Subject: Fwd: Government Designed Cars
Cost to operate a Chevy Volt
Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel's Follow the Money) test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.
For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.
Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh batery is approximately 270 miles. It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.
According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery.
The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity.
I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh.
16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery.
$18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery.
Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine only that gets 32 mpg.
$3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.
The gasoline powered car cost about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000.
So Obama wants us to pay 3 times as much for a car that costs more than 7 times as much to run and takes 3 times as long to drive across country.
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10 comments:
This is a sad commentary on the poor state of math education in the U.S. and it should be an embarrassment to Fox News -- as if anything *really* embarrasses Fox media! :)
To begin with, anyone who pays their power company $1.16 per kilowatt-hour is either a total schlemiel or pitifully unable to read their electric bill. They are off by a factor of ten! 12 cents per kWh is pretty much the norm throughout the US, and some locales offer special nighttime rates as low as 2-3 cents per kWh.
Mr. Bolling's math calculation of "30 mpg" is also significantly off the mark, as the Volt conservatively averages 37 mpg on gasoline alone, according to EPA, and many Volt owners report 40-42 all-gasoline mpg in real-world driving. Averaging in a realistic 32-35 miles of all electric range per 100 mile trip plus 10-15% recovered battery energy from regenerative braking would deliver about 45 battery electric miles, which leaves 55 miles on gasoline alone. At roughly 40 mpg, it would take 1.375 gal to cover 100 miles, which equals 72.7 mpg. And for most Americans who drive less than 30 miles per day, that would mean little or no gasoline usage at all! YMMV.
As for recharging times, Mr. Bolling overlooks the fact that the Volt is designed to use only about 10 kWh of its 16 kWh battery pack before the gas motor takes over. A Level 2 (240 volt A.C.) charger can deliver up to 6 kW per hour, meaning that the Volt battery is capable of being recharged in 100 minutes -- not the 10 hours that Bolling is [mis]calculating.
Bolling then multiplies his errors by calculating that the Volt would be driven on a 270 miles trip using electricity alone. That is simply wrong. The Volt is only designed to drive the first 32-40 mile on electricity only, with a 9.25 gallon tank of gasoline for the remaining distance. Leaving about one gallon in reserve, that would be about 325 miles of gasoline range in addition to the 32-40 miles of electricity from the battery. Conservatively, that's a 360 mile range.
At the end of the trip, the Volt driver has the option to plug in or simply refill the gas tank and continue onward, just like in a conventional gasoline car.
I could go on, but why bother? It's a shame to see this kind of misinformation in the media. And it is fair to demand that Fox Business News either correct its careless math, retract its faulty reporting, or else "stick it" to itself!
I will never understand why fuel efficient vehicles, lower air pollution, recycling, et al are so evil to right-wingers. Really, what't the harm in putting that soda bottle in the recycling bin instead of the landfill? What's wrong with using less oil to power a car? What's wrong with less CO2 from a tailpipe?
So Obama wants us to pay 3 times as much for a car that costs more than 7 times as much to run and takes 3 times as long to drive across country.
Actually, I've seen no evidence that Obama wants you to buy any particular car at all.
No evidence that Obama is behind this you say?? I find that suspicious. I HEARD that he designed the car and even works nights at a UNION factory building them!! He's supposed to be running the country, but instead he's building cars! And he GAVE GM all the money to build them too!! When will this nightmare of tolerance, science, and eco-friendliness end!
First Anonymous, you took the words right out of my mouth. I've never understood why so many Republicans think freedom/liberty is about being as wasteful as possible.
You right wingers are always “HEARING” something but never seem to have any facts just a bunch of BS
I will never understand why fuel efficient vehicles, lower air pollution, recycling, et al are so evil to right-wingers. Really, what't the harm in putting that soda bottle in the recycling bin instead of the landfill? What's wrong with using less oil to power a car? What's wrong with less CO2 from a tailpipe?
There are two answers to this. The first, and simple one, is money. Environmental regulations cut into the bottom line of a lot of conservative businesses, so much so that its a lot more profitable to muddy the waters with a lot of propaganda masquerading as "science" rather than risk having to shave a fraction off their profit margins. In the choice between making a buck and destroying the earth and making 99 cents but not destroying it, they'll take the extra penny every time.
The other answer is more psychological: they hate it because liberals like it. Never forget, modern conservatism wants the opposite of whatever liberals want, updated daily.
These are evil to RWers because the primary use of these cars: urban transport, is not necessary in the square state/bible belt rural American they envision. There is no reason to have an electic car because you can't drive it across the country by their logic. (Never mind that you could just fill up the reserve tank.) I toyed with buying an electic car when I was shopping (decided against it for a variety of non-performance and enviornmental reasons). It would have been perfect for commuting, darting to the grocery store or farmer's market, etc. I wouldn't use it as a family vacation transport vehicle.
This is all part of the conservative 1% effort to gang up on Obama for bailing out Detroit & USA auto industry. Rush Limbaugh was first out the gate bellowing how horribly terrible the Volt was, and when it was proved that Limbaugh was, as usual, LYING and didn't have a clue about the Volt and had never even driven it, guess what??? Rightwingers still fawned all over Limbaugh and still agreed with his petulant nonsense.
It's like that Clint Eastwood "ad" that was aired during the Superbowl. I actually thought it was good. Here's known rightwinger, Eastwood basically saying: let's all try to get along, and, here's a clue: WORK TOGETHER... in order to make OUR country STRONG again.
Nice idea? Well that'd be a huge fat NEIN from Piggy Karl Rove who duly trotted forth on his piggy trotters to oink about how Eastwood was just all sucking up to that "N" word in the White House, that's all.
what a fucking travesty!!! Bailing out dreaded Satan-influenced *union* jobs... saving jobs for middle & working class Americans, but hey, conservatives, let's all get our knickers inna wad because it's Detroit, see? And because you gotta HATE anything that saves the environment, see? And ya gotta realize that the "N" word in the White House *wanted this* see, so go forth & let your RACIST flag fly freely... HATE HATE HATE HATE... and here: we'll give you yet more completely bogus "facts" to buttress your rancid hatred.
Dumbasses. I may not be interested in a Volt, myself, but it's a great car for certain purposes, especially as the price of gas is continuing to rise.
Why conservatives would HATE a car that saves a LOT of money on gas consumption - never mind the other ecological pluses - remains one of life's mysteries. As in: here let me shoot myself in the foot because that'll PROVE how "smart" I am! w00t!
Fools.
While all of the comments were great, Jo's demolition of Bolling was epic.
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