Chevy Volt Fleet Owners Getting Awful MPG

The Chevy Volt is as much of an electric car as you want to be, and some Volt enthusiasts have gone more than 2,300 miles on a single gallon of gasoline. Yet a new report suggests that some other Chevy Volts, most notably those owned by private and/or public vehicle fleets, aren’t doing much electric driving.

Green Car Reports recently followed up on a report by InsideEVs to see why a big batch of high-mileage Chevy Volts had such low average MPG numbers. The problem it seems is that fleet managers aren’t incentivizing efficient driving, and until they do, we can only expect more of the same.

Many fleets operate by paying drivers on a per-mile basis. People who drive a lot for a living are then compensated on cumulative gasoline costs…but they aren’t recouped for the much-lower costs incurred by plugging into an outlet or charging station. The result is that many fleets of Chevy Volts are coming in with an average of between 34 and 39 MPG, whereas many non-fleet owners regular achieve over 450 miles to a gallon of gas, as long as they recharge regularly. The savings add up too; to charge a Chevy Volt costs about $1.50 in electricity, and it nominally covers the cost of a gallon of gasoline, which depending on where you live is between $3.00 and $4.00 a gallon.

How can we change this? That’s a sticky question, as people still need to feel fairly compensated for the costs of driving. One suggestion would be to offer a substantial “savings bonus” to whomever used the least amount of fuel in a given time period. The bonus would have to be large enough to incentivize people to go a little bit out of their way to find EV charging stations or other places to plug in, but the cost savings to the parent company could be huge. It’s just a matter of incentivizing employees to do the right thing.

Source: Gas 2.

BMW i3 Gets a Fast Charger of its Own

Until now, the fast-charging headlines have belonged to Tesla and that company’s nationwide network of Superchargers. With BMW getting into the electric car game, however, the German carmaker doesn’t want to leave Tesla any advantages – and will soon be offering a 24-kW DC fast charging unit that can restore a BMW i3′s battery to an 80% charge in under 30 minutes.

Built in conjunction with Bosch, the BMW i Center chargers will be offered $6,548. The system, which is smaller and lighter than other units on the market, could potentially be installed by small businesses and apartment buildings. Despite the relative affordability of the BMW/Bosch system, though, they anticipate that home installation by BMW i3 or i8 owners is still unlikely.

Initially, the BMW i Center charger installations will be limited to “Authorized BMW partners”, which probably means BMW dealers, Neiman Marcus, etc. will start to have the non-CHAdeMO chargers available in the fall.

Source | Images: BMW, via Motor Authority.

China Exempts All EVs And Hybrids From 10% Sales Tax

With the goal of putting 500,000 “new energy” vehicles on its roads by the end of 2015, and 5 million on roads by 2020, China’s efforts to go green at ambitious to say the least. With just over 17,000 EVs and hybrids sold in 2013, the semi-communist country has a long, long way to go to meet that goal, though a new round of tax incentives could help tremendously.

Yesterday the Chinese government announced that all electric, hybrid, and fuel cell vehicles would be exempt from that 10% national sales tax beginning on September 17th and running through 2017. Most importantly, this includes both domestic and imported green cars, which could help China become the biggest market for green cars over the next decade.

The central government is currently building a portfolio of eligible vehicles, and the Tesla Model S will almost certainly be at the top of that list. This latest national tax incentive joins a growing list of local incentives from cities like Beijing, which are offering tax credits and free license plates (valued at $15,000 or more in some cases) to buyers of green cars.

There’s still the matter of the lack of charging infrastructure though, and while there are plans to lay down massive public charging networks all across China, as America learned, those networks require years to take hold on in the public consciousness.

With these generous subsidies compelling more Chinese consumers to look at green cars though, perhaps China really is on its way to becoming the world’s biggest market for electric cars.

Source: Gas 2.

Volvo Planning Plug-In Hybrids For Every U.S. Model

According to Plug-In Cars, Volvo has decided to offer a plug-in hybrid option on all its future US models, beginning with model year 2017. Only 2.0 liter turbocharged gas or diesel engines will be available as well as Volvo continues its efforts to downsize its emissions. Unfortunately, previous work on an electric C30 has quietly ceased and no further electric only Volvos are planned at this time.

The New York Times reported earlier this year that Volvo will replace its entire model lineup over the next few years, staking its immediate future on a single chassis architecture, engine and transmission.

The new V60 plug-in hybrid will lead the way, providing up to 30 miles of range in the Pure electric only mode – more than enough for most driver’s daily commute. It can run in Hybrid mode for extended range, or Power mode for maximum performance with all 240 horsepower on tap. This is just an example of the Volvo hybrids we can expect in the future.

Volvo says this strategy, built around what it calls Scalable Product Architecture, will give it a wider range of options to make vehicles of different sizes, weights and horsepower ratings, with either front- or all-wheel drive, while retaining the economic benefits of using many common parts. In the Volvo system, the internal combustion engine powers the front wheels while the electric motor powers the rears. This reduces some of the complicated combination motor and transmission components found in other hybrids, and could also help bolster Volvo’s performance credentials as well.

Pricing in America has not yet been announced, but the V60 plug in hybrid sells for the equivalent of $85,488 in the UK.

Source: Gas 2.