[Mdkcheatz]

Conversion Table

Miles Per Gallon (U.S.)230.00

Kilometer Per Liter 97.78

MPG (U.K. gallons) 276.23​

A new hybrid vehicle (the Chevy Volt) is said to go an unbelievable 230 MPG . This beats the current hybrids which go about 50MPG and your standard car which goes between 10-30MPG.

This vehicle is said to be released 2010 and Est. of about 40,000USD.

I had been doing some research on this car and many people are spreading false rumors about this. The facts are based on Manufacturer details so they are not fully tested.

The Battery can be charged by a power outlet at night and can drive the car about 40 Miles (64.37376) on battery alone before it needs recharging or before it consumes gas (petrol). How it works is that the car will use the battery up before it consumes the gas. Theoretically you can travel locally without have to buy gas.

Now some people has been saying that it isn't worth the money you save because you are investing and extra 20K (USD) into this car. Let me do the math (there are many variables which give too many different answers. So this calculation is based on the average American using and American car:

Assume 20MPG
12,000 Annual Miles @ the current rate of 2.5USD/Gallon.
(annual miles are based on the lesser average in the US)

Based on the above details, your total average cost of gas annually comes out to 1500USD.

An American car will last about 200K Miles before you need a new one. (Japanese cars will go about 400K, but you are also paying double the money for it if in the US).

200k/12k = approx. 16.7 years. Then times that by 1.5K = 25,050USD Total Gas Cost.

For electric cost: Assuming an average electric cost of 8.7 cents per KWA, the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline would cost $1.02. [(0.087 * 37 / 0.95) * 0.3] If you can get your electric power at off-peak rates available from some utilities, your cost may be half this much.

(Note: GM are trying to guarantee that the battery @ 5k USD per unit, will last at least 10 years.)

Over 20 years the expected total cost of operation of this hybrid is assumed at 9k USD + 5K for the battery replacement after 10+ years. Total = 14K

*notes: we are not factoring in parts from either car, it is assumed that parts for both are equivalent.*

25K - 14K = 11K

So based on theory alone, you will loose 9,000 USD by buying the Chevy Volt. But this does not factor in owners who can charge up for free, in which case you will only loose about 4K assuming you buy a new battery.

Now keep in mind that this car qualifies for a 3,000USD tax credit every year so you can actually make out big if your income tax is 3K + a year. Based on the IRS chart you need an income of 30,000USD @ 10% cut to get back 3K.

I hope this gives you some ideas.

 

[makotech222]

yeah its faulty/marketing ploy. i wont buy a new car till at least full electric, or full hydrogen cars are available.
Im not a big fan for any of these hybrids. and america's electric infrastructure is horrendous, thanks to reagonomics.

 

[Dennemark]

loose 9,000 USD

Not even an extra penny ? lol


Thats quite crazy. Luckily, im just 15 so i dont have to deal with crap like this......yet.

 

[Spyhop]

The Chevy Volt Gets 230 mpg? Only if you use bad math. : Good Math, Bad Math

The Chevy Volt Gets 230 mpg? Only if you use bad math.

Category: Bad Statistics
Posted on: August 11, 2009 1:35 PM, by Mark C. Chu-Carroll

Here's a quick bit of obnoxious bad math. I saw this myself in a link to an AP article via Salon.com, and a reader sent me a link to the same story via CNN. It's yet another example of what I call a metric error: that is, the use of a measurement in a way that makes it appear to mean something very different than what it really means.

Here's the story. Chevy is coming out with a very cool new car, the Volt. It's a hybrid with massive batteries. It plugs in to your household electricity when you're home to charge its batteries. It operates as an electric car until its batteries start to get low, and then it starts running a small gas motor to power a generator. It's a very cool idea. I'm honestly excited about cars like the volt - and Google helped develop the technology behind it, which biases me even more in its favor. So you'd expect me to be very supportive of the hype around it, right? I wish I could. But GM has decided that the best way to promote it is to use bad math to tell lies to make it look even better than it really is.

Chevy has announced that for city driving, the Volt will get gas mileage of 230 miles per gallon.

That's nonsense. Pure, utter rubbish.

The trick is that they're playing with the definition of mileage. In city driving, the Volt is primary an electric car: it's powered by its batteries which you must recharge every night, not by gasoline. On average, you can drive it for about 40 miles on a full charge before it needs to start using any gasoline.

The "mileage" figure, as it's presented, is really meaningless - because it's being presented for a situation in which the gasoline engine almost never runs at all.

They compute it by basically saying: "If I fully charge the car battery every night, how far will I drive the car in typical city commuting conditions before it's consumed a gallon of gas".

What if you drive your volt around the city all day? Your mileage will drop to around 50 miles per gallon once you've driven more than 40 miles. If you drive your car 100 miles in a day, you'll consume a bit over a gallon of gas. That's very impressive. But it's absolutely not what you'd expect after being told that it gets 230 miles per gallon.

The method that GM used to produce that mileage figure is extremely dishonest and completely uninformative. The "real" effective mileage (excluding the cost of charging the car - which will be significant!) varies depending on the length of your commute.

My wife could commute in a Volt, and never put gas in it: her commute is about 12 miles each way - so she'd effectively have infinite mileage according to GMs method. If I commuted in a volt, I'd get something around 288 miles per gallon. (My commute is 24 miles each direction, leaving me with 8 miles per day running on gas; so about 6 days of my commute would consume a gallon of gas; that's 288 miles.) If one of my friends, who commutes 45 miles each direction per day, were to commute in a Volt, he'd end up burning a gallon of gas per day - getting around 90 miles per gallon.

Plug-in hybrids are a new class of car. You can't really describe their efficiency compared to a conventional gasoline-powered car using a single familiar figure. You could present energy efficiency in terms of a unit like "distance per kilojoule", but most people won't have a clue of what that means. The honest way to describe it is to say "Up to 40 miles without consuming gas, and then 50 miles per gallon". That's not so horribly difficult, now is it?

But it doesn't sound nearly as impressive as "230 miles per gallon".

 

[Silenus]

this is old news and the Nissan Leaf (I think is called) gets better results.

 

[Phil]

Its an electric car lol

 

[Mdkcheatz]

Hey dont shoot the messenger, I'm just giving facts based on theory and what I'm told.

 

[Spyhop]

Hey dont shoot the messenger, I'm just giving facts based on theory and what I'm told.

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is, and you should check your facts before making an announcement

 

[Silenus]

Offtopic: I thought you couldn't use the word "Banned" as a custom title.
Why is he posting while banned?

 

[masta.g.86]

**** all you tree huggin' hippies! V8 or GTFO!

Spoiler

But seriously, GTFO.

 

[Phil]

I agree.

 

[ozzgx4]

Gwizz FTW!!!!

 

[snickothemule]

Gwiz *shudder* the only car in the world that is structurally weaker than a table.

230MPG sounds absolutely ridiculous when applied to real world driving conditions especially with 40 miles from a full charge which is absolutely pitiful. Once battery technology is up to scratch (and its getting there) then the electric car will be more feasible and quite worthy and the same thing goes for hydrogen vehicles. Until then V8's ahoy!

 

[ElijahTW]

I will not buy any kind of hybrid and/or electric car for at least 10-20 years. Why? Because first of all, hybrids are way more expensive than regular cars and the gas savings would barely make it worth it. Unless you travel a huge amount, which I don't.

The biggest reason though.... if your car ever needs serviced out-of-warranty, you're f**ked, completely and utterly f**ked, because it's pretty hard to find a mechanic that can service a hyrid/electric... and if you do, it'll cost you a big chunk of change.

 

[Spyhop]

**** all you tree huggin' hippies! V8 or GTFO!

Spoiler

But seriously, GTFO.

Such a shocker you're from alabama.

I will not buy any kind of hybrid and/or electric car for at least 10-20 years. Why? Because first of all, hybrids are way more expensive than regular cars and the gas savings would barely make it worth it. Unless you travel a huge amount, which I don't.

The biggest reason though.... if your car ever needs serviced out-of-warranty, you're f**ked, completely and utterly f**ked, because it's pretty hard to find a mechanic that can service a hyrid/electric... and if you do, it'll cost you a big chunk of change.

TBH, I think we're barking up the wrong tree with electric. Electric power generation, though much more efficient, still pollutes. And the chemicals from the batteries are huge pollutants. It would probably be okay if everyone would dispose of them properly, but this is society we're talking about here.

 

[masta.g.86]

Such a shocker you're from alabama.

At least use capitalization properly...

The current state of hybrid cars is such that their cons make them as bad, if not worse than fossil fuel burning cars. The other thing that irks me is that for the most part, these cars are a response from manufacturers to play into the belief that people who buy these cars are doing something good for the environment.

The only Go "Green" incentive that I've embraced are those CFL bulbs. Why? They make a good bit of difference on my monthly power bill. There are no incentives to buy a "green" car. You'd have to really believe in global warming (strange that this has been the coolest summer in the Southern US in years oO) or just be a total rube to buy a hybrid or an electric car.

 

[Dynamo]

You'd have to really believe in global warming (strange that this has been the coolest summer in the Southern US in years oO) or just be a total rube to buy a hybrid or an electric car.

Check up North. Hottest its been since.. ever.

Here is what July 28 looked like in record breaking temperatures across B.C. Older records are in brackets:

Metro Vancouver.

Pitt Meadows cs 35.5 (35.2 1998),

Greater Victoria .

Victoria airport yyj 32.9 (29.4 1958)

Fraser Valley.

Abbotsford airport yxx 36.2 ( 34.4 1958)
Hope airport yhe 38.0 ( 37.8 1958).

Agassiz cda 35.9 (38.3 1958 ).

Sea to sky.

Squamish 34.8 (32.0 1985).
Whistler 36.6 (35.7 1998).

Pemberton airport cs 40.5 (39.3 1998).

Powell River airport 33.5 (32.8 1958).
Vancouver Island.

Nanaimo airport 35.5 (35.0 1958).

Tofino airport 28.5 (26.9 1985).

Port Alberni 39.7 ( 37.5 1998).
North & Cenral coast.
Terrace airport yxt 36.0 (34.4 1971).
Bella Coola 37.5 (36.7 1899).

Chilcotin-Cariboo

Clinton auto 33.0 (30.2 2004).
Tatlayoko lake 35.1 (35.0 1998).
Central interior.
Burns Lake 33.2 (31.1 1958).

Smithers airport 35.5 (33.7 1998)

It was hot almost everywhere in B.C.

And that wasn't even for the big heat days. It hit 43c at my house.

Not saying it has anything to do with the hybrid cars. It's just been the complete opposite of what you say up north.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/07/28/bc-heatwave-alberni-vancouver-uv-smog.html

 

[masta.g.86]

Hence the reason I said Southern US. I remember Detroit in 1995. It was in excess of 105F. A lot of senior citizens died due to the heat.

Either way, global warming is just a farce created to control peoples' perceptions and actions and to steer a county's economy in a specific direction. What happened 10,000 years ago? An Ice Age. What about 20,000 years prior to that? Another Ice Age. It's pretty egotistical to think that humans could cause world-wide climate change in less than 200 years of industrial activity.

 

[DaStinger77]

Although I'm sure their numbers are blown up for marketing I still want to see real results. Even if it does save me $100 a month in gas, with it being plugged in to charge all the time is it going to cost me $200 more on my electricity bill?

 

[gamefreak94]

I will not buy any kind of hybrid and/or electric car for at least 10-20 years. Why? Because first of all, hybrids are way more expensive than regular cars and the gas savings would barely make it worth it. Unless you travel a huge amount, which I don't.

The biggest reason though.... if your car ever needs serviced out-of-warranty, you're f**ked, completely and utterly f**ked, because it's pretty hard to find a mechanic that can service a hyrid/electric... and if you do, it'll cost you a big chunk of change.

Not to mention that when (note "when" not "if") the super-duper high-tech battery starts to deteriorate and you need to replace it a replacement unit will probably cost 75% of the price of the car itself >_<