Chevrolet Spark EV

[qwk]

There will always be someone who likes ugly(or is just too cheap), that's why the Pontiac Aztec sold at least some units, but probably at a steep discount.

Ha! The Aztec worked great for Walter White in Breaking Bad.. (puke green no less!)

I really liked my EV1 but one time a passerby on the sidewalk actually said "That's the ugliest car I've ever seen". To each his own I guess.

The EV1 was actually a pretty decent looking car, especially the front end. A little outdated now, but for the time it was very cool. That's actually one of the very, very few GM vehicles I would consider owning.

 

[TonyWilliams]

2. Just imagine the first chademo users in the US and how disappointed they were. Heck, just imagine how people in remote areas STILL feel...there just aren't that many chargers out there. I'm ok with that, and I expect to have some teething issues early on. It was a rude shock when I thought the chademo chargers around me existed...well, they showed up on a map, but here in the Portland area nearly every single one of them was broken for months when people actually started using them. This is part of a new technology and infrastructure.

And you think that the new Frankenplug that is about 5 years behind CHAdeMO in development is not going to have problems? You seem convinced the Spark EV will meet your performance needs, even without driving it.

I have confidence that having fast charge capability built into the vehicle side will make me happier in the long run.

This honestly is a non-sequitur.

About 100,000 EVs already produced have "built in" DC fast charging. So will the Spark EV, however it will have a socket on the "vehicle side" that is not compatible with the existing infrastructure.

3. Yes, but the Leaf doesn't have the performance I desire. You seem like an intelligent person, I hope you understand that people different than you have desires different than you.

Again, the Spark EV may be the shnizzle for you. It's WAY too small for me. I doubt it will have significantly more measurable performance than a LEAF or Fit EV or BMW i3 or Toyota Rav4 EV. It is more expensive than a LEAF. It has slightly less EPA range than a LEAF (84 miles versus 82 at 100% charge). It's built by a company that doesn't support battery electric vehicles (like Toyota with my Rav4). It uses a competing new standard whose primary purpose, in my opinion, is to trip up the existing world leader (by far) Nissan LEAF.

I won't be buying one.

 

[KeiJidosha]

Not sure what expectations are for SAE combo DC fast-charging on the Spark EV, but their website states;

SAE Standard Fast Charging is the newest option and the Spark EV is proud to offer this out-of-home charging option†. The revolutionary SAE combo DC fast-charging stations will charge the battery to 80 percent in just 20 minutes.

†Late Availability

Adds to disappointment over unavailable 6.6kW on-board charger.

 

[GregH]

I won't be buying one.

Not a shock to anyone reading this thread...

 

[Nashco]

ICE components are usually overbuilt, and getting more power is trivial. Not so with a battery car. Battery is everything. You definately need to do some basic research. Even though GM advertises more power, the Spark will only be a tiny bit more powerfull than the Leaf. Probably not enough to notice. It's all deceptive marketing, which you seem to fall easy for.

Again, do you have data to support your claims? Testing to date indicates 0-60 times in the Spark EV is about a second faster than the Leaf, which aligns with the power and weight specifications for both. Doesn't sound like deceptive marketing to me.

Whether you actually have data or not, I would appreciate if you would at least quit with the assumptions and accusations of my personal abilities, knowledge, and skills. I assure you, you're pretty far off...but even if you weren't, it's just rude.

Bryce

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Testing to date indicates 0-60 times in the Spark EV is about a second faster than the Leaf

Is acceleration really an issue with the Leaf? Sounds to me like someone's trying to solve the wrong problem.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Testing to date indicates 0-60 times in the Spark EV is about a second faster than the Leaf

Is acceleration really an issue with the Leaf? Sounds to me like someone's trying to solve the wrong problem.

at least you can follow this garbage well enough to ask a question because I am lost as to the topic here.

 

[scottf200]

Testing to date indicates 0-60 times in the Spark EV is about a second faster than the Leaf

Is acceleration really an issue with the Leaf? Sounds to me like someone's trying to solve the wrong problem.

In this thread about the Spark EV I pointed to an article related to it's performance. New / potential customers often need something or a combination of things to make them shift from what they are use to. Savings is one but speed/peppiness is another. The target market for these smaller cars may really like the speed/peppiness. The market may overlap with the LEAF and other *EVs but it also probably has some uniqueness. Think younger generation.

http://www.edmunds.com/car-news/general-motors-begins-first-us-production-of-electric-motors-for-2014-spark-ev.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chuck Russell, vehicle chief engineer for the Spark EV and the Chevy Volt, went one better, telling Edmunds:

"We've said 'under 8 seconds' zero to 60 for the Spark EV — and it won't be 7.9."

Pete Savagian, GM's general director for electric drive systems, said the company's goal was to make the motor particularly efficient, while also employing an industry-leading low gear-reduction in the attached planetary-gearset transmission. Savagian said the motor as used in the 2014 Spark EV is about 85 percent efficient in city driving and 92 percent efficient on the highway.

 

[evnow]

Come on. When the majority of people think it's ugly, well.....

And you *know* that, how ?

 

[qwk]

Come on. When the majority of people think it's ugly, well.....

And you *know* that, how ?

It's no secret I own a model S. Everyone comments on how good looking the car is, and are shocked that it's all electric. Then the Leaf/Volt comes up. Nearly everone thinks the Volt is a pure 30-40 mile EV, and everyone comments on the gross looks of the leaf, which they somehow correctly know as an all electric.

Look, I realize you bought a Leaf, love it to death, and will defend it until the very end, but the car is definately not a good looking car. Nissan can and does do better.

 

[qwk]

ICE components are usually overbuilt, and getting more power is trivial. Not so with a battery car. Battery is everything. You definately need to do some basic research. Even though GM advertises more power, the Spark will only be a tiny bit more powerfull than the Leaf. Probably not enough to notice. It's all deceptive marketing, which you seem to fall easy for.

Again, do you have data to support your claims? Testing to date indicates 0-60 times in the Spark EV is about a second faster than the Leaf, which aligns with the power and weight specifications for both. Doesn't sound like deceptive marketing to me.

Whether you actually have data or not, I would appreciate if you would at least quit with the assumptions and accusations of my personal abilities, knowledge, and skills. I assure you, you're pretty far off...but even if you weren't, it's just rude.

Bryce

Absolutely. I have an ICE car that made ~200rwhp stock, and 500rwhp without all of those *necessary* supporting parts you listed. It even had the stock motor, from valve covers to oil pan. How do you like them apples?

Just admit it. You are wrong, and either know next to nothing, or like to generalize to prove your point about the inner workings of a vehicle, whether it's an ICE or EV.

 

[qwk]

BTW, this is what I call deceptive marketing BS.

http://gas2.org/2013/04/25/chevy-spark-ev-gets-82-mile-119-mpge-rating/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

400 ft lb of torque? Lol. If they measured the torque like everyone else, it would be close to the Leaf tq output. If you build a decent car, why make bogus claims up? The company went BK for a reason...

I don't have brand bias. If there was a GM or Nissan badge on the Model S, it would still be sitting in my driveway, but that is like expecting medium rare steak from a vegetarian restaurant. Not going to happen in this lifetime.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Funny how occasionally a thread like this will "light up" with enthusiastic posters who are passionate about one thing or another to the point it degenerates into personal attacks. Usually you have to put "Fox News" in the title to generate this level of excitement.

 

[qwk]

Funny how occasionally a thread like this will "light up" with enthusiastic posters who are passionate about one thing or another to the point it degenerates into personal attacks. Usually you have to put "Fox News" in the title to generate this level of excitement.

No kidding, and I fell for it. It seems like everyone is an expert on the internet, without actually having done anything of the sort. If it was easy or cheap to build an EV that hauled a$$, everyone would be doing it. Since its neither, 99% of coversions, and every production EV other than Tesla is a snail show.

 

[GRA]

Here's my take on the Spark.

Advantages:

1. Only 'affordable' BEV with QC and a liquid-cooled TMS (will Ford offer Combo in Focus?), so anxiety-free frequent QCs.
2. Uses battery chemistry that is more heat tolerant, degrades slower than LMO (but lower specific energy).
3. Best accel of 'affordable' peers.
4. Small, may have better handling and all-around driving features than gas Spark, as is the case with 500e and Smart ED; we'll have to wait for road tests to confirm. Will probably have better handling etc. than Leaf.
5. Efficient.
6. Three rotary knob HVAC controls (Yay!)

Disadvantages:

1. 3.3 kW charger from Volt makes $ sense for GM, but will limit usefulness for regional trips if no QC.
2. Public QC doesn't currently exist in U.S.
3. Korean-made and/or Chevy-branded may turn off many potential customers.
4. Limited availability in U.S., at least initially.
5. Depth of GM corporate support uncertain.
6. EPA range essentially same as Leaf and Focus, but smaller car. Won't hurt the 500e, we'll see with this.
7. MSRP more than Leaf S. If Spark comes with QC capability, price difference may not be significant.

Related issues:

1. How fast will Combo chargers be rolled out? CHaDeMo doesn't have insurmountable lead in U.S., perhaps no more than 200 total currently and considerably less in California and Oregon. Combo could easily catch up, especially if GM/BMW/VW/Ford install at dealerships ala Nissan, or NRG etc. install dual-standard chargers. Assuming $100k/charger installed and operational, 200 is only $20 million.
2. Is it possible to make an inexpensive CHaDeMo-Combo adapter?

 

[qwk]

2. Is it possible to make an inexpensive CHaDeMo-Combo adapter?

No. This is the problem. I suspect CHaDeMo and Frankenplug will duke it out in the next 5 years, while Tesla obliterates them both. Funding has got to come from somewhere, and if the company providing the product won't fund them(Tesla), then that standard will have problems, and most likely fail.

 

[TonyWilliams]

1. How fast will Combo chargers be rolled out? CHaDeMo doesn't have insurmountable lead in U.S., perhaps no more than 200 total currently and considerably less in California and Oregon. Combo could easily catch up, especially if GM/BMW/VW/Ford install at dealerships ala Nissan, or NRG etc. install dual-standard chargers. Assuming $100k/charger installed and operational, 200 is only $20 million.
2. Is it possible to make an inexpensive CHaDeMo-Combo adapter?

There is absolutely no way that these companies supporting Frankenplug, but rolling out compliance cars, are going to spend one penny on charging infrastructure. Only Tesla and Nissan are doing that, and it's no surprise that they are 60,000 sales, 2500 DC chargers and many years ahead of ALL the Frankenplug companies COMBINED.

Unless you are ponying up "only $20 million", I'll suggest that is real money. NRG will provide 200 Frankenplug chargers along side CHAdeMO chargers over 4 years in California only when several criteria are met. Otherwise, it will be CHAdeMO only.

That's the only "for sure" deal. These companies will be digging deep with political favors to get tax money to fund a nationwide system, and helping regulators craft rules that favor their "national" standard for all the foreign companies that need to sell compliance cars here.

 

[scottf200]

Pretty good article on the effort they made with the motor (and the plant).

GM's E-Motor Magic - 17 Apr 2013
http://www.evworld.com/focus.cfm?cid=137" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The facility is one of GM's jewels in terms of environmental impact. It is a no-land fill facility, meaning it produces no waste that ends up in land-fills. Any waste that is produced is recycled, a process that became obvious as we toured the production floor and saw how the 100kW (130 hp) electric motor is built.
Additionally, the entire roof area of the e-motor section of the plant is covered in photovoltaic panels that can generate 1.2MW of electric power, or about 10% of the plant's electrical needs.
<snip>
Savagian oversees a team of electrical engineers with PhD's who have applied all their knowhow to better understand the dynamics of e-motors and the magnetic fields they generate, so the motor can be optimized in terms of weight, power-output, durability and manufacturability. To the casual observer, the Spark Motor pretty much resembles any other industrial motor, but as Nitz explained to me over lunch, as he nibbled on a potato chip, a comparable, but less rigorously engineered e-motor destined to power a factory conveyor belt would be five times as massive as the 40 kg Spark motor. Five times.
<snip>
Permanent magnet electric motors pretty much consist of three primary materials: copper, steel, and the magnets, the latter made of rare earth elements. The Spark e-motor is no different. It's how they are arranged that would seem to set this motor apart, as well as the processes used to assemble each that are designed to minimize waste.

For example, the copper coils are fabricated using square wire that is cut, trimmed and bent by robots into the "hair pin" shapes required to create the windings. Savagian explained that using square wire is a more efficient use of space. While it takes an experienced technician 15-minutes to manually insert each of the 120+ copper 'hair pins' into their insulating wrappers in the motor, after that robots continue the assembly process, from seating the pins in the stator to welding the free ends into a continuous coil, to dripping the insulating vanish and epoxy onto the newly welded ends. This last step of dripping, instead of dipping, the exposed ends of the coil into their respective coating baths cuts production time and waste.

The magic of the Spark motor, however, starts to become obvious once you see how the rotor is assembled. This is where the tiny, Chiclet-sized rare earth magnets are mounted. There are two sizes of them and they are positioned at various angles to the radius of the rotor. But what's intriguing isn't so much the magnet themselves, but the how they are spaced and the tiny 'eyebrows' and pinholes that are part of the rotor assembly. These aren't there as an after-thought or by-product of a sloppy manufacturing process. They have a very precise purpose, as Peter Savagian illustrated using my luncheon paper napkin.

The Spark motor is a three-phase motor, meaning it has three overlapping sin waves in its power flow, the purpose being to smooth out the operation of the motor as it spins. But within in these sin waves are small peaks and troughs. The purpose of the air gaps in the form of the 'eyebrows' around the slots into which the magnets are epoxied, and the even smaller pin holes closer to the outside of the rotor are to reduce these peaks and valleys, directing the magnetic flux fields in such a way as to further quiet the motor and smooth out its operation.

 

[RegGuheert]

Pretty good article on the effort they made with the motor (and the plant).

Thanks!

I used to work with an engineer who designed and built high-performance synchronous machines. That is a particularly difficult design problem and it is interesting to see so much new engineering is going on in this area to support EV development!

Still, those fifteen minutes of manual winding seem like an awful lot for a mass-produced product. I doubt the LEAF motor has that much manual labor involved, based on the YouTube videos I has seen, but perhaps there is a lot more that is not seen.

I wonder why only Tesla has avoided the rare-earth magnets altogether by going with an induction machine rather than a permanent-magnet one. I also wonder if other companies will follow suit eventually as supply for these magnets gets more and more constrained.

 

[cwerdna]

I wonder why only Tesla has avoided the rare-earth magnets altogether by going with an induction machine rather than a permanent-magnet one.

I was pointed to http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/induction-versus-dc-brushless-motors" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; long ago.