Word: gm
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...world representations of "driving cycles": that is, up hills, down hills, acceleration rates, city miles and highway miles - the driving conditions that affect fuel efficiency or, in the case of hybrids and electric cars, how long the battery will last. This is why the EPA says it "cannot confirm" GM's mileage claims but is happy the company is innovating such fuel-efficient cars...
...With the Volt, GM is among the first to make some marketing hay from the unreleased EPA revisions, which evidently take into account onboard gasoline generators like the Volt's. Specifically, GM bases its 230-m.p.g. boast on a blend of the Volt's electric-only mode - which has a 40-mile-range limit - and charge-sustaining mode, with its 1.4-L electric generator running. (The generator is a small gas-powered engine that keeps the batteries charged while the car is being driven, hence the "extended range...
...Here's the breakdown: The 230-m.p.g. number, according to GM's Frank Weber, global-vehicle-line executive for the Volt, is a measurement of the car's "city-driving cycle" - that's the 40 miles it can go without gas, plus one daily electric recharge, plus a little extra help from the gasoline it might need to continue to charge its batteries when they get low during driving in the city. It's basically measuring the Volt's electric-only-mode (with some help) mileage capacity. If the Volt got out on the highway - where it's powered largely...
...GM says the EPA will weight plug-in electric vehicles as traveling more city miles than highway miles on only electricity, presumably figuring that people buy electric cars primarily for local driving. GM expects the Volt to consume 25 kilowatt hours per 100 miles of city driving. At the U.S. average cost of electricity (approximately 11 cents per kWh), a typical Volt driver would pay about $2.75 for enough electricity to travel 100 miles, or less than 3 cents per mile. (Conversely, a gasoline-powered car that gets 20 m.p.g., for which the driver pays $3 per gallon...
...develops "miles per gasoline gallon equivalents" (MPGGE) for electric and hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles so it can rate the amount of harmful CO2 released into the air. It's all very confusing and is likely to get even worse, according to Eggert, who doesn't "even bother" with GM's 230-m.p.g. claim. "We ignore such claims entirely," he says. "We look at total energy consumed so we can figure out how much greenhouse gas is being emitted into the air." That is, the industry may be moving from miles per gallon to miles per bucket of soot...