GM Opens Battery Lab to Media Tour
According to the Free Press, and GM’s own Fast Lane Blog, GM made good on its promise to open the development process of the Volt to public scrutiny, by allowing 50 media people to come in for a tour of the battery lab yesterday. Hopefully the Warren Michigan facility will be birthplace of the next-gen Lithium batteries that will power the Volt.
There were leaders from the 3 main companies Cobasys, A123, and Johnson-Saft in attendance.
Much was discussed about the need for reliable batteries; those that can last for 150K miles, work in extreme climate conditions, and allow for rapid acceleration. There are working Li-ion batteries now (see Tesla’s), but not up to the standards for a mass produced, widely adoptable car.
One of Edmund’s reporters was there and got some more information, read his post here.
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7 Responses to “GM Opens Battery Lab to Media Tour”
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March 13th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I feel like this is the right step for us here in america and if all goes well we could be leaders in the automobile industry again. It’s about time.
March 13th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Agreed, it is time to step up and bring us into the future.
March 13th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
America is so PROUD of YOU GM!
March 13th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
The GM battery test lab is for performance verification, life cycle testing, and quality inspection. All necessary steps that GM has been investing in for several years now. But the innovation in chemistry is expected to come from the battery suppliers. Luckily there are a few good ones with some great ideas. It would have been nice to see GM shift some of it’s fuel cell research dollars over to batteries, but the burden of R&D seemed to fall exclusively on the USABC and it’s modest funding. METI in Japan has been throwing significant funds at Lithium cells for years, but oddly it has not resulted in a successful, safe Li-Ion cell(yet). So the race is on, and I think GM may actually gain access to innovative world class technology at a reasonable price by the inventiveness of US based companies. Exciting times.
March 13th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
This puts us one step closer to my dream of getting my shoes polished by a direct member of the saudi royal family.
March 14th, 2007 at 7:19 am
…and 3 days earlier, at the MIT Energy 2 Conference, GM’s battery partner A123 was showing off their pack in a Prius claiming 35 miles all electric.
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/03/a123systems_lii.html#more
March 15th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I’m a froggy, and I’d like to say that this hybrid technology exists in France since more than 3 years. Unfortunately we are too stupid to make it a reallity because our government gets 80% of tax on 1 liter of petrol. See http://www.cleanova.com
The US can make it because you want be as independant as possible from the petrol of the middle east! Please do it and I’ll get one in few month when I start to work in your country.
Meanwhile I’ll get an Escape Hybrid.