What is this Volt thingy, anyhow?

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Apparently lost in all the hype over General Motors Corp.’s reveal of its Chevy Volt extended-range electric vehicle — a.k.a. the greatest American invention since the automatic bread slicer — is exactly what the darn thing is and how it works.

We at Up to Speed know this because of the huge volume of reader comments we’ve been getting that confuse the Volt with an all-electric vehicle, a GMC Sierra 2500HD pickup, a soulless marketing ploy, and, most commonly, a Japanese import. Dear readers, as far as we can tell, it’s none of the above.

The not-yet-rolling hypemobile isn’t due out until late 2010, but GM has essentially bet the farm on its success, putting a lot of cash (around $500 million in R&D alone) and a lot more of its image and public goodwill at risk. If the car succeeds, it could be a quantum leap for the struggling company. If it fails, well, pretty it won’t be.

Adding by subtracting, a quick primer on what the Volt ain’t:

• It’s not the Toyota Prius or the Honda Civic Hybrid. That’s because, and GM will back us on this one, it’s not really a hybrid. Unlike the Prius and its ilk, the Volt doesn’t combine an electric motor and an internal combustion motor to turn the wheels. The Volt uses only an electric motor to drive the wheels. Separately, it has a gasoline generator aboard that turns on when the battery runs low in order to create extra electricity for the drivetrain.

• It’s not the EV1. That car, a.k.a. the little two-seater that could (sour the greeneies on GM forever), was a battery electric vehicle. It ran only on electric power and had a range, depending on driving and geography, of up to 160 miles on a charge. Both cars plug in to charge the battery, but in the case of the EV1, there was no generator aboard. The Volt will run on pure battery power for 40 miles and then switch on the gasoline-powered generator to produce extra juice. GM says that the shorter all-electric range is to compensate for the weight of the motor, and allows the vehicle to have room for four passengers and significant cargo space.
• It’s not a Tesla Roadster. That’s a pure electric car (it plugs in). True, the Tesla uses lithium ion batteries like the Volt rather than nickel metal hydride batteries that were in the EV1. But in order to get its 220+-mile range, the Roadster has only two seats and essentially no trunk space. Then again, the Roadster, once a few transmission problems are worked out, will get to 60 mph in four seconds flat. The Volt? Think again.
• It’s not a plug-in hybrid. Toyota Motor Corp., Fisker Automotive and others are working on that technology, which is essentially a hybrid with a bigger battery and a power cord. Those cars would use increased juice to take more of the load off the gas engine and, at low speeds, run on electric power only. But unlike the Volt, the gasoline engine still is part of the drivetrain. The Toyota plug-in Prius is expected to have an all-electric range of up to 10 miles, compared to 40 for the Volt. (The current Prius’ all-electric range is only about a mile.)

Calculating the Volt’s mileage is tricky. GM has sworn that it will get 40 miles on the battery alone, and another 320 miles once the 1.4-liter gasoline generator kicks in. But it hasn’t said how many gallons of gas the Volt’s tank will hold, so it’s hard to say how many miles per gallon GM expects it will get on generated power.

To get a sense of what it would cost to operate the Volt on battery power, a little math is in order. The Volt battery has a 16 kilowatt/hour capacity, but to preserve battery life (think of a laptop battery), GM has tweaked it so that only half of that is drawn upon, for a total of 8 kilowatt/hours per charge. The average consumer price per kw/h in 2006 (the most recent data available) was 10.4 cents, according to the Energy Information Administration.That works out to 83.2 cents per charge, or 2.08 cents per mile.

By comparison, a Toyota Prius, which has a city/highway average fuel economy of 46 mpg, runs about 8.3 cents per mile (at today’s average gas price of $3.83 per gallon). On paper, the Volt costs only a quarter what it costs to operate a Prius.

But there are some big uncertainties in there. First, the average price of electricity has risen since 2006 and is certain to rise a bit more by the time the Volt comes out. And in some parts of the country, people pay as much as 33 cents per kw/h. At that rate, the Volt costs 6.6 cents per mile to operate.

Second, since we know little about the Volt’s operation on the gasoline generator, we don’t know what its cost per mile will be after 40 miles.

GM officials say the purpose of the gasoline generator is to give drivers the peace of mind that if they need to go far, they can, but that the most efficient use of it will be daily trips under 40 miles or so.

That enough info? Remember, kids, we don’t endorse it, we only tell it like it is.

As GM spokesman Rob Peterson says, ‘We just want people to understand this vehicle. Some of the facts out there overstate its capabilities and some of the facts understate them.’

—Ken Bensinger