You sound like someone who uses his brain and not his heart, but there are a few issues with your post:
1) The price is not really $250,000 because GM is going to pay some of that Gov't handout back (wink-wink)
2) You appear to have the Volt confused with an electric vehicle.It is actually a plug-in hybrid.GM has done what they are most known for; throw money into marketing instead of good engineering. But don't tell anyone that it is a plug in hybrid.Just unplug that thinking cap and accept what you are told, citizen. I have seen some people have a visceral reaction and start creating the most convoluted definitions for "hybrid" that you can imagine. Note all of the air time the Volt gets on these sites instead of the plug-in Prius.
If you just 'felt' more, you would go out a find a renewable energy company and pay a premium for the same electrons I am getting cheaper.You may want to think that you are supporting the expansion of energy from wind, solar, etc... But the truth is that government set-asides and subsidies pay the lion share for construction of these green curiosities.Your extra money goes to their maintenance. If they were actually feasible (i.e. competitive with other technologies) the utility companies would have constructed them a long time ago.
I find it funny how many "engineers" buy into the whole green thing.You would think that as a group, engineers would be more critical thinkers.We have the technology in energy sources and vehicles we have today because they are the best solutions to the needs in terms of efficiency, producability, and feasibility.R&D has always been working the basics trying to come up with better, but nothing yet has proven to be a better solution.Today we are entering a time when the government and others are trying to skew the feasibility portion of the equation through regulation and taxation, but unfortunately the alternatives just doesn't make in their current state of the art.Some are close, but this isn't horseshoes.Without the market interference, green does not work today.
The head development engineer drives 50 miles to the GMProving ground and and back every day. He charges at home at night and he recharges at work. Then he grabs his wife and throws the kids in the back and drives up north to their cottage and then drives back on Sunday to start all over again.
His average MPG is 100 on a weekly basis.
Now who knows how much of that juice is renewable. Probably very little.
But there are some advantages here, I hope you see.
The Volt is a great Automobile, and the Converj or ELR is way beyond that.
In the realm of the renewable stuff, It's time for a concerted effort to properly engineer the wind engines. The 3 bladed fans are not the symbol for hope for humanity, they are the symbol of very poor engineering and the lemming instinct.
Nothing like lemmings eh? Particularly when it comes to complaining about Taxes without ever having complained about wars.
And what if owners DON'T get email indicating renewable energy is available? Will they get red in the face and refuse to charge their batteries? Won't hapen in either case.
Like money, energy is fungible. A delicious irony to contemplate is the energy wasted in the dance between marketeers and rabid environmentalists. Color me an amused cynic.
Be very cautious in touting Japanese advancement in grid technology. Their grid is ridiculous considering that they are a developed country. They have yet to standardize on 50 or 60 Hz distribution! You can see parallel high tension lines side by side feeding two distrubution networks; one 110 VAC 60Hz (US standard), and the other 220VAC 50 HZ (Euro standard).
1) The Volt is not $250,000. It's expensive enough at 1/8 of that.
2) you said you need a car that can go hundreds of miles. The Volt can do that. After its battery has run down it uses gasoline to power a generator. It therefore can fill up at any gas station, and drive as many miles as you can possibly drive in any car. That gas generator is the "range extender" GM talks about when the call the Volt an electric range-exented vehicle. The Volt is not a pure (ie, only ever) electric. It's what makes the Volt a really good idea.
Just imagine what it would be with high efficiency wind engines.
There is precious little research being done in this realm.
That would be an ideal world
But I think that what we are seeing here is that GM and the Volt effort initiated by Bob Lutz is absolutely excellent and that GM is leaving no stone unturned.
Ever drive a Volt... absolutely superior! Cadillac quality.
Hey, yeah, I used to work in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony... windmills all over the place in Northern Germany. We don't have so many in the USA, though there's a wind farm about 45 minutes East of where I live today, in Atlantic City, NJ.
Primitive smart grid is already an option my area for control of large appliances during peak hours. But no one's currently set up to deal with the success of electric vehicles. Today, most EVs are charged by Level 1 (120V, 16A) or Level 2 (220V, 30A+) chargers... that's why they take all day or night to charge up. But once they start using Level 3 DC "Fast" charging (500V, 125A... over 60kW), smart grid is going to be critical.
This is just more silliness coming out of Generous Motors to try and market their $250,000 taxpayer supported cars to the general public.
Like Solyndra and so many other Green Boondoggles government supplements will not get past that fact that a Kilowatt hour is a commodity as is a horsepower-hour. These commodities provide necessary engagement with daily logistics (getting to work) and it is considered mostly on a cost bassis.
A reasonable gas sipping car may not have the MPG or Dollar per HP efficiency of a pure electric (depending on what your local utility rates are) but when I need to get into traffic at 70mph and I want to drive 200 miles in one day on a whim or an emergency basis, I can do it. All the E-glory in the world isn't going to make me feel good enough to get rid of these basic requirements. Lets not get me started on collision safety..
This whole Green experiment would be a cute senior class project and would be forgivable under purely academic excercises at the collegiate level. But when a very average engineer like myself can compute the cost logistics of Solar PVC, Electric cars, Wind, et cetera in about 5 minutes and prove it's cost inefficiency, there is no excuse for corporate and government cronyism conspiring to burn taxpayers or stock holders money on projects that only wishful thinking green- apparatchiks or the vanity of elites with money to blow can afford.
There is no good old college try here... When you are dealing with peoples lives, physical pretection and money, you'd better hit the mark without an "overcoat" of Marketing Shenanigans covering up the true economics.
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