Look out Chevy Volt, AFS Trinity has a 150 mpg SUV
Recently, there has been a lot of news on Chevy’s foray into green vehicles, the Chevy Volt. Well AFS Trinity has a new combination of technologies used in a modified Saturn Vue, that will overshadow the Chevy Volt plug in hybrid.
The Saturn Vue, modified by AFS Trinity, also a plug in Hybrid, will get an initial 40 miles on battery alone before the gas engine kicks in. Overall, the AFS Trinity modified hybrid will get 150 miles per gallon. The expected release date is around 2011.
The Chevy Volt has many people excited about it’s release in 2010. The Chevy Volt is expected to go 40 miles on electricity alone and then the gas engine kicks in for a projected 50 mpg total. Not bad but wait a year and get 150 mpg.
The AFS has managed to create a hybrid SUV that has faster acceleration than the regular model Vue. The Hybrid Vue will go from 0 – 60 in 6.9 seconds and will have a top speed of 87 mph. SUV’s shouldn’t have a need to go over 87 mph since highway speed limits are between 50 and 70 mph.
Over all it looks as if the next two to three years will be an exciting time for car buyers as they survey the new plug in hybrids that are expected to appear not just from automobile manufacturers, but also from companies providing automobile modifications.
Related Posts:
May 24th, 2008
Susan Wilson obviously is ignorant that Saturn will produce its own plug-in and that it will have a 10 year warranty and lifespan for its batteries. Also that the AFS Trinity batteries don’t last more than 5 years and cost a bundle. And the Trinity doesn’t drive the first 40 miles on electricity – the gas engine is used for acceleration and higher speeds. After the Trinity runs out of juice it gets 28 MPG, while the Volt achieves almost twice that at 50 MPG. And the MPG is uncertain for the Trinity, but the Volt will achive 300 MPG while commuting and higher MPG while powered by liquid fuel. The triunity ids an amateur job that isn’t backed or warranteed. The Saturn warranty is voided by their modification. Only a fool would have the trinity conversion perfomed and I’m sad to see a jourbnalist shill for the company the way Wilson is doing, especially when her facts are not reliable. There actually is no settled method for determining the MPG of a plug in – her claim of 150 MPG is out of the blue, whereas my claim for the Volt commuting is based on govt statisitics.
People that don’t understand the technology shouldn’t be assigned to report on it. This is simply not professional nor acceptable journalistic behavior. Maybe Susan should stick to knitting conventions.
May 25th, 2008
The Volt will achieve 40 miles on battery alone, have a maximum speed of between 100 and 120 mph, and will achieve 50 mpg after having depleted the battery. The AFS Trinity conversion is an after market conversion of an existing GM vehicle. After the battery is depleted, the vehicle will only get approximately 30 mpg. The real comparison between these vehicles is 50 mpg vs 30 mpg. This doesn’t take into account that the Volt will probably achieve 50 or 60 miles per charge at the beginning of the life of the battery. 40 miles is targeted after 10 years of use.
May 29th, 2008
It is interesting. The Volt is still a work in progress, while the AFS Trinity prototypes really exist and have been shown off to members of Congress and the media. Check out the videos on the AFS website to see for yourself. It’s a PHEV-40, so 40 miles of electric only driving up to 86 MPH.
If the Volt comes at least close to GM promises, then it will be quite extraordinary. The AFS use of ultracaps and parallel hybrid technology makes it incredibly exciting.
Since both use Li-ion batteries, durability should be about the same.
I see the GM PR machine is hard at work online.