What kind of car should you buy? I don’t Trust GM’s Figures?

What kind of car should you buy? I don’t Trust GM’s Figures?

Posted on 11. Aug, 2009 by admin in Hybrid, Plug-in's

This morning GM announced that they have a 230mpg car; talk about a deer stuck in the headlights! I never was very politically correct so I am just going to say it—I don’t trust them any further than I can throw a Buick. How does a company that sits on their hands and produces clunkers for cash, all of a sudden launch such a vehicle? It doesn’t pass the sniff test and if it is true the word FRAUD seeps into the conversation, even if we do own 70% of that viper pit. The mileage figure could vary as the guidelines are refined and the Volt gets further along in the manufacturing process, Posawatz said.

If I was a deceptively clever salesman in this car market today; I would say—in the future—I am going to have a car—which will get better mileage than anyone else—to freeze the buying public. This kind of announcement makes you want to hold onto your older car so you can buy the VOLT, which is only a year away according to GM.  Questions like, are you selling or leasing come to mind and the whole EV-1 slippery slope.  I can hear some saying, the CIA made them make that statement to stop people from using the cash for clunkers program, which went through a billion dollars in two weeks.  The kind of suspicions that make having the Feds in the car business undesirable.

It might be confusing to you when you consider buying your next car. The today numbers don’t really support even buying a hybrid car. If you assume that average miles driven are 12,500 miles a year at 30mpg, now compare that to a hybrid mileage at 40 miles per gallon. Even though gas is at 3 dollars today let’s assume a 4 dollar a gallon price. The break even point for the extra cost of a Hybrid, will take more than 7 years. Most people keep their cars for 3 to 5 years. If you have a clunker it doesn’t change the above figures and the tax credits in 2009, for hybrids, seem to be shrinking?

I agree with any of you that are saying, the lower emissions help the environment and the gas you save will prolong the peak oil scenario. But people especially in this economy can’t afford to make a mistake with the second largest investment they make. To drive the point even closer to home I had read an article in Newsweek back in May that said Hybrid cars of the Prius kind were past tense. The article further goes on to explain the new hybrids will be more in the 100mpg range, assuming that you don’t exceed the initial charge or all electric mileage, someone that drives 12,500 miles a year, which is almost 35 miles a day, may need to invest in gas stabilizer because your fuel consumption will be negligible. If you took that optimum number you may never need to buy gas again, $1,668 - 312.75 X 5 years at 4.00 a gallon is a savings over $6,776.00. The more you drive the more you save whoopee! (312.75 is assumed .75 a mile for electric power.  The numbers released by GM today was .40 for a full charge?)

I don’t want to sound pessimistic but with such low margins a traditional hybrid is not worth the investment. The amazing thing is that the Federal Government is pushing the electric car in a very robust manner. Somebody should let the other shoe drop; there is an imperative here and a serious one at that. Oil companies aren’t even crying foul over their problematic future. What the fears are I can only point you to those sites that claim gloom and doom. I don’t think that we can destroy the planet but I do think that we can mess with it enough to relegate ourselves to the status of dinosaurs.

EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) seems to peek around almost every corner that I look. They are well engaged in all the parts of the picture which includes Nuclear, Alternative Power, Electric cars the intelligrid and on and on; they have a page that lists their web sites. I suggest checking them out. In 2007 EPRI made a major recommendation to the government about the practical adaption of the PHEV, or what is being referred to as EREV or Extended Range Electric Vehicle.

It seems clear that if you are spending money on a car today and keep it three years you will be right in the sweet spot of the PHEV rush to market in the 2013 date rage. I’m planning on adding a PHEV kit to an older Prius.

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2 Responses to “What kind of car should you buy? I don’t Trust GM’s Figures?”

  1. Floost

    12. Aug, 2009

    I read a few topics. I respect your work and added blog to favorites.

  2. Dave Haynie

    13. Aug, 2009

    GM’s figures are obviously goofy, but the claim is they’re based on the EPA testing procedure they have followed. The EPA tests were revised a year or two ago to help account for hybrids like the Prius, but a Prius could deliver perhaps 2-3 miles on electric-only. The Volt has a much larger cell, it’s an electric-only car (the ICE is a recharger), and it can go about 40 miles on a charge. So you plug it in, run the EPA test, and apparently, it shows 230 miles per gallon in the city.

    They’re estimating 50mpg when running the ICE, so on really long trips, that’s what you would expect. But if you do plug it in, and drive normal distances every day, the result should be very high MPG numbers, simply because you don’t burn any gas for the first 40 miles. The MPG ratings only factor in the primary fuel, not alternates.

    As for a Prius or other hybrid not being worth the money, I couldn’t disagree more. The flaw in the argument suggests that, if I didn’t buy a Prius, I would buy something of similar size, and spend much less. In truth, the Prius is one of the cheapest new cars I have bought (2003 model, about $19,500). My previous was a high-end Ford Explorer, before that, I bought sports cars, and probably would have, were it not for the Prius.

    Not only did the Prius cost less, but it’s likely to last at least twice as long as any of my previous cars (they were all US made, other than the Explorer, they all died before 100,000 miles.. the Prius is at 110,000 seeming at best middle-aged, no major problems, in fact, I’m still on the original brakes). So by that, it’s an insane bargain, even without the 45mpg average.

    The Volt’s a different story: $40,000 is real money, even $32,000-ish, assuming Federal Tax Credits. And my last GM car died at 94,000 miles, after a series of repairs (blown transmission for one). The Volt is exactly what I’d like as a Prius replacement, and if it’s a 200,000+ car, the price isn’t an issue. If it’s the old GM again, I have issues.

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