On Wednesday, October 14, 2015 at 3:18:03 AM UTC-5, Martin Brown wrote:
On 13/10/2015 16:30, Uncarollo2 wrote:

I do my daily commute to work and back in my Chevy Volt using only electricity.
It consumes a mere 200 watts per mile at a cost of less than 1 cent
per mile.

Units! It cannot do any number of watts/mile. From published figures I
reckon a Tesla typically uses about 400Whr = 1.5MJ per mile eg

Yes, I did not include the proper units. It's 200 wattHOURS per mile. Sorry about that. The Tesla is not as efficient as the Volt. It weighs a lot more and is not my idea of an economical car, although it is loads of fun to drive.


All courtesy of the Com Edison Byron Nuke plant and local windmills.
I get to work just as fast as the guy in the Porsche SUV while he gets
a measly 8mpg in his gas hog.

I fill up every night at my friendly 110 volt plug in my garage and next
morning the "tank" is full again, ready to covey me another 45+ miles.

Which is fine if you never have to drive any real distance.

I can drive the Volt over 350 miles without plugging it in. It has an on-board recharger if need be. But as I made clear, 90% of all driving is done commuting less than 40 miles per day. The other 10% I don't give a crap about. Your problem is that you want perfection or nothing. Sorry to disappoint you.


I have great torque and nothing spews out the tailpipe, there is not
a series of explosions pushing this vehicle forward, just the application
of Maxwell's equations and some magnets doing their work silently and
very efficiently.

There is some quite nasty battery chemistry involved and battery
capacity is not exactly stellar nor is long term life expectancy.

There is no nasty battery chemistry involved. The components are fully recyclable. The Volt battery has been tested to 200,000 miles and retains 80% of its initial capability. Even then the battery is quite useful for other purposes such as electric storage for solar and wind farms.


In the future would I consider going back to a gasoline car? Never!
Ask any Volt owner and to a person they will tell you the same thing.
Right now brand new ones are selling for less than $20k at our local
dealer.
Pretty good deal all around if you ask me.

How are they making a profit on them at that price?

I don't think that GM is going under. Their new 2016 models will have more range with a smaller battery and get better performance to boot. Other companies are also in the running besides GM. There's Toyota with plug-in Prius, Nissan, and even BMW is getting into the game. Tesla of course, and they will be introducing a family sedan at around $35k. Plus Tesla will be supplying future car makers with less expensive batteries from their battery mega plant. The future is bright for this technology. Yes, it's in infancy, but so was the Model T versus the horse. Who won that battle so long ago?

Uncaelectric