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Interview with Bob Boniface, Camero & Volt designer
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Meybe GM will find a Camaro SS EV favorable for sales
Hopefully GM will not make another 14mpg Camaro again (at the wrong time and lose a lot more money) and instead bring the platform over to the EV side of business. It will sell quickly.
Forget keeping the Camaro a gasoline only car due to heritage. Those
days are gone, history. No one will give a *hit. its time for a true change. Just make it a EREV or BEV and make our world and economy a better place. Marketing a E rev Camaro would truly brighten up the auto industry and all the Nay sayers could have a option for your ICE which will be obsolete in 10-15 yrs. Go $10 buck a gallon gas; I'm ready for a change.
peace
Hopefully GM will not make another 14mpg Camaro again (at the wrong time and lose a lot more money) and instead bring the platform over to the EV side of business. It will sell quickly.
Forget keeping the Camaro a gasoline only car due to heritage. Those
days are gone, history. No one will give a *hit. its time for a true change. Just make it a EREV or BEV and make our world and economy a better place. Marketing a E rev Camaro would truly brighten up the auto industry and all the Nay sayers could have a option for your ICE which will be obsolete in 10-15 yrs. Go $10 buck a gallon gas; I'm ready for a change.
peace
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The usual lies about the EV-1. Fear of running out of battery charge was never an issue with anyone I knew that had one.
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No, it was the fear the people that didn't have one had that caused them to not lease one in the first place. Three years of production and only about 1000 built. Oh, yeah there was a waiting list for about 5,000 more, so at best 6-7,000 in three years. At $25k, that is a sales failure. The EV-1 was a test to see who would buy an BEV, and at a little over $1 a gallon gas at that time, the answer was almost no one. The EV-1 was what it was and now it's history. moveon.org
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Or their two mode hybrid system. On the other hand, I personally would have a tough time buying this vehicle without a manual transmission.
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I think you have BAS and BEV mixed up. The GM BAS hybrid system is a belt driven alternator/starter that aids the engine a small amount and uses a bit of regeneration to charge a small battery pack. It is considered a "mild" hybrid because the system is so simple and is not connected to the drive train at all. The BAS can not power the car by battery alone. It is simple and inexpensive, but not as effective as GM's two mode, Toyota's synergy drive or Honda's hybrid.
BEV stands for Battery Electric Vehicle. This is what the Tesla is. A BEV Camaro would be cool, but I don't think the battery technology is at a point where this vehicle that you discribe can be built let alone afforded by anybody but very wealthy people. I think a two mode Camaro hybrid would be more realistic, but I doubt too many people would pay the big price tag.
could it be made better?
Do you think a larger battery, and larger motor (starter) and generator (alternator) combo could make a BAS architecture more effective?
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No, that was what GM wanted CARB to think because they only built enough EV-1s to “get by”. There were two "builds" of the 1997 EV-1, totaling 650, and one "build" in 1999, of which 465 saw the light of day. You must also consider that the EV-1 was only offered in 2 states. Now multiply that by 20 and remember all the people that were flat turned down for leases because they were not important enough. There is also the “I only buy, I do not lease a vehicle” people to consider. A lease is great if you are a business since the whole lease payment is deductible and you do not have to keep all of the depreciation records on the vehicle. If you are an individual, it sucks. I have one friend now who got suckered into a lease and all they do is think about how much over their lease mileage they may be.
Gas was not $1 in 1997. Here in Texas it was $1.60 on a good day. The EV-1 was not a test to see who would buy an EV. They were never offered for sale. It was forced on all automakers because GM said they were going to build it anyway. The EV-1 was a wonderful car and should be brought back. It could be done in less than 1 year, way before the Volt ever hits the showrooms.
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I'm sure that it would result in greater mileage, but part of the mission statement for the BAS system is to keep cost low and be flexible enough to fit into existing vehicles without major redesigns. Here are some pictures of what the BAS system consists of. Perhaps a bigger alternator/generator, battery pack and chain drive instead of belt drive might be able to fit in existing engine bays, but I'll have to defer to GM engineers as to what is possible and what is not. Super green types scoff at the GM BAS system as being a weak band-aid that doesn't deliver enough, but I think it's a smart system.
Proof of the pudding? The Saturn Greenline Vue with BAS gets 29mpg combined and costs $23,000. The Toyota Highlander with synergy drive gets 30mpg combined and costs $33,000. The Highlander is a tiny bit bigger, but which is a better value? The BAS is flexible enough to be installed more GM vehicles that already exist, making GM the manufacturer with the most hybrids available and very affordable. At today's gas prices, the BAS system will pay for itself, where as other systems in other vehicles not so much.
The biggest problem with BAS is not many people know about it or how it works. Traditional car buyers think hybrid = complex and expensive maintenance, so they skip it. However if they knew how simple it was, they might just go for it to save money on gas. Others don't even realize how many hybrids like this GM makes and so go straight to Toyota or Honda.
IMO, people need to stop bashing the BAS system and recognize it as a great way to cheaply and quickly get better mileage out of almost any car.
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