GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

We talk a lot about the electric engine, plugin capability, and lithium batteries when we discuss the Volt. It is time we discussed another very important aspect of the vehicle, the fact that the combustion engine can run on E85.

E85 is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, not the other way around!

Due to the explosion in demand for fuel ethanol, America’s farmers have been ramping up corn production, as most of the ethanol is derived from corn. This year, U.S. farmers are expected to produce 15 billion bushels of corn. This translates into about 15 billion gallons of ethanol.  The U.S consumes 146 billion gallons of gas per year, 75 billion of this by passenger cars. So right now we are potentially capable of reducing our gasoline consumption by about 15% through using E85. Also, keep in mind, every barrel of oil consumed produces about 20 gallons of gasoline, and the U.S. consumes about 7 billion barrels of oil per year.

Now, we’ve already calculated that if every passenger car was like the Volt, and 50% of drives were less than 40 miles, 30 billion gallons of gas could be saved per year. Of the remaining 30 billion gallons, we could replace half with corn ethanol, which would result in only 15 billion gallons of gas being needed for passenger cars, a savings of 60 billion gallons of gas per year! This would translate to about 3 billion less barrels of oil per year being needed by the U.S, that’s 1/2 what were consuming now.

If we extend the electric E-flex engine to commercial vehicles, we could reduce oil consumption by 90%. Now that ain’t too corny!!

Yesterday, oil prices climbed 5$ per barrel in 7 minutes on speculation of a standoff between the UK and Iran, who captured their soldiers. See story here.

Oil prices once again are touching the 70$ mark. They have gone over $80 previously. Many experts believe that as we start going over the peak of production, as international demand soars, oil prices could rocket uncontrollably. So-called Peak Oil Theory. Couple that scenario with worsening Middle East war issues, and we are in big financial trouble!

Enter the Volt.

Using a plugin electric car for average commuters will allow millions to not use gas at all. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, the energy source will be shifted from gasoline to our power grids, which use multiple sources, but mainly coal and natural gas.

The U.S. and Canada have tremendous coal supplies, but burning it makes alot of CO2, and hence will worsen global warming. Natural gas reserves, however, mostly are still in the Middle East.

So, driving a Volt alone is not enough to save the West from geopolitical financial influence by the Middle East. We must also concentrate on other newer alternative energy sources!

This issue is addressed by Larry Burns, GM’s VP for R&D

“Whether your concern is energy security, global climate change, natural disasters, the
high price of gas or the volatile pricing of a barrel of oil and the effect that unpredictability
has on Wall Street – all these issues point to a need for energy diversity,” Burns said.
“Today, there are more than 800 million cars and trucks in the world. In 15 years, that will grow to 1.1 billion vehicles. We can’t continue to be 98-percent dependent on oil to
meet our transportation needs. Something has to give. We think the Chevy Volt helps
bring about the diversity that is needed. If electricity met only 10 percent of the world’s transportation needs, the impact would be huge.”

As we reported on Friday March 23, an article appeared in which GM was portrayed as wishing to cut back the hype on the Volt. Careful scrutiny of the article however did not really support that claim. Nothing could be further from the truth.
On Saturday, March 24, none other the Bob Lutz himself fired back at the reporter on his blog and used the same line we did. GM plans to “Charge Ahead”.

This car is unstoppable. Thanks Bob!

A123 Systems, the likely maker of the Volt’s batteries has had a new wiki site created about it.  There is some useful information and links there.  You can see it here.

Today an article appeared in the Detroit News, in which GM is described as trying to downplay the hype associated with the Volt. The argument is being made that perhaps GM has bit off more than they can chew.

The reporter quotes an auto consultant in New Jersey, and competitor Ford’s director of hybrids for sources of negative commentary. The reporter goes on to use the EV1 fiasco as evidence that GM may once again fail. Lack of battery technology, as usual, being blamed for the theoretical downfall.

Fortunately, the article does in the end quote Bob Lutz as saying he is “growingly convinced that we [GM] will pull it off”.

Another example of healthy human scepticism, being woven into a compelling story with a cute title, to help fill the void of new news about the Volt. I say lets “Charge Ahead”!

There’s been some recent rants on the web about what hardware is actually under the hood of the Volt concept car thats making its tour of World auto shows this year. The commentary has been promulgated by none other than Darryl Siry, VP of Marketing of Tesla Motorcars. He was able to obtain photo’s of the Volt’s open hood and shows that it is filled with among other things, 3 lead acid batteries, some kind of starter, and an empty bucket of laundry detergent. See the photos here.

Cute, but lets face it, this is a concept car, and not the real McCoy. When the real car is here we’ll be driving it!

Anyway, what this exercise, and all the interesting comments we’ve been getting here at gm-volt.com tells us is that people are different. We all see the world in different ways, shaped by our past experiences, motives, and desires. No one is ever really right. We just see different facets of same issues. Another thing is that humans have evolved to seek out what’s wrong about things, to try to make them better. By nature we are not satisfied by the status quo. We are programmed to find and complain about faults..thats how our tremendous technology has evolved.

Some, like me, are hopelessly optimistic. The E-flex revolution is genuine, and the Volt shall one day soon motor down our roads, without an empty bucket of laundry detergent under the hood!