Hacker News Reader

Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Completely disagree. I have a Volt, and having a gas engine is not a "little benefit" to me. It's a huge benefit, despite the fact that one tank of gas lasts me about 6 months on average. I never have to worry about running out of electric charge and trying to find a charger, and I can go on long trips without having to worry about whether or not I have the range.

View on HN

So why bother with an electric at all?

gas is expensive

only in california. i paid 2.19/gallon last time I filled gas in midwest.

That's still a whole lot more than the equivalent cost in electric for the same miles.

When I do the math I find the cost per mile for electric is 80% the cost of gas. That's based off 35 mpg car, $2.20 gas, 60kWh electric battery with 238 miles of range, 10% loss in the charger, and $0.19 per kWh. All in all about $100-$200 saved a year. Cost of electric is higher than typical, but that's where I'm at.

Yeah, only in California.

(Anything below 6 USD/gal is quite cheap here.)

Uh, I live in California, and all the signs I see here say $3.something for gas.

I _suspect_ the person you're replying to doesn't live in the United States, given their conspicuous use of "USD". Even the most expensive gasoline in the US is dirt cheap compared to many countries across Europe. According to the somewhat amusingly named globalpetrolprices.com, gas prices in Germany were $5.62/gallon, the UK $5.75/gallon, and Finland $6.07 a gallon. Even in Russia, far and away the cheapest, gas was still $2.56 a gallon; of the countries they're tracking, only Russia and Ukraine would be cheaper than California. They also track prices across North America, and most countries here, including Canada and Mexico, are more expensive than California, too.

I'm not entirely sure whether we have more highly subsidized gas prices than most of the developed world, lower gas taxes, or a bit of both, but our low prices—even in California—sure seem to be an anomaly. if we paid closer to the average first world price for gasoline, hybrids and electrics would suddenly get _way_ more attractive, and we might be a lot less keen on SUVs.

(Back somewhat more on point for the linked article, I'd have considered a Chevy Volt if they were just a little closer to my price range. I drive enough—and occasionally in rural enough areas—that with the possible exception of Teslas, pure EVs are still a no-go for me, and Teslas are still out of my budget. And, frankly, I don't at all like the "shove everything possible onto one big touchscreen" approach to automotive UX design.)

> lower gas taxes

That. In Europe fuel taxes are easily half of the pump price.

I believe the GP refers to the world outside North America.

Converted to your units, yesterday's average for my region was $6.12/gal.

Edit: the comment reply form could show other replies, I find myself dupeing a lot because I think I'm the first one to it, with the view of no replies 10 minutes ago.

There are 28 countries with cheaper gas than the USA per https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/

(I don't know how well they account for taxes)

Regenerative braking, significantly simpler drivetrain, pure electric for the cities.

Only problem I have is they use normal car engines as range extenders. Could've gone with a simpler/cheaper wankel or microturbine optimized for high RPM, but I guess it's quicker to slap on an engine you already have.

Recently there is some buzz that Mazda might bring back their rotary engine in a hybrid, which actually might be a good way to go about the power/weight problem.

There is absolutely zero reason to mass produce a Wankel ever again.

A microturbine would be interesting, but does GM currently have an design experience with wankel engines? It's my impression that making a low emission wankel takes some clever engineering, you'd want a team with experience before investing in such a design. And has the apex seal problem ever been solved? Taking such a risk on that component of the car could be very risky.

> Could've gone with a simpler/cheaper wankel or microturbine optimized for high RPM, but I guess it's quicker to slap on an engine you already have.

In these size classes, it's pretty hard to beat Otto or Miller cycle efficiencies, especially with a Wankel configuration or a small Brayton cycle ("microturbine"). You can get much higher power-to-mass with Wankels or gas turbines, but their thermal efficiencies (again, in these kinds of size classes) will be lower with today's technology. And since the overall fuel economy is less sensitive to mass than engine thermal efficiency, these avenues wouldn't make much sense. I do think there are ways to potentially meet or exceed Otto/Miller cycle efficiencies with a gas turbine, but it would require significant dedicated engineering. Not something that would make sense for GM to pursue when they can seek greater payoffs from lean combustion technologies, etc.

To put it another way, as far as the Volt combustion engine is concerned, GM made a sound engineering decision.

That question seems like trolling, but I'll answer it anyway. On 90% plus of my trips, I never use gas, and I'd estimate 90% of the rest I use gas for less than 3 miles. So I save a lot of money, it's better for the environment, I rarely have to go to a gas station, and since I use the engine so infrequently the maintenance costs are much lower.

But most importantly, I love the way an electric car drives. Smooth, incredibly fast, quiet acceleration is a joy, and the times I have to go back to driving an ICE car I immediately miss having an electric motor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com