The Difference is Clear

I’ve met and like John Voelcker from Green Car Reports. He’s a nice guy and he’s done some great reporting. This story though, I do not get. It feels like filler to me. Well, that and one more thing, it annoys me. The article annoys me because it’s blending two things that in reporting should not necessarily be mixed up, reality and promises.

Reality is walking out your front door, getting into your car and driving someplace. Promises are waiting on the street for a friend to pick you up. Sure, it’s a friend and they’re reliable and all that, but maybe they’ll be late. Maybe your friend you forgot you needed a ride. The two things, while having some similarities are, in practice, very, very different.

And so it goes with the much lauded Chevy Volt (the promise) and the Toyota Prius (the reality).

The Prius is a vehicle that has been on the market for more than ten years now. It has a track record. There are, quite literally, mountains of user collected data on the vehicle’s performance.

The Volt, it’s still in prototype testing. The Volt is now “scheduled” for release sometime, as John points out, sometime in 2011 (a date which has been moved back from Chevy’s original 2010 claim). Maybe Chevy will hit this date, maybe not. Maybe the Volt will do everything Chevy claims, maybe not.

Now, to be fair to John, he’s comparing the not yet in production Prius PHEV (that’s plug-in hybrid electric vehicle for those of you new to the acronym). So in a sense, I’m being a little tough on him. However, the Volt as a platform doesn’t exist at all now It’s all new, designed, according to Chevy, from the ground up. The Prius PHEV on the other hand is merely a modification of an existing vehicle to add PHEV functionality. This is something third party companies such as Hy-Motion have been doing for about five years now. In other words, even though Toyota is carefully testing the PHEV Prius this year for release next year (possibly), there is already data on how the vehicle performs modified as a PHEV.

My point here is this, it’s not really fair or even reasonable to compare one car that does exist to another that is still vaporware. Aside from the basic design differences between the vehicle (which are significant), the Volt is far from production ready. The Prius PHEV could go into production very soon if it were not that Toyota is a very conservative company that rigorously tests new concepts before releasing them. I think that’s a huge difference and it’s not realistic to compare the vehicles, at the very least right now, for that reason among many others.

Finally, John ends his article with this:

The big question: Will the experience of pure electric drive for three times the distance give the Volt an edge over a Prius Plug-In engine that stops and starts whenever it wants?

Here’s why this is NOT the big question and frankly, why John’s question is a terrible one, the Volt’s ICE will start and stop to charge the vehicle. Technically, the vehicle is “pure” electric drive but it’s a gas generated electric system so the idea that one has a motor that stops and starts and the other is “pure” is incorrect and misleading. Yes, what drives the wheels in the Volt is electricity only but what keeps that power flowing, is gas powered.

The big question is actually a few questions. Will the Volt be what Chevy says it is? What level of performance will the PHEV Prius offer? Will auto buyers flock to the established PHEV system in the Prius or run to the novelty of the Volt’s new hybrid system? Which system will hold up better over the long term and produce promised results? Will the size difference between the two vehicles be a factor for consumers (positive or negative)? trying to boil all this down to one question isn’t a reason able goal right now.