes a 1,000,000 MPG.

Stupid lies and incompetance at the BIG 3.. pfft. Should have just let them die their miserable death.

[ronocnikral]

battery only lasts for 40 miles. so with their logic, if you drive 39 miles your fuel effeciency would be infinite.

"if the driver continues on to 80 miles, total fuel economy would drop to about 100 mpg. And if the driver goes 300 miles, the fuel economy would be just 62.5 mpg."

nothing special or news. Marv said most of it.

[Tom]

If I had one, I would probably only drive it round trip to work, which is less than 20 miles each way.

[Redneck]

You still need to recharge the battery. I think it doesn't make much of a difference if you burn the fossils or the power plant does.

[bondarnes]

Originally Posted by Redneck

You still need to recharge the battery. I think it doesn't make much of a difference if you burn the fossils or the power plant does.

You set up a mini wind turbine to charge it overnight. If there is no wind then you get to bicycle to work the next day.

[Redneck]

Originally Posted by bondarnes

You set up a mini wind turbine to charge it overnight. If there is no wind then you get to bicycle to work the next day.

If there is no wind you need to recharge it by solar energy over night.

[Jenny Z]

Originally Posted by ronocnikral

battery only lasts for 40 miles. so with their logic, if you drive 39 miles your fuel effeciency would be infinite.

"if the driver continues on to 80 miles, total fuel economy would drop to about 100 mpg. And if the driver goes 300 miles, the fuel economy would be just 62.5 mpg."

nothing special or news. Marv said most of it.

62.5 still isn't anything to laugh at...

[d2creative]

At a base price of $40k... it better get some dammmmmnnnn good mileage.

I typically don't drive more than 30 miles per day during the week, so I would definitely get the high city mpg.

I have to admit... it's definitely the best looking hybrid imho.

[groovyone]

Originally Posted by Marv800

Its bullshit LIES they way they determine "230 mpg". Basically, the car will run on batteries (charged by pluggin it into a wall) until it runs out after 40 miles, and then it reverts to gasoline. GM comes up with this arbitrary number by assuming you plug it in for a full charge for about 4 or 5 cycles every time you burn one gallon of gasoline.

Hell, GM could have just said it goes a 1,000,000 MPG.

Stupid lies and incompetance at the BIG 3.. pfft. Should have just let them die their miserable death.

There are EPA standards for calculating equivallent MPG, but I agree it is still a lot of slight-of-hand.

FYI, Ford didn't 'borrow' any taxpayer money and posted a sales gain last month.

[ChristopherCoy]

Originally Posted by Marv800

Stupid lies and incompetance at the BIG 3.. pfft. Should have just let them die their miserable death.

... soooooo your NOT a GM fan I guess?

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

OK with electric around .13 a kilowat hour it will cost you about $1 to $1.20 to recharge the car for the 40 miles so cost is around .025 to .03 per mile for FUEL cost. If it gets say 30mpg on gas and gas runs $3.00 a gallon that fuel cost is .10 a mile so best to run on electirc as much as possible so trips for the day under 40 miles makes the car the most efficient economically.

Now if they can get some low cost solar cells on the roof/hood/trunk that can trickle charge the sucker during the day from sunlight then you would get a few more miles while your parked at work. This will lead to parking garages restricting their roof parking to cars that can use the solar power to recharge with.

Now the biggest dealbreaker is the cost of the car- if it is $10,000 over a hybrid then your cost for 5 years is $2,000 more per year to operate and to recover $2,000 in fuel you would need to drive $2,000 /.07 or 28,000+ miles on ELECTRIC which is impossible unless you are charging the thing up constantly and never burning gasoline. This works out to about 75 miles per day with the car on electric the whole 75 which says that there has to be a recharge station/point that will charge you less than $.13 a kilowat hour.

Hey would you let a friend who comes over to visit plug his car in while visiting? What if he handed you a $1?

Also no mention on how fast the recharge cycle is.

That $40K is the kick in the teeth that will make these LEASE only vehicles since after about 4 years you will need to replace the battery pack and no telling how much that will be! Now a 36 or 40 month lease may be the way to go and then turn it back over to GM and let them worry about the batteries going DOA.

As to the windmill solar thing what sort of juice stream does the car require to take a charge? Also HOW HOT WILL THESE BATTERIES GET during recharge? (we all know how laptop/camera batteries can get warm/hot when recharging).

[groovyone]

Autoblog Explains GM's math...

[ronocnikral]

Originally Posted by Jenny Z

62.5 still isn't anything to laugh at...

i'm not laughing. just pointing out that their logic is flawed in their calculations. if they said it got 62.5 mpg, fine. but to say 230 mpg and then clarify later, not fine. And pretty sure not up to EPA ratings.

[Redneck]

Not to forget the cost for recharging the batteries. How do you think the electricity rates will be when everyone depends on recharging his car batteries every night?