General Motors’ shift from an internal combustion engine-producing company to one that makes electric motors is sputtering. EV sales are up, but growing slower than expected. The company’s next-generation Ultium platform, in particular, isn’t meeting expectations. GM’s new electric trucks and SUVs seem perennially delayed — or full of buggy software.
I think I have an easy solution to a lot of these problems: bring back the Chevy Volt.
Remember the Volt, GM’s scrappy Toyota Prius fighter from the mid-2010s? The company was lauded when it first came out in 2010 as a prescient bet on vehicles with electric powertrains. And it was undeniably a very good hybrid. The first-generation model got 36 miles of electric range before the gas kicked in, while later versions would get a whopping 53 miles of electric range.
My point is, the savings off diesel taxes (state and federal) in Illinois is 95¢/gal, for gasoline it’s 63¢/gal. At today’s prices it’s a 20-25% discount. If your car got a 20-25% boost in miles/dollar, I’m sure you’d notice.
I understand that. My point was that finding places with that type of fuel, compatible with the car, is a challenge - enough that the majority of city-dwelling hybrid owners could well spend more money reaching some fuel station that caters to farmers (or whatever) than they would save in fuel taxes once they get there. Not to mention the time involved. And that’s also assuming that station sells unleaded gasoline, since most of the non-highway uses you mention involve diesel.
Basically, what you’re thinking happened would be a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist, because non-highway unleaded gasoline is practically non-existent. If it weren’t, I’d have used it on my lawn mower.
That was my initial point (my conspiracy theory). I believe that the government asked GM to make it a traditional hybrid so that this wouldn’t be fought in courts. But now that there is a company actively implementing this solution (Edison Motors) in applications not well suited for full battery electric only, it’s going to need to be addressed because in theory not all the electricity in the batteries will not necessarily be generated by a road taxable fuel powered generator. You could even use untaxed alternative fuels like methane, propane, or hydrogen.
Propane you buy at any place, liquid methane might be harder to come by. With a natural gas line and a compressor and cooler, a farm could have enough space to implement this setup. Heck, with all the methane landfills emit, this could be a great implementation once oil refinery winds down from reduced demand.