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Forget the horsepower wars; we’re moving on to the mpg wars. In a Twittered response to General Motors’ announcement this week that the Chevrolet Volt is expected to get a fuel efficiency rating of 230 miles per gallon from the Environmental Protection Agency, Nissan said its electric vehicle, the Leaf, will get 367 mpg.
“Nissan Leaf = 367 mpg, no tailpipe, and no gas required,” Nissan tweeted on its nissanevs twitter account. “Oh yeah, and it’ll be affordable too!”
Nissan later tweeted that the number is an estimate using the EPA’s testing formula.
GM sparked new controversy yesterday when it announced that the upcoming 2011 Chevrolet Volt achieved up to 230 mpg using preliminary EPA testing methods for electric vehicles. The figure may be misleading because GM says the Volt can go about 40 miles without using any gasoline. After 40 miles, the battery that powers the electric motor will be charged by a gasoline engine that works a generator, providing enough power for the battery to continue running the motor. GM calls the Volt a range-extended electric vehicle.
The Nissan Leaf is a pure electric vehicle, which means no gasoline is ever used to generate power. The Leaf has a range of 100 miles, after which the battery must be recharged or swapped out for a new one.
Electric power is usually measured in kilowatt hours per 100 miles, but the Volt’s powertrain also includes a gasoline engine, complicating the mix. The EPA’s new methodology will convert the kWh rating to miles per gallon, a measurement more consumers are familiar with.
Nissan also takes a jab at GM with its snarky comment about affordability. The Nissan Leaf will likely carry a price tag between $25,000 and $35,000, while the Volt is expected to cost at least $40,000. Both vehicles will likely qualify for a $7500 tax rebate from the government.
Neither the Leaf nor the Volt have been officially tested by the EPA, so the numbers provided by the manufacturers are not definitive. We’ll have to wait until it gets closer to the launch dates of the respective vehicles before we get actual numbers. Then GM and Nissan can start their mpg wars.
367mpg? How high are these engineers? I bet in real-world conditions in the Upper Midwest, neither of these cars will get over 100mpg/kilowatt-hour equivalent. Even that is a long shot. I’ll give Nissan some cred however, theirs will be sub-$30K as oppposed to $40K+ for the Zil <cough> i mean Volt. If the government forces me to buy one of these street-legal golf carts, i’ll put my money on a Nissan I guess.
Directly below any article on automobilemag.com (located after the dotted-line break and before the social networking options) is a set of links which includes an “EMAIL THIS” option.
Interesting article. So why doesn’t automobilemag.com allow me to share it by e-mailing it to a friend. My friends and I are part of the “new simpletons” backlash. Get on board. We don’t “digg”, “reddit” or “tweet” — although some of us do “twat”. We actually use such antiquated technologies as the “tell-o-phone” and the revolutionary “e-mail”. When we have something really important to share, and want to make a lasting impression, we even bust out something called a “pen-and-paper”.