Cool, a 6-12 mile EV range is plug-in hybrid territory.

Regarding their guarded response as to whether there will be a plug-in option or not - I think it's telling that there is so much EV range. If we guess that 6-12 miles would require 2-3 kWh of storage, then there should be say 3-4 kWh of storage to allow cycling within 75% SOC. Not much point having all that capacity in a ICE-hybrid system only - so I'm guessing that there should surely be some plug-in operation being researched here.

6-12 miles EV range ... that's all I need for bringing home the groceries. But then I never could afford a Saab. All I need now is the same range in something like a prius.

If you had two engines with the same hp. One is made for 100% gasoline and the other for 100% ethanol (giving the ethanol motor a higher compression ratio and smaller size to maintain the same horsepower between the two) you would still go further on a gallon of gas. The disparity in energy content will not be made up in the increased thermal efficiency of a higher compression ratio engine.

When you throw a turbocharger in the mix it becomes a little different since off-boost the difference in compression ratio (for standard port injection) and/or the capability to downsize a turbo ethanol motor more than a turbo gasoline motor (due to running higher peak boost)...well, in that case I am not sure how much the difference would be.

There's no reason in the world why a PHEV has to get 20 miles in EV mode. Even 5 miles would be very helpfull. You could upgrade later when batteries are cheaper.

quite interesting development on the part of GM. worth noting here that the electric motors are very powerful – almost as powerful as the main engine itself!

It looks like a good scheme. Weight may be a problem, they seem to have everything AND the kitchen sink in there.

It looks to be by far the best thing from GM lately.

Bob B: right. the single motor in the rear requiring a differential seems awkward.

Well they kept the 38kW RearDriveUnit(seems like the best AWD solution ever) but the single 15kW ISG???thatll never do...bring on two 55kWers.
btw the current 2t motor gets ~24-34 on E10 with preference to 89-92RON.

The theoretical difference in fuel economy is 18% on E100 using this engine, factoring in nome of the other cool stuff. If the engine were sized to 1200cc performance would still be acceptable, and we might approach parity gallon for gallon. However these are the wrong questions. The correct question is what is the thermal efficiency of the engine. And in this case it is significantly better with E100 than E0. This is one of the best things about using BIOHOLS. We can increase thermal efficiency because the fuel is better.
If the fuel was water, would it matter if the fuel economy was 6 mpg? In my opinion the only way to look at fuel economy is BTU in / KW out. If it is the same or better than CLF (conventional liquid fuel) the point is moot, and the next question is where is my BIOHOL pump. (biohol is a term I coined that describes fermentation based, normally spark ignited fuels, as Ethanol is only one option. This allows me to include butanol and any other future molecule.) I suggest that others promoting these fuels consider using the term.

when the electric car came out I thought great it's small enough and certainly not a new idea (been around since the 1900's) that it should be cheap enough for most of us to afford.
And then I heard the price tag $24000 for that tiny POS?!
And now the wonderful engineers at all the car companies are all coming up will bigger more creative NEWER ways to supposedly tackle the future gas shortage.
And all I here is a combination of gas and ethanol as being all they can come up with.
We need to completley replace gas people it's choking all of us.
For fudges sake what about purely steam driven for god's sakes I mean it worked 100 years ago, I surely can't be the only one to think that getting away from gas compltely is the only real solution.

To Fred,
We want both fuels. In terms of yield per acre the biohol fuels will exceed Biodiesel production by at least a factor of 2, in the near term. If the fuel is biomass sourced, we are on the same team. B100 will not work in SI engines, and there is way too much infrastructure in place to stop producing them. A B100 concept vehicle would be cool.

And Larry, are you sure you are correct? Do you drive a Segway to work? Electric cars are cheaper per mile driven, as are CNG vehicles, and have been for some time. But where are they? Why do people buy SUV's?
My point is simply that biohols are better fuels than gasoline, allowing for increased thermal efficiency, and if we can wean ourselves from the corn model, they will cost less per mile driven, and improve the "well to wheel" greenhouse gas profile. Hopefully the masses will just simply wake up and refuse to purchase anything with a GEMPG (Gasoline Equivalent Miles per gallon) rating of less than 20.