Tesla, the absolute best car!

[jsstevens]

Like another poster said, I think most of us have airplanes. Consequently, my need for a "road trip" car is very very minimal.

Do you always rent a car when you arrive?

I don't own an airplane, but I have airplanes available for travel. I still do road trips because:
1) I have a family of 6 and no access to any 6 passenger planes.
2) We drive around and do things after we arrive.

John

 

[Dav8or]

The Supercharging stations kind of make that a non-issue.

20 minutes to charge is pretty close to the same amount of time you spend pulling off the freeway on I-5 and filling gas, using the bathroom, and buying a soda.

On a drive from SF to LA, that doesn't seem to be a big barrier to travel.

http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

Keep in mind that the 20 minutes of charge time only gets the battery half way charged, not fully. Their graph shows 30 minutes buys you another 170 miles of range. It makes cross country travel possible along popular routes, but it's not in any way equivalent to filling the tank at a gas station.

 

[Henning]

I'm think I'm going to order one of these next week. I've been thinking about it for a while now. I don't own the stock nor will I ever. I'm not buying it because it's cool and green. It just seems to meet my mission really well. I have a garage with 220v so charging is easy. I never need to drive more than 150 miles in a day. I can fit a bike in the back with the seats folded down (a critical mission requirement) and I believe it will be really fun to drive. The only thing I can't do with it is take a long road trip. This may come as a shock to many people on POA, but I have a plane and so rarely take long road trips. I also have a second car that isn't worth selling that I can use for trips. Am I missing something with the Tesla? I have this nagging feeling that if you're not some sort of fanboy there isn't a rational reason to buy it.

Nope, you covered the primary arguments against. I bet you really enjoy it.

 

[Henning]

That only deals with the ability of the "battery" to take the electrons. Do the calculations on current to put the electron in that fast and thens see what wire size you need plus the amount of electricity to the charging stations (picture a Racetrac or Flying J size station with 16 places to "fill-up") at once.

The Tesla Roadster had/has an 85kWh battery pack. To fully charge that in 10 minutes (Which is frankly too long as far as I'm concerned. It usually doesn't take more than 3-4 minutes to fill my tank in my mini van, less in my mini.) you'd need 85x6=510kW of power. At 480V that's 1000 Amps. Even if you assume 3 phase power, that's still 333 Amps. That's 4/0 wires x 4. The conductor diameter in 4/0 is larger than a dime. (See attached pic. 4/0 is the second from the top. x4 in this application.)

It takes enormous infrastructure to move that much electricity that fast. And if a substantial number of these cars get on the road all that infrastructure has to scale to match.

There is really nothing so far that matches the energy transfer/time of dumping chemicals (which have the energy already captured) in a tank. That's why the fuel cell idea is good. That's why hybrids which were designed as primarily electric powered vehicles (1st gen Prius, for example) have a small engine to generate their own electricity. And plug in only electrics are commuter cars. There's nothing wrong with commuter cars and I hope they get really popular. It's much easier to build efficiencies into a large, fixed generating station than a bunch of portable ones. But it's not a full solution to what we use cars for.

For me, it would take a pure electric for my daily driving plus either having or renting a conventional car for long trips.

John

So why not go to 7200v at the charge, linear inverters are doing this stuff a lot now.

 

[Dav8or]

That only deals with the ability of the "battery" to take the electrons. Do the calculations on current to put the electron in that fast and thens see what wire size you need plus the amount of electricity to the charging stations (picture a Racetrac or Flying J size station with 16 places to "fill-up") at once.

The Tesla Roadster had/has an 85kWh battery pack. To fully charge that in 10 minutes (Which is frankly too long as far as I'm concerned. It usually doesn't take more than 3-4 minutes to fill my tank in my mini van, less in my mini.) you'd need 85x6=510kW of power. At 480V that's 1000 Amps. Even if you assume 3 phase power, that's still 333 Amps. That's 4/0 wires x 4. The conductor diameter in 4/0 is larger than a dime. (See attached pic. 4/0 is the second from the top. x4 in this application.)

It takes enormous infrastructure to move that much electricity that fast. And if a substantial number of these cars get on the road all that infrastructure has to scale to match.

There is really nothing so far that matches the energy transfer/time of dumping chemicals (which have the energy already captured) in a tank. That's why the fuel cell idea is good. That's why hybrids which were designed as primarily electric powered vehicles (1st gen Prius, for example) have a small engine to generate their own electricity. And plug in only electrics are commuter cars. There's nothing wrong with commuter cars and I hope they get really popular. It's much easier to build efficiencies into a large, fixed generating station than a bunch of portable ones. But it's not a full solution to what we use cars for.

For me, it would take a pure electric for my daily driving plus either having or renting a conventional car for long trips.

John

Your analysis is correct. That is why I believe the battery powered car is just a bridge technology and not the final solution. I believe as General Motors did decades ago, that the real solution lies in fuel cells. However, the over night charging scheme does work just fine for 90% of the travel we do and as the batteries get better, the range we will see will make a lot of this a non issue. A big challenge for the future will be the utilities providing the growing demand for electricity. Power plants and grids usually get built on a glacial pace and I'm not sure if they will be able to keep up with demand.

 

[Dav8or]

So why not go to 7200v at the charge, linear inverters are doing this stuff a lot now.

High voltage is not that safe to handle for the average person. It becomes harder to insulate and it loves to arc. That kind of power would kill somebody and maybe even the guy next to him instantly. There would be significant engineering challenges to contain the power, and be able to deliver service as fast and efficiently as a current gas station with non skilled labor. Maybe some sort of "car wash" type scheme where cars are put on a track, taken into an area safely away from people where they are charged by machines and then spit out the other side.

 

[Henning]

Your analysis is correct. That is why I believe the battery powered car is just a bridge technology and not the final solution. I believe as General Motors did decades ago, that the real solution lies in fuel cells. However, the over night charging scheme does work just fine for 90% of the travel we do and as the batteries get better, the range we will see will make a lot of this a non issue. A big challenge for the future will be the utilities providing the growing demand for electricity. Power plants and grids usually get built on a glacial pace and I'm not sure if they will be able to keep up with demand.

We don't need to build a grid, we already have a pipeline system and rural gas distribution network, 90% of the required infrastructure is fungible from current. As for power for hydrogen, first off remember that the Manhattan Project took 2 years and in 10 years we had an Atomic Energy infrastructure built and producing, so it is not glacial when "National Security" is involved, all the TVA/WPA dam network was done pretty much in a decade as well.

It will be a few years before we really need to increase production capacity anyway since we will be able to use the electric production facilities much more efficiently and cost effectively by eliminating an "Off Peak" period and allowing environmental resource generation to store whatever the environment produces when it produces it. The losses of making hydrogen will be more than made up for in the efficiencies gained. Besides, it isn't particularly energy efficient to refine crude into product.

 

[JoseCuervo]

170 miles worth of charge in 20 minutes. As opposed to 350-400 miles worth of gas in 4 minutes.

It's nice. I'm glad they're working it. But it's not the same. When my family travels, we generally stop when we need gas. It takes about 10 minutes to fuel the car and empty everybody else. Usually done in tandem because I'll start fueling while my wife & kids go inside and visit the rest room. When she's done she comes out and takes over-if I'm not already done with fueling-so I can go inside. There are exceptions and some trips take longer than others.

But based on the above numbers, in a Tesla (nice car btw, don't file me as a Tesla hater) we'd be stopping every 2 to 2 1/2 hours for an absolute minimum of 20 minutes. (What if the charging stations are currently full? How long does it take to maneuver in and hook up? Not a lot, but still some.) This way we usually stop about every 4 for maybe 10 minutes.

John

I am pretty sure EVERY wife would gladly trade an extra 10 minutes on a 2x per year family vacation over avoiding the other 50 trips to sketchy gas stations while wearing clothes for work to wrassle around a smelly gas hose.

My buddy's wife points this out as her biggest learning.

 

[jsstevens]

So why not go to 7200v at the charge, linear inverters are doing this stuff a lot now.

7200V will jump an arc approximately 1". I played with neon transformers when I was young. Very cool, but bite you easily!

Here's what I learned working with electricity as an electrician: 120V hurts like hell and can kill you if you touch it. 220V is similar, you need to touch it. By the time you get to 480V you don't have to touch it-it comes looking for you. 7200V at the current levels required (still talking 22+ amps, so need wire for 30 Amps) will have to have a heck of an insulator and be rigorously inspected and worked to keep safe. Not to mention the connectors.

Also, if you step it up on the charger side to reduce current and wire sizes you have to step it back down before the batteries. That's added stuff on the car. And very high current carrying step down circuitry. (BIG heat sinks.)

And you haven't addressed getting the electricity to the charging stations.

I'm not saying it can't be solved, but the sheer amount of energy required is seldom discussed with these cars.

I'm supervising a backup power system for our current office building. ~24,000 square feet, lots of computers (and therefore lots of A/C). We're buying and installing a 120kVA generator. That's just enough to charge a Tesla (roadster, based on above examples) in 45 minutes. That will run our whole building. Now triple that, (gets the charge time down to 15 minutes) then multiply by 12 or 20 to build a full up Flying J style electric car stop on the highway. I get 7.2 million VA (or megawatts). That's a huge amount of power for a "gas station". However you deliver the power in terms of voltage and current, it's still a lot of electrons.

John

 

[JoseCuervo]

And you haven't addressed getting the electricity to the charging stations.

I'm not saying it can't be solved, but the sheer amount of energy required is seldom discussed with these cars.

I'm supervising a backup power system for our current office building. ~24,000 square feet, lots of computers (and therefore lots of A/C). We're buying and installing a 120kVA generator. That's just enough to charge a Tesla (roadster, based on above examples) in 45 minutes. That will run our whole building. Now triple that, (gets the charge time down to 15 minutes) then multiply by 12 or 20 to build a full up Flying J style electric car stop on the highway. I get 7.2 million VA (or megawatts). That's a huge amount of power for a "gas station". However you deliver the power in terms of voltage and current, it's still a lot of electrons.

John

I saw an interview with Elon Musk, and, if I remember correctly, he has plans/designs/dreams of making his charging stations be Solar (and maybe wind?) powered, again making the infrastructure more usable. His goal was to have the recharge be free for the driver.

I am now seeing LNG stations all over, and believe I saw the claim that by the end of the year, no long haul truck would ever be more than 300 miles away from LNG fuel via the Interstate systems.

Infrastructure races aren't exciting, but they are game-changing.

 

[DeeG]

Here's a new poll for ya- Which is greater in internet membership, the Tesla fan boy club, or the Tesla hater's group?

If this isn't 'fan boy' enough to make you want to go out and buy one today, I don't know what will.

InterGalatic SpaceBoat of Light and Wonder

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla_model_s

 

[Henning]

7200V will jump an arc approximately 1". I played with neon transformers when I was young. Very cool, but bite you easily!

Here's what I learned working with electricity as an electrician: 120V hurts like hell and can kill you if you touch it. 220V is similar, you need to touch it. By the time you get to 480V you don't have to touch it-it comes looking for you. 7200V at the current levels required (still talking 22+ amps, so need wire for 30 Amps) will have to have a heck of an insulator and be rigorously inspected and worked to keep safe. Not to mention the connectors.

Also, if you step it up on the charger side to reduce current and wire sizes you have to step it back down before the batteries. That's added stuff on the car. And very high current carrying step down circuitry. (BIG heat sinks.)

And you haven't addressed getting the electricity to the charging stations.

I'm not saying it can't be solved, but the sheer amount of energy required is seldom discussed with these cars.

I'm supervising a backup power system for our current office building. ~24,000 square feet, lots of computers (and therefore lots of A/C). We're buying and installing a 120kVA generator. That's just enough to charge a Tesla (roadster, based on above examples) in 45 minutes. That will run our whole building. Now triple that, (gets the charge time down to 15 minutes) then multiply by 12 or 20 to build a full up Flying J style electric car stop on the highway. I get 7.2 million VA (or megawatts). That's a huge amount of power for a "gas station". However you deliver the power in terms of voltage and current, it's still a lot of electrons.
I
John

I would doubt it adds much. I suspect you could build the same inverter unit to handle charging as driving. Yes, if you try to be the conductor, 7200v will cause you to have 'a bad day', however to design a power point that won't energize the circuit until full and secure contact is established is simple enough.

 

[jsstevens]

I would doubt it adds much. I suspect you could build the same inverter unit to handle charging as driving.

Based on that quote I would doubt that you ever had to build one.

Every component in that system wastes a little of the electrons. That waste comes out most commonly as heat. The faster you move the electrons through the system the less time you have to dissipate the heat. Even if you assume the system is 95% efficient, you're still dissipating 4.25 KW. That's about 1/3 of the heating required to heat the average 3 BR house. It's got to get out of the system somewhere. The math just doesn't work for the step down part.

John

 

[Henning]

Based on that quote I would doubt that you ever had to build one.

Every component in that system wastes a little of the electrons. That waste comes out most commonly as heat. The faster you move the electrons through the system the less time you have to dissipate the heat. Even if you assume the system is 95% efficient, you're still dissipating 4.25 KW. That's about 1/3 of the heating required to heat the average 3 BR house. It's got to get out of the system somewhere. The math just doesn't work for the step down part.

John

Then use 7200v battery packs. I know some of the drag racing guys are really up there in voltage. BTW, there is a full time inverter behind my head right now that takes in whatever I feed it (right now 480v 3ph 50hz) and delivers me split phase 220/110 60hz as ships power, I know how much heat it puts out.

 

[jsstevens]

I saw an interview with Elon Musk, and, if I remember correctly, he has plans/designs/dreams of making his charging stations be Solar (and maybe wind?) powered, again making the infrastructure more usable. His goal was to have the recharge be free for the driver.

I am now seeing LNG stations all over, and believe I saw the claim that by the end of the year, no long haul truck would ever be more than 300 miles away from LNG fuel via the Interstate systems.

Infrastructure races aren't exciting, but they are game-changing.

How many square feet of solar panels does it take to supply 7.2 megawatts of power? Our building has a solar array on the roof. It's 15 panels of ~4'x4' generate 15KW. Each 4x4 panel generates 1.25KW of energy. So for 7.2 MW we need 23,040 panels. each 16 square feet of area giving 16x23,040 = 368,640 square feet or ~ 8 acres of space. Plus batteries to store the power for when the sun is not shining. How many wind turbines? (Can somebody else please do the math on these?) How many square miles of land are you going to dedicate to a filling station?

Elon Musk is a very smart man. And the Tesla is a very cool car. But there are some fundamental questions that have to be solved before it's a full replacement for how we (at last some of us) use cars today. In urban areas, for daily drivers they work great. You've distributed out the charging times and loads. For over the road traveling machines, not so much.

As for LNG, that's useful stuff and cars converted to that have been around for a long time. (I rememebr a very cool article in Car & Driver on a 1980's vintage 700HP Cadillac hot rod built using LP for fuel.) But you're still dumping a chemical with stored energy in a tank. Which I said at the outset is by far the fastest way to transfer energy.

And before there's any more handwaving, please at least do a little math. (At least my hand motions are explained...)

John

 

[Henning]

Depends on the wind turbine, typically 8-16. You could power half the country from TX wind alone. I still think we'll have to go Thorium though.

 

[jsstevens]

Depends on the wind turbine, typically 8-16. You could power half the country from TX wind alone. I still think we'll have to go Thorium though.

8-16 turbines produce 7.2 MW? Wow! Based on the wind turbine farms east of LA they must have a huge capacity then. Those things go on for miles!

John

 

[jsstevens]

OK. G.E. has a 2.3 MW 107 meter diameter wind turbine. So we'd need 4. That gets us down to ~120x500 meter plot of land for the charging. Or about 1 1/4 acres. For a filling station. And you still need batteries, etc. for when the wind's not blowing.

John

 

[Dav8or]

If this isn't 'fan boy' enough to make you want to go out and buy one today, I don't know what will.

InterGalatic SpaceBoat of Light and Wonder

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla_model_s

Wow! That is seriously fan boy! That does say something about the car. There are not very many cars in recent history that cause ordinary people, that have no interest in cars, to go out and champion that vehicle.

 

[Jeff Oslick]

I think the most logical solution to long-range trips in electric vehicles is to have a towed battery or maybe a roof-rack battery pack design that can be rented/attached for the few times a year that you take a longer road trip and really want the extra range. Not elegant, but way simpler solution.

 

[Bill]

But there are some fundamental questions that have to be solved before it's a full replacement for how we (at last some of us) use cars today. In urban areas, for daily drivers they work great. You've distributed out the charging times and loads. For over the road traveling machines, not so much.

I am no GM fanboy by any stretch, but I think the Chevy Volt is the closest thing to a workable solution considering the technology available today. 35-40 pure electric miles, that would satisfy a lot of urban car users, and the gas driven generator allows long trips (although at no better mileage than any other small car).

In fact, when my wife's car dies, a Volt will be closely examined.

 

[stratobee]

"Hydrogen is the fuel of the future - and always will be".

Hydrogen fuel cells, or any fuel cells are a complete dead end. Don't buy into the oil company and carbon tax selling car companies spiel about it.

It's almost impossible to handle, it's very volatile, it takes insane amounts of electricity to liquify it, it evaporates through stainless steel (or any material), there is zero infrastructure (and there never will be) and its economics don't make sense - it costs far more to liquify hydrogen and build platinum using fuel cells than it would ever cost to make and charge a battery. Ask yourself this - why are big oil companies such ardent pushers of hydrogen? Because they would just love to have you switch from one proprietary fuel to another. One that they control the supply of and can oligopolarize all over again. It makes them all wet thinking about it. They hate batteries, because it doesn't use any fuel they can sell and the infrastructure is already built.

Don't ever invest in anything remotely connected to fuel cells unless you want to lose money. It will go nowhere. And when I see Toyota betting the farm on their new fuel cell car - not only is it ugly - but I can't help but think that they are actually constructing their own coffin. If that's the road they're taking for the future, then sell all your Toyota stocks now.

They're fools if they think a $70K Camry, that can go only 300 miles and has to be fuelled at $5/gal in hydrogen stations that there are only about 5 of in the whole country is going to be the future. Utter fools. They deserve to lose money on it.

 

[Henning]

8-16 turbines produce 7.2 MW? Wow! Based on the wind turbine farms east of LA they must have a huge capacity then. Those things go on for miles!

John

Yes, they do.

 

[Jeff Oslick]

It's almost impossible to handle, it's very volatile, it takes insane amounts of electricity to liquify it, it evaporates through stainless steel (or any material)

Who is talking about using liquefied H2 for vehicles? H2 can readily be stored in pretty standard compressed gas cylinders. We've been doing it for a very long time. I used to regularly use field chromatography flame ionization units fueled by little H2 cylinders that we'd fill everyday off of 5' H2 tanks. Only real precautions were 1) don't smoke and 2) use a non-sparking wrench on the H2 cylinder.

 

[Henning]

OK. G.E. has a 2.3 MW 107 meter diameter wind turbine. So we'd need 4. That gets us down to ~120x500 meter plot of land for the charging. Or about 1 1/4 acres. For a filling station. And you still need batteries, etc. for when the wind's not blowing.

John

Yeah, like I said, the key is to go hydrogen, we're pulling our dicks wasting time and money with this battery crap, but the mining consortiums are backing battery power because they stand to make a fortune. I was having drinks next door on a yacht last night with one of those guys. I was trying to get him to buy into a hydrogen project in Amsterdam. They've really taken to the whole electric car thing, but all the cabs and canal boats are still Diesel. There is a viable program there to increase the efficiency of their wind farms while providing a quick turn refill, electric work vehicle solution. He didn't want in because "I'd be cutting my own throat." Typical Queenslander.

 

[stratobee]

Who is talking about using liquefied H2 for vehicles? H2 can readily be stored in pretty standard compressed gas cylinders. We've been doing it for a very long time. I used to regularly use field chromatography flame ionization units fueled by little H2 cylinders that we'd fill everyday off of 5' H2 tanks. Only real precautions were 1) don't smoke and 2) use a non-sparking wrench on the H2 cylinder.

I meant to say 'make' it, not liquify. Nevertheless, it doesn't store well at all. It'll evaporate through any known material.

 

[Jeff Oslick]

I meant to say 'make' it, not liquify. Nevertheless, it doesn't store well at all. It'll evaporate through any known material.

At a rate that is significant for vehicle fuel operations? You're going to need to provide some legit references to back that claim up. I don't recall any significant pressure loss from the tanks I used, and we'd have them sitting around for many months.

 

[ktup-flyer]

If I got a new car right now, it would be the Jaguar F-Type R. Tesla just has 0 appeal to me
This is why.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95WeZ0Lsecw

 

[Jeff Oslick]

If I got a new car right now, it would be the Jaguar F-Type R. Tesla just has 0 appeal to me
This is why.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95WeZ0Lsecw

You can have a Tesla make cool sounds too. All you need is a "60 Minutes" sound engineer to follow you around!

http://www.businessinsider.com/cbs-60-minutes-tesla-elon-musk-2014-4

 

[ktup-flyer]

You can have a Tesla make cool sounds too. All you need is a "60 Minutes" sound engineer to follow you around!

http://www.businessinsider.com/cbs-60-minutes-tesla-elon-musk-2014-4

That's stupid lol. BMW pumps fake sound into the cabin through speakers on the M5

 

[Bill]

That's stupid lol. BMW pumps fake sound into the cabin through speakers on the M5

Ford, VW, and others use a tube from the air intake to the firewall to pump sound into their sporty cars.

I found the tube on my Mustang GT 5.0 and plugged that sucker. Ahhh, much better.

 

[ktup-flyer]

Ford, VW, and others use a tube from the air intake to the firewall to pump sound into their sporty cars.

I found the tube on my Mustang GT 5.0 and plugged that sucker. Ahhh, much better.

At least that is actual intake noise lol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM0xLja4Rt4

 

[CTLSi]

GM is abandoning the Volt finally. They are pulling it from Europe. And admit they sell less than 3k a year. They think they are gonna make Cadillac a hybrid and go after Tesla with it, but its a laugh to watch all of it.

Tesla is a tiny company by car company standards, and they have a niche product at best. The hype will fade soon enough. And a few will be stuck with their cars like the Delorean crowd are stuck with theirs.

 

[Aeric]

If I got a new car right now, it would be the Jaguar F-Type R. Tesla just has 0 appeal to me
This is why.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95WeZ0Lsecw

The Model S edges the Jag in acceleration, it's operating cost is less than a third, and costs $20,000 less...you can have that noisy cat.

 

[us AAirways]

GM is abandoning the Volt finally. They are pulling it from Europe. And admit they sell less than 3k a year. They think they are gonna make Cadillac a hybrid and go after Tesla with it, but its a laugh to watch all of it.

Tesla is a tiny company by car company standards, and they have a niche product at best. The hype will fade soon enough. And a few will be stuck with their cars like the Delorean crowd are stuck with theirs.

Niche product now, but the model 3 could be a game changer.

http://www.cnet.com/news/what-happens-when-a-35000-tesla-arrives/

 

[Dav8or]

GM is abandoning the Volt finally. They are pulling it from Europe. And admit they sell less than 3k a year. They think they are gonna make Cadillac a hybrid and go after Tesla with it, but its a laugh to watch all of it.

Tesla is a tiny company by car company standards, and they have a niche product at best. The hype will fade soon enough. And a few will be stuck with their cars like the Delorean crowd are stuck with theirs.

If you delight in peeing in people's corn flakes, at least get your facts right. GM is not abandoning the Volt. In fact Gen 2 Volt will be released next year with longer all electric range and possibly a lower cost, shorter range version with a smaller battery. Here is a link to a story complete with spy pictures at the testing grounds. Hardly abandoned.

http://www.worldcarfans.com/114042373892/2016-chevrolet-volt-spied-undergoing-testing-in-michigan

It is true that the Ampera, the Volt twin sold in Europe under the Opal brand will not be getting the 2nd generation. Sales have been poor there mostly because driving conditions are different there. People drive much shorter distances and so people there are taking more to pure electric vehicles rather than the hybrid, or range extending designs. Because of this, the CEO of Opal has announced that the Ampera will be replaced with an all electric offering that is likely to use the LG Chem battery that will have 200 miles range and still be affordable. I'm sure we'll see this vehicle here as a Buick. Here's a story about the new direction at Opal.

http://www.worldcarfans.com/114072378653/opel-ceo-confirms-a-new-electric-vehicle-following-ampera

Here's a little blurb about the LG announcement.

http://www.worldcarfans.com/114072278596/lg-confirms-battery-with-200-mile-range-will-likely-be

 

[CTLSi]

If you delight in peeing in people's corn flakes, at least get your facts right. GM is not abandoning the Volt. In fact Gen 2 Volt will be released next year with longer all electric range and possibly a lower cost, shorter range version with a smaller battery. Here is a link to a story complete with spy pictures at the testing grounds. Hardly abandoned.

http://www.worldcarfans.com/114042373892/2016-chevrolet-volt-spied-undergoing-testing-in-michigan

It is true that the Ampera, the Volt twin sold in Europe under the Opal brand will not be getting the 2nd generation. Sales have been poor there mostly because driving conditions are different there. People drive much shorter distances and so people there are taking more to pure electric vehicles rather than the hybrid, or range extending designs. Because of this, the CEO of Opal has announced that the Ampera will be replaced with an all electric offering that is likely to use the LG Chem battery that will have 200 miles range and still be affordable. I'm sure we'll see this vehicle here as a Buick. Here's a story about the new direction at Opal.

http://www.worldcarfans.com/114072378653/opel-ceo-confirms-a-new-electric-vehicle-following-ampera

Here's a little blurb about the LG announcement.

http://www.worldcarfans.com/114072278596/lg-confirms-battery-with-200-mile-range-will-likely-be

Guys like you are always entertaining. Try reading what I said, I said GM is quitting the European market for the Volt.

GM scraps European version of Chevy Volt

 

[Dav8or]

Guys like you are always entertaining. Try reading what I said, I said GM is quitting the European market for the Volt.

GM scraps European version of Chevy Volt

How about you try reading what you said-

GM is abandoning the Volt finally.

The car that is being discontinued in Europe is called the Ampera. The Volt is in America and it is scheduled to continue on for another generation. That is hardly abandonment. I'm sorry if I misunderstood the meaning of "GM is abandoning the Volt finally." Maybe it was the GM, abandoning and Volt part that got me confused.

 

[denverpilot]

How many used sedans and SUVs do you need? Sometimes, just sometimes, the herd makes pretty good choices. The herd bought iPhones, iPads, flat screen TVs, broadband internet and even GPS. Not a huge market now for used flip phones, CRT TVs, dial up and paper maps.

Just sayin'...

I was happy to buy those items a couple years later when they were half the herd rush pricing.

Just sayin'...

 

[ktup-flyer]

The Model S edges the Jag in acceleration, it's operating cost is less than a third, and costs $20,000 less...you can have that noisy cat.

Both are barely quicker than my car and cost way more. The top speed on the Model S is only 130. It's about ~186 in the F-Type and my SS will hit around 183. I'll still stick with my internal combustion engines...