200 MPG Fish Tales
Everybody knows; fishermen never lie about their catch. Sometimes they can embellish your stories a bit.
The automotive industry has found that customers can be attracted with high mileage figures. The media has joined the hype for energy-efficient cars. Suddenly we read mileage claims from 60 MPG to mind blowing claims from 200 MPG to 300 MPG. Miles per gallon or MPG is supposed to be a number that car buyers can confidently use to estimate future fuel and energy costs before purchasing a car.
GM recently announced that its new VOLT electric car will get 230 MPG. WOW !! How do we know how much an ornament is and how much is real?
We must first realize that the VOLT is a hybrid. When analyzing driving costs, users must realize that they have to pay for energy in the form of electricity or gasoline. For the following comparisons, it is assumed that electricity costs are $ 0.11 per kWh when connected to a receptacle in the home and that gasoline costs $ 2.50 per gallon at the pump.
GM has not yet declared how much gas and how much electricity the car uses when it drives 230 miles. We have to guess. A 230 MPG mileage figure can only be achieved when the car uses just one gallon to drive 230 miles. GM tells us that the VOLT has a range of forty miles when only using its batteries. Media reports indicate that the VOLT will also have a 1.4-liter gasoline electric generator. Giving GM the benefit of the doubt, we can assume that the VOLT will hit 50 MPG when driving on gasoline on the highway at 55 miles per hour.
Now we can calculate the mileage that the VOLT can optimally achieve. The VOLT must drive 180 miles on its batteries and 50 miles on the highway on gasoline to reach the advertised mileage. Only in the best case scenario is it possible for the VOLT to use just one gallon of gas to drive 230 miles! Additionally, the VOLT must be recharged at least once at home and four times at highway charging stations when traveling 230 miles from home.
GM says the costs of driving the VOLT will be $ 2.75 per 100 miles at an electricity cost of 11 cents per kWh. The comparable cost of power for gasoline at 50 MPG would be $ 5.00 per 100 miles as long as the gasoline costs $ 2.50 at the pump.
Recharging the VOLT batteries on the road will cost well over 11 cents per kWh. (kWh is an abbreviated unit of electrical energy for kilowatt hours). No gas station owner can afford to buy expensive charging equipment and provide multiple parking spaces for the time-consuming charging process without a fair margin. Let’s hope that the price of electricity at the highway charging station does not exceed 17 cents per kWh.
Recharging the VOLT batteries with a storage capacity of 16 kWh will cost $ 2.72 on the road. According to GM, the VOLT can travel 40 miles on a fully charged battery. Consequently, the cost of driving 100 miles will be $ 6.80. When driving with gasoline, the cost will be $ 10.00. The difference in driving costs per 100 miles will be $ 3.20.
After driving 100,000 miles, the VOLT can save $ 3,200 in energy costs when driving on highways. The VOLT can save many more energy costs when only recharging at home. Energy costs when driving exclusively on home-delivered electricity will be $ 4.40 per 100 miles when using a 16 kWh battery and earning 40 miles per charge.
The calculated driving cost of $ 4.40 per 100 miles is considerably higher than the $ 2.75 per 100 miles quoted by GM. It seems that GM has to explain the performance of the VOLT more precisely.
More importantly, the advertised 230 MPG mileage is a fish tale and requires a very long, thorough, and complex explanation. It is a ruse to sell hybrids. Consumers should insist on more easily understandable information to forecast driving costs. The 230 MPG figure is misleading!