http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/ Engadget Comments for 2011 Chevy Volt pinned with a November 1st official production kickoff date? http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 12:05AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
Seriously...Megan Fox, then Beyonce...I was starting to think I was on the wrong site!

Thanks for bringing me back to real life engadget :)]]>Feb 8th 2010 1:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 6:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 12:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 12:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 2:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
Right, as opposed to letting GM make the worst commercials ever.

See Chevy Volt Dance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvwTMZNWGuk]]>Feb 27th 2010 10:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 12:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
What do you mean?
If it's a good idea, then why should it not have been done at all.
It took all the innovation with lithium batteries to get to this point anyway, which weren't ready yet when the EV1 was around.]]>Feb 8th 2010 12:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 12:19AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 12:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 6:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 10:33AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
It would be interesting to see what kind of distance you can get for a single kV of charge and what that transposes to from a coal/nuclear/etc power plants and also how much gas it would take to travel that distance. Compare the numbers and see where we are at.

I'm not saying that electric cars are bad. I just find it interesting to dig a little deeper.]]>Feb 8th 2010 12:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 12:33AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
I'd imagine we won't know those answers for at least 2 more years after the cars are on the road. By then, recharge stations will probably start popping up with solar panels to attract the environmentally conscious. If it turns out that most of the energy is coming from coal plants (probably), then we may see a bigger demand for solar and wind technologies. It's not that the powers that the movers and shakers are lazy, it's just that more complex problems tend to have slow linear implementations.]]>Feb 8th 2010 12:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/I heard that electric cars are even worse for the environment due to the metals that have to be mined from the earth and their impact for the batteries. ]]>Feb 8th 2010 1:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
Older cars used batteries containing Nickel. The newer cars use Lithium batteries like your cell phone. Lithium is much less toxic and is recyclable.]]>Feb 8th 2010 1:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
I'm not really worried about the recharge stations using non-renewable sources of energy to recharge cars - I'm most worried about the charging that will be done in the homes/garages of owners. It's just common fact that most peoples' homes are powered by nonrenewable sources today, and that area of power usage isn't likely to start coming from renewable sources on any real scale for a while.]]>Feb 8th 2010 2:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 10:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
I found some stuff:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/6543936/Electric-cars-could-increase-carbon-emissions.html

From wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal

1,995 billion kWh from coal per year and 1,460 coal power plants

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html
3,700 kTons of CO2 produced by your average coal plant

370.27 kWh/ton of CO2

[link removed due to being over the 3 url limit]
Average CO2 emissions for a car: 151 g/km

if you drive 40,000 mi/year that would be 10.7 tons of CO2 per year (yes I converted km to miles)

I'm still missing a few dots here, but I think that while we rely heavily on coal for power then I think that it could be possible that they would, in the end, produce more CO2 than a gas sipping car.]]>Feb 8th 2010 1:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
Electrical plants of almost any variety are still more efficient than cars. Now efficiency doesn't necessarily mean clean, but the greater percentage of fuel that i consumed the less fuel is used in the long run.]]>Mar 2nd 2010 3:28AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 12:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 12:27AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 12:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
I'm pretty sure that the people who could afford all those SUV's and Escalade's will still be able to afford a car that uses less expensive fuel sources.]]>Feb 8th 2010 12:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
Cars in your garage = also boring ]]>Feb 8th 2010 1:03AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 3:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
You're not replying to me are you? Did buri100 get his post deleted just because he said carts on engadget is boring?


]]>Feb 8th 2010 3:21AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 1:19AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 1:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
Care to cite any information sources on massive pollution from the Volt's lithium batteries (not like the Prius' nickel metal hydride)?]]>Feb 8th 2010 1:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 4:05AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
Exactly. The most environmentally friendly thing to do is keep old cars on the road for as long as possible. I actually work for an engine rebuilding company here in England ( http://www.uk-parts.eu ) and we are doing more for the environment than any electric cars! Did you know that something like 75% of Land Rovers ever produced (and thats since the 50s) are still on the road! Thats a seriously low carbon footprint as most of that comes from manufacturing and/or recycling/disposal.

People just can't seem to see beyond the pollution that comes out fo the exhaust pipe. I guess its because the production of the cars is 'out of sight, out of mind.' ]]>Feb 8th 2010 5:40AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
You fail to take into account that most older vehicles are recycled for parts, components, and raw materials when they reach their end life.]]>Feb 27th 2010 11:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 6:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
I suppose many of these EV-myths will be dispelled soon enough, but expect the entrenched powers to put up a fight, be it direct economic force (like lowering oil prices) or the usual propaganda that most will swallow without doing any homework. ]]>Feb 8th 2010 7:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
What you need to look at though is the source of your electricity. With a high reliance on sources of energy such as coal then the notion of EVs polluting more, or the same, as regular combustion vehicles isn't that far fetched. I'm attempting to crunch some numbers but it is proving... difficult.]]>Feb 8th 2010 1:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.euractiv.com/en/energy/analysis-efficiency-coal-fired-power-stations-evolution-prospects/article-154672
This article claims that the efficiency of coal power plants are ~31%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency
gasoline engines are 20-30% and electrics are 70-80%

If you draw your energy from coal and then throw that into your car you're looking at the same or less energy efficiency of a regular car. You're acquiring loss at two stages, instead of one.]]>Feb 8th 2010 1:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
It's true that running an EV on coal merely shifts the pollution from the tailpipe to the smokestack, but on average an EV will still pump out only half the CO2, even after losses... but wait, there's more:

An EV will allow you to "fuel up" on electrons of the non-sooty variety, for example solar, hydro, nuclear, waves etc., so at least you have a choice. Also, the USA has enough oh-so-squeaky-clean-coal to power itself to both hell and high water, so you will not be at the mercy of religious nutbars when you plug in -- only the corporate nutbars.

Give it 5 years and see how the Palin administration handles the massive oil crunch. At that point we'll all wish we were driving EVs.

People are such lemmings - a bit of oil volatility and the Volt will be a massive success. I'm already a lemming, so sign me up! ]]>Feb 8th 2010 5:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
With that being said, the Volt production will likely be handled at least a bit differently than any previous GM vehicle so all bets are off. But my guess is that cars won't be rolling off the line until just before the end of the year as there's at least a few week gap between allocation (Nov 17th according to the chart) and production of the car that's been ordered using that allocation. GM is probably hoping to sneak a few deliveries in before the end of the year so they can meet their promised deadlines.]]>Feb 8th 2010 9:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/Feb 8th 2010 1:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
Cool, I didn't see that. It seems to not work like a conventional Hybrid. Essentially when your batter gets low a gasoline powered generator kicks in to charge the battery. One of the things a Prius has that was always a good kicker for me was that it charged the battery when you would hit the brake.

I'd be interested to see how she feels. I've been planning on looking at a hybrid (or something similar in this case) when my car finally dies (not the Prius, the driving experience in that thing is gawd aweful)]]>Feb 8th 2010 3:33PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/The gas generator was to give the car ability to travel long range distances, something like 600 miles on a single tank of gas. For short range distances, 40 or so miles which is the equivalent of most commutes, the car can run entirely on electricity.]]>Feb 8th 2010 4:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/2011-chevy-volt-pinned-with-a-november-1st-official-production-k/
Gasoline engines will lose their value as gas prices rise and the oil supply dwindles. Inevitably, they will become useless. Electric engines will continue to be valuable, because you can just swap one energy source for another and keep the same car running.

The Volt has a gas generator which recharges the battery while your driving to keep the car running. I wonder how difficult it would be to switch that to an hydrogen generator, or other fuel source. I'll bet it's a lot easier than trying to get a gas engine to run on something other than gasoline.]]>Feb 8th 2010 4:31PM