kubel
Well-known member
SanDust said:Goofy reasoning to me. The mechanical linkage just makes the car more efficient. This isn't religion. If you get better MPG then why not do it?
I guess I did a poor job explaining myself. But then again, my reasoning may be goofy even if I explain myself with total clarity. To me, the Volt is not a "full performance electric car" if part of its performance in certain circumstances is dependent on mechanical power coming from the gas engine. Like I said, I view the Volt as being superior and advanced from a technology and engineering standpoint than pretty much any car out on the road, including the LEAF. But what it was sold to us as being (a series hybrid, something I'm very excited about) is not what it is (a heavily electric dominant parallel hybrid, meh). Its purity is gone when the gas engine became mated with the front wheels. It certainly makes it more efficient when it runs dry, and that's great... for Prius owners (intentional trolling is intentional, lol). That is my reason for favoring the LEAF over the Volt. It's more of a conceptual purity based thing (your religion analogy isn't entirely inaccurate). I sort of felt a little betrayed by GM when I was lured with the idea that it was something other than a parallel hybrid.
As far as decrease in performance, you're a Volt owner, not me. I have no first hand knowledge. I'm only repeating what others have reported on GM-Volt.com who have intentionally ran the car out of gas. Per their experience, draining the gas tank and running on battery-power-only results in decreased performance. But if it's a "full performance electric car", why would performance not be full when all there is is electric? If mating the genset to the wheels mechanically is only necessary for efficiency, why is there a performance decrease? It's either a full performance EV with a range extender, or it's not.
Hope that makes sense. And I hope I'm not sounding like I love to bash the Volt. I think it's a fantastic car. It's just not the car that I thought it was going to be for over 2 years, and all my critique of it is based on that difference.