Ether CES Citizens for Environmental Safeguards Santa Fe and Albuquerque NM environmental, education, water, activism, and envirornmental justice in the southwest United States

ETHER

Environmental Education 501(c)3
La Cienega Valley Citizens for Environmental Safeguards

ETHER

What is the Chevy Volt's Carbon Footprint?

There's no denying that the Volt is exciting green technology. What does a 230 MPG plug-in vehicle really mean.

There are a few problems with GM's claim that the Volt will be rated at 230 MPG in the city, and we're going to have to address them all separately. So, in order of validity:

The EPA rules for fuel economy are draft rules, and there is no guarantee that these are the numbers that will be on the car.

This is absolutely true. GM took draft rules from the EPA, applied it to their car, and then created a gigantic advertising campaign celebrating the results. This could be an attempt by GM to force the EPA into keeping these new guidelines, or it could just be GM jumping the gun. Either way, it doesn't seem like a good idea. If this number gets into the cultural consciousness and then people walk onto dealer lots in two years and see the fuel economy listed at 80 / 60, people are actually going to be disappointed by 80 MPG. That's a situation GM doesn't want to put itself in.
The EPA is fudging numbers because the government owns GM and thus wants GM's cars to succeed
The EPA wants Volts to sell, but they also want all plug-in cars to sell. It decrease emissions and dependence on oil. It's a win win for the EPA and the government. It is possible, thus, that the EPA will create rules that show the mileage of these cars to be higher than it will be in practical use. Additionally, this means that one modestly selling plug-in will allow car companies to hit the updated CAFE targets without even trying.
Miles per gallon is a useless metric for plug-in vehicles

.Europe already uses a grams of CO2 per mile metric that would be far more useful with the Volt. However, we use MPG in America right now, and absent lawmakers taking that on and creating a new standard, we can't really blame GM or the EPA for doing what they are required by law to do. The EPA is struggling to find ways to make the MPG metric apply to cars that are powered in part by electricity. They've done this by determining the emissions equivalence of gasoline for the electricity used to move the car. However, because it's a conversion, it's less accurate. A better system needs to be developed.
There is no way for the government to estimate the amount of pollution my car will produce because energy mixes are different everywhere.

This is true, but it does not matter. The EPA isn't looking to give individuals a precise count of the environmental impact of their vehicle. They want to determine the environmental impact of ALL vehicles. So they can use the national average for CO2 per kW and, overall, it will be a very accurate measure of how much CO2 all of Volts sold in all fifty states will be producing. Just as the current MPG standards doesn't take into account whether your gasoline was pumped out of the ground 20 or 200,000 miles away, the government can use national averages for a car that will sell nationally and get numbers that are accurate enough for their purposes.
Electricity is worse than gasoline anyway, since coal plants are so dirty

Actually, per unit of energy produced, your car is about two times dirtier than the dirtiest American coal-fired power plant. Mix that with the fact that coal is only about half of America's energy mix, and you get a car that is much cleaner because of coal. I know...I don't like it any more than you do, but there it is.

If there are any other issues with the numbers GM is now bombarding the world with, the Volt isn't going to be the most efficient, most advanced, and most environmentally friendly car on the market in 2011. by Ecogeek's Hank Green response to Good Math/Bad Math's Chu Carroll edited for space contraints.
Creative Commons
CES Fair Use Notice.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Carbon Counter
.Total carbon emmissions in atmosphere as of June 18,2009
3,640,059,031,055 tons this is taking into account the carbon absorbed in the oceans.

Green Jobs chevy volt rollout

GM says new Volt to get 230 mpg in city driving

By KIMBERLY S. JOHNSON and TOM KRISHER (AP) – 4 days ago

WARREN, Mich. — General Motors Corp. said Tuesday its Chevrolet Volt rechargeable electric car should get 230 miles per gallon of gasoline in city driving, more than four times the mileage of the current champion, the Toyota Prius.

The Volt is powered by an electric motor and a battery pack with a 40-mile range. After that, a small internal combustion engine kicks in to generate electricity for a total range of 300 miles. The battery pack can be recharged from a standard home outlet.

GM came up with the 230-mile figure in early tests using draft guidelines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for calculating the mileage of extended range electric vehicles, said Tony Posawatz, GM's vehicle line director for the Volt.

If the figure is confirmed by the EPA, which does the tests for the mileage posted on new car door stickers, the Volt would be the first car to exceed triple-digit gas mileage, Posawatz said.

GM has produced about 30 Volts so far and is making 10 a week, CEO Fritz Henderson said during a presentation of the vehicle at the company's technical center in the Detroit suburb of Warren.

Henderson said charging the volt will cost about 40 cents a day.

"The EPA labels can and will be a game changer for us," he said.

Most automakers are working similar plug-in designs, but GM could be the leader with the Volt, which is due in showrooms late in 2010.

Toyota's Prius, the most efficient car now sold in the U.S., gets 48 miles per gallon of gas. It is a gas-electric hybrid that runs on a small internal combustion engine assisted by a battery-powered electric motor to save gasoline.

The first-generation Volt is expected to cost near $40,000, making it cost-prohibitive to many people even if gasoline returns to $4 per gallon. The price is expected to drop with future generations of the Volt, but GM has said government tax credits and the savings on fuel could make it cost-effective, especially at 230 miles per gallon.

"We get a little cautious about trying to forecast what fuel prices will do," Posawatz said. "We achieved this number and if fuel prices go up, it certainly does get more attractive even in the near-term generation," he said.

Figures for the Volt's highway and combined city/highway mileage have not yet been calculated, Posawatz said. The combined mileage will be in the triple digits as well, he said, but both combined and highway will be worse than city because the engine runs more on longer highway trips.

The EPA guidelines, developed with input from automakers, figure that cars like the Volt will travel more on straight electricity in the city than on the highway. If a person drives the Volt less than 40 miles, in theory they could go without using gasoline.

The mileage figure could vary as the guidelines are refined and the Volt gets further along in the manufacturing process, Posawatz said.

GM is nearly halfway through building about 80 Volts that will look and behave like the production model, and testing is running on schedule, Posawatz said.

Two critical areas, battery life and the electronic switching between battery and engine power, are still being refined, but the car is on schedule to reach showrooms late in 2010, he said.

GM is simulating tests to make sure the new lithium-ion batteries last 10 years, Posawatz said.

"We're further along, but we're still quite a ways from home," he said. "We're developing quite a knowledge base on all this stuff. Our confidence is growing."

The other area of new technology, switching between battery and engine power, is proceeding well, he said, with engineers just fine-tuning the operations.

"We're very pleased with the transition from when it's driving EV (electric vehicle) to when the engine and generator kick in," he said,

GM also is finishing work on the power cord, which will be durable enough that it can survive being run over by the car. The Volt, he said, will have software on board so it can be programmed to begin and end charging during off-peak electrical use hours.

Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co. and Daimler AG are all developing plug-ins and electric cars, and Toyota Motor Corp. is working on a plug-in version of its gas-electric hybrid system. Nissan Motor Co. announced last month that it would begin selling an electric vehicle in Japan and the U.S. next year.

Creative Commons

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

CES Fair Use Notice This web site may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. CES Citizens for Environmental Safeguards nonprofit educational environmental organization is making this article available in our efforts to advance the understanding of grassroots democracy, nonviolence, sustainability, and justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.