EPA backs away from GM claim of 230 mpg for Volt
2011 Chevy Volt - Click above for high-res image gallery
Apparently, we're not the only ones trying to figure out the exact methodology that was used to determine the supposed 230 mile per gallon city rating claimed by General Motors for the upcoming Chevy Volt. In response to a query from the boys at Green Car Advisor, the EPA issued the following statement:
Although it deserves noting that GM CEO Fritz Henderson didn't exactly say the 230 mpg rating was an official figure from the EPA, it sure is being bandied about as if it were gospel in the huge marketing campaign launched ahead of today's announcement.EPA has not tested a Chevy Volt and therefore cannot confirm the fuel economy values claimed by GM. EPA does applaud GM's commitment to designing and building the car of the future - an American-made car that will save families money, significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create good-paying American jobs. We're proud to see American companies and American workers leading the world in the clean energy innovations that will shape the 21st century economy.
When contacted for comment, GM told AutoblogGreen that the EPA is not backing away from the 230 numbers and that it's unlikely that the EPA will come out with a much lower number when they actually get to run a Volt through the official cycle. Further, GM believes that coming out with the 230 rating at this point in time is one way to change people's perception of what kind of car the Volt is.
Gallery: 2011 Chevy Volt
[Source: EPA via Green Car Advisor]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
mike 8:04PM (8/11/2009)
What utter dumb-asses to gamble on this.
That's a huge number.
But now the story will be either the EPA backs it up or not.
If the EPA comes up with 210mpg ... then instead of a huge ad blitz at what anyone would have gone "wow" about they will be spinning wheels answering questions about why they were lying about the 230mpg number.
Why not just wait until they got the official number !?
This is worse than putting it down on a roulette wheel.
Huge possible downside and almost zero upside to the early announcement.
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Snowdog 8:06PM (8/11/2009)
What GM meant to say is that they are getting 230mpg on the test they are designing for the EPA. It is all semantics. It's not an EPA test until finishes tweaking it and gives it to the EPA.
I guess we will need to wait until Consumer Reports tests it, to get some real numbers.
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NeilBlanchard 8:10PM (8/11/2009)
Hi,
We need to respect people's intelligence: the EPA should rate the typical battery range (miles/kWh), and the typical fuel consumption when in the charging mode (mpg).
Sincerely, Neil
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txc 12:14PM (8/12/2009)
NeilBlanchard is exactly right. Put another way, we cannot violate the the Laws of Thermodynamics, and whether one is burning gasoline to power a vehicle or one is burning coal at a power plant to generate electricity to charge a battery pack overnight to power a vehicle later on....we still have to obey the Conservation principle and the Efficiency principle. The bottom line will be what it costs. Right now it costs most of us approximately $2.75 (high where I live!) per 20 or 25 miles. The question will be what will the "Volt" (or, whatever) cost for the same distance (and terrain!!). Philosophical and political questions concerning advantages and disadvantages of burning West Virginia coal vs. Saudi oil will, of course, be important ones also.---txc
Jim McCullough 9:21PM (8/12/2009)
Neil's right. EPA should stick to basic testing and reporting of city and highway results..and leave misleading combined or average calculations well enough alone. GM is creating some fancy new calculation (like maybe add 4x-5x recharges and a gallon of gas for a 230 mpg end result), then lobby EPA to promote the useless info by sticking it on a label.
I hope EPA will report as they already do for electric-only plug-in vehicles and for gas-only non-plug-in vehicles (non-hybrids and existing hybrids). The so-called "new class" of plug-in hybrids should have both sets of numbers. If I'm driving 1000 miles in a day (no plugging in), I want to know how much gas it may need. And there will be others who won't even bother plugging in on local driving..they'll need a gas-only data reference, too.
For calculated averages, EPA could just provide look-up tables for percentages of city vs highway, and electric-only vs gas-only driving.
100 MPG or BUST
Steve 8:16PM (8/11/2009)
If the EPA comes out with anything less than 230 MPG GM is in trouble, again!
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Sebastian 8:20PM (8/11/2009)
Exactly. But I talked to a lot of GM reps today and they say this isn't going to be a problem. They're very confident. So, they're really going all in on this.
Steve 8:29PM (8/11/2009)
Really, so is GM dictating what numbers the EPA should produce? Sounds fishy to me.
Snowdog 8:43PM (8/11/2009)
From what I have read, some current EPA numbers are already given to them by the manufacturers. I consider current EPA numbers pretty suspect already but with the way GM pushed to get the testing that would get the big numbers, this has descended into farce.
See this story from last year. It is clear GM was pushing for this. It was all clear the goal wasn't consumer information it was getting a big number for GM:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a2GgcMQbsIcU&refer=us
Consumer Reports does one thing much better than EPA and that is the fuel economy tests. They buy the car off the lot and do three different real driving tests to get the MPG. It should be entertaining when we get the real numbers from CR.
Shane 8:45PM (8/11/2009)
I've figured it out. GM's test cycle is 45 miles on a fully charged battery.
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Chibi Chaingun - blackhivemedia.com 9:14PM (8/11/2009)
If a driver drives 50 miles in a day (above the average), then you're looking at ~250 mpg. 230 mpg sounds like a good conservative number for most drivers. Driving more (using more gas to charge the battery) will result in lower economy, but driving less than 40-50 would yield extremely high or "infinite" mileage. Putting a number out there for an average I think is a fair claim.
Article about it on CNN:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/11/autos/volt_mpg/?postversion=2009081108
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Nick P. 9:26PM (8/11/2009)
Epic Fail. The last thing we need is confusion about true EV range. Darryl Siry has a detailed blog post of the matter:
http://www.darrylsiry.com/2009/08/gm-volt-gets-unrealistic-230-mpg-rating.html
For me, the most disturbing thing is that GM has put the EPA in a position where it *must* confirm their confusing number or risk looking "Un-American". This number has no other purpose than to make the Prius, LEAF and Tesla look inferior.
GM is still not competing on quality.
Sight...
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sick o jiggy 12:36AM (8/12/2009)
True or false?
A driver can put a gallon of gas in a Chevy Volt and drive for 230 miles.
I think we all know the answer here. It doesn't matter if we include the fully-charged battery (while pretending no BTUs were burned to charge it). It still isn't going 230 miles.
Is this what our country has come to? I though we voted this kind of mentality out of office.
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Dave 8:39AM (8/12/2009)
Look at it this way:
An average driver goes 15,000 miles per year. If they use 65 gallons in a year, thats 230 mpg.
If the Volt gets 50 mpg on gas, that means you can drive 3,250 miles on gasoline and 11,750 miles on battery.
Its plausible.
Of course, I'm still not convinced that it makes financial sense. Electricity isn't free. And the Volt is still ~$20,000 more expensive than a comparable gasoline powered car.
galop 1:26AM (8/12/2009)
Man, you guys are missing the story - Big Time.
Look, let's say I have a 40 mile round-trip commute, every day; and, once a month I have to drive 250 miles to the "Home Office," or to see my elderly mother, or whatever. I can't buy an EV. The infrequent, longer trip makes it a non-player. At least, any time in the near future. Meanwhile, gasoline goes to $5.00/gal, and I'm blowing $400.00 month on gasoline, and sweating bullets that gas goes up, again.
This car is Perfect. Ultra cheap daily driver, comfortable size, and capable of getting much better than average gas mileage on the longer trip.
Whether it gets 60 mpg, or 100 mpg on the highway is the least of my concerns (by the way, the fact that the little flexfuel engine is running at the "optimum" rpms all the time might make for a little better gas mileage than some are expecting.)
And, it runs on E85.
I don't think some of you have wrapped your head around just how much this technology could change our lives.
230 is more than 10 times as good as the average car. 1/10th of 144 Billion Gallons (our annual gasoline usage) is 14.4 Billion Gallons.
Our Ethanol Production should hit 14.4 Billion Gallons by the End of Next Year.
It IS a Game-Changer. Really.
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blog.whitesites.com 1:55AM (8/12/2009)
Ultra cheap huh?
$40K plus doesn't scream ultra cheap to me. The fact is when in gas mode it gets 50 MPG. To determine the equivalent MPG when in electric mode you have to compute the cost per KWH, and convert it to the equivalent cost per gallon of unleaded fuel. I wrote a blog entry about this months ago.
It all depends on what your Utility charges you for electricity.
I already worked the math, click the link for proof.
http://blog.whitesites.com/Chevy-Volt-Charging-Math-doesn-t-add-up__633585085743050177_blog.htm
NALB? 3:15PM (8/13/2009)
Hey Gallop,
Don't waste too much time trying to justify the benefits. They are obvious to those with an open mind. When you add home charging off the new upcoming solar cells and battery technology, you can pretty much kiss oil and gasoline bloodsuckers and speculators goodbye.
It's 2009, soon petroleum based dinosaurs will go the way of Betamax and Cellulose acetate based films.
Posterboy 1:48AM (8/12/2009)
Why is the EPA issuing press releases for GM?
"EPA does applaud GM's commitment to designing and building the car of the future - an American-made car that will save families money, significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create good-paying American jobs. We're proud to see American companies and American workers leading the world in the clean energy innovations that will shape the 21st century economy."
Isn't the EPA supposed to be a neutral, independant testing agency and not a cheerleader for American companies? Do you get bonus points on your MPG rating if your corporate headquarters are in the US or if your car is produced here?
Look, the Chevy Volt is a revolutionary vehicle, and my guess is everyone who reads autoblog.green would love to own one. We might all wish it was cheaper, but seriously, raise you hand if you wouldn't want to drive one. Would you buy one for $10K or even 20K? I sure as shinola would! When it comes to the Volt on Autoblog.green, GM is preaching to the choir.
BUT: In order for a Volt to go 230 miles on 1 gallon of gas, assuming an unconfirmed real MPG of 50mpg with a fully dischaged battery, a driver would have to start with a full battery, and then stop to plug the vehicle in at least 3 times over the course of that 230 miles. Even then, technically they would have only been able to travel 210 miles (50 miles for the gallon of gas, again, an assumption) and 4 charges of 40 miles apiece. So to recap... BREAKING NEWS, a Chevy Volt can go 230 miles on 1 gallon of gas and 5 overnight stops for battery charging!
This kind of marketing and gimmickry is just dumb. Look, if the Volt really can get 50 mpg when running on gas, that freaking phenominal! Only one other available car can do that currently. The Volt will also have the same ability to function very similarly to a pure EV for the first 40 miles, not many vehicles can now, or will be able to make this one claim in the near future. No other near release vehicle can make both of those claims (okay, maybe BYD, but honestly, who really knows and they don't qualify as a major manufacturer... yet) Many kudos to GM and the Volt crew for what it CAN do, so why have marketing make up a bunch of bull to distract from the REAL selling points.
- First 40 miles: pure EV! Never use gas if you travel less than 40 miles per trip!
- After 40 miles: 50 mpg! Even on long trips you will get great fuel economy!
- Flex Fuel capable! You can minimize your petroleum use by filling your tank with E85 or even E100 during summer! (Take that Prius!... Toyota is in league with big oil since you can only run it on gasoline!)*
*(I made this up, I have no idea if the Volt will be flexfuel capable, but GM would be idiots if they didn't make it flexfuel capable - which means of course that they won't)
**(TO GM: Send the check for 1 million dollars for marketing services rendered to Posterboy: c/o Autoblog.Green, Thanks!)
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Stan Peterson 2:47AM (8/12/2009)
Using the rpresnt CAFE test the Volt was rumored tp get 321 mpge. The EPA is drafting a revised test for EREVs ,and under the draft specification GM meaures the Volt as achieving 230 mpge.
But whether it is 230, 210 or 300, its an order of magnitude better than anyhting else on the road or about to get there. Just as Doctor Frank at UC Davis predicted. He ought to know .He he and his grad students have desined the series and series-parallel designs implemented by Toyota, Ford, and GM.
Snowdog 9:14AM (8/12/2009)
EPA isn't neutral.
This is just like the crazy E85 loophole practically made for GM, that lets them only count the 15% of gasoline when calculating fuel economy for CAFE.
Now the ignore 5 full charging cycles of electricity as if was magic mana and claim 230 miles per "gallon". Gallons of electricity?
EPA is a farce.