Battery Investment
Here’s what we know and don’t know about the battery so far:
The Volt has a 400-pound, 16-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack attached to the 160 hp electric motor.
Since 1 kilowatt-hour = 1000 watts expended over 1 hour,the battery can produce 16000 watts per hour. Peak output is 136KW.
At 40 mph battery will discharge in 1 hour, at 60 mph battery will discharge in 40 minutes.
The current cost in the prototype of the Li-ion battery pack is about $20,000 (reference) , the goal price for production will be $5000.
We don’t know how long the battery will last considering the likelihood of frequent deep-drain cyclings, and a car should last at least 100K miles (that would be 2500 cycles). We also don’t know at how low a temperature it will operate.
GM has awarded contracts to develop Li-ion batteries with four companies connected in two joint ventures:
One is Cobasys combined with A123Systems. Cobasys is a joint venture between Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, a subsidiary of Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) and Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENER).
The other is Johnson Controls (NYSE:JCI) combined with Saft.
The government is also closely working with these companies for military applications.
We have invited Keith Watson at A123 to give us some comments, and hopefully shed some light on the don’t knows..
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February 4th, 2007 at 10:17 am
I thought the battery wasn’t there yet, that they were running the prototype on a battery that was less powerful than the 16kW/h that they need to get the 40 mile range. The Chevy Rep I talked to at the DC carshow, (where the Volt was a huge draw) said that the battery was the main hold up. If I owned the Volt and there were issues with deep discharge leading to shortened battery life expectancy, would there be a way to turn on the gen-set after 20 miles of my daily 40 mile commute to avoid drawing the batteries down too far? You would still be getting incredibly good mileage and you would avoid wearing out the battery too quickly. I am about to get a new vehicle and the Escape Hybrid looks cool, but it is just a small step compared to what the Volt would be.
February 4th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
“Cobasys is a joint venture between Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, a subsidiary of Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) and Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENER).”
Chevron an oil company. I’m sure they are fully committed to improving battery systems so we can “fuel” our cars from the power grid and not from their refineries (deep sarcasm). Seems really strange an oil company is involved in batteries research. Could it be GM sold the battery rights to Chevron to hold and prevent other industries from using?
Congress should consider giving the consumer a big tax credit to buy electric primary/gas secondary cars and not just hand the money to GM. One result would be the end of the stall tactics of “5 more years battery research” or “not economically viable”. Any auto manufacturer would have incentive to produce cars. Let the early adopters have a tax break to get some cars on the road.
The GM Volt is the correct plan, but I don’t trust the good old boy club of the auto and oil industry to let it see the light of day.
Remember the EV1s were all crushed and removed from public view. Pretty strange when people wanted to buy the cars as is. Very strange.
GM could put out cars with Nickel-metal-hydride that could be upgraded to Lithium-Ion. Sigh
February 6th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Perhaps Keith Watson could give us a breakdown on the cost of building their Li battery. Also, some ideas of where they think costs can be saved. Who knows, maybe someone out here in web land will have some helpful ideas…