Exact and Current State of GM Volt Battery Development

Mar 16

Exact and Current State of GM Volt Battery Development

Posted by Lyle in: Battery, Latest News with 11 Comments

Sam Abuelsamid has done an outstanding job of relaying the information he garnered as one of the media people invited to visit GMs battery lab. See the post here. For those of you who cant get enough of the technical details, Sam nicely outlinines the data he was presented. Very understandable and great slides from GM’s shows are included (see one above in our graphic).

All-in-all it tells us that the basic nuts and bolts of the battery is here and functional its just tying the loose ends together (trivial details per Sam) that is required to bring the car to market.

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COMMENTS: 11

1

Dave Clarke Says

Mar 17th, 2007 (7:02 am)

There is no reason why GM should delay producing the car. None. Even if the battery is not quite ready, the savings of over $3000 in one year would more than make up for the additional cost of a battery upgrade. Sorry, but it just seems to me that once again the Oil guys are doing their best to delay production… One year in a city of 100000 would be a savings of $300,000,000.00 in gasoline costs. PRODUCE THE CAR NOW!

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2

majicmattyla Says

Mar 17th, 2007 (11:45 am)

Sam has written a great article. In it he mentions that GM speaks about Altairnano. I’m surprised they are not looking more seriously at the tehcnology. I spoke with Dr. Alan Gotcher, Altairnano CEO, about his battery technology and ame away fascinated. The possibilities are so promising, not just for the automotive world. http://www.podtech.net/nextgear/technology/1700/altairnanos-revolutionary-battery

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3

Ethan Peabody Says

Mar 17th, 2007 (8:52 pm)

GM can go ahead and add my name to what I\’m sure must be a long list of people who want to buy this vehicle. I realize that a list of those expressing interest is not the same as a list of funds deposited to reserve a car, but I hope GM takes peoples\’ yearnings for a clean(er) car seriously and and uses that as the impetus to produce it as soon as possible.

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4

ziv Says

Mar 20th, 2007 (9:37 am)

CNN has a poll on what systems readers believe to be the future of fuels. The Volt is 6th out of 10, with the BMW Hydrogen system in first! That absurd boondoggle is in first! Please take the time to vote!

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/future.of.cars/money.alt.power/

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5

JOE W. Says

Mar 20th, 2007 (11:19 pm)

The volt looks sharp but why do you need to produce a whole new car to have this flexibility? All car companies should be doing this with ALL their vehicles. I would love to see the 2009 Camero as an e-flex vehicle. Put electric wheel hub motors on all 4 wheels and watch it blow the 500 HP Mustang GT off the street. Now that is a commerical that would ignite the interest of car enthusiasts! If you think the public is not ready for that you are dead wrong. I can even see a whole tuner market springing up for control chips for increased HP from the e-motors. Who cares about battery life when you can blow away a viper with an electric car (ie the tesla). Go for it!

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6

storm connors Says

Mar 28th, 2007 (1:43 pm)

GM sold the NiMH battery technology which they owned to Exxon Mobil. Exxon Mobil will not license the technology to be used to make EV sized packs.

GM could build the Volt tomorrow. The concept doesn’t require any battery development. They could even use lead acid batteries.If the plug in range is 30 miles instead of 40, is this a reason not to build it? Is a $1000 battery pack that has to be replaced every 5 years or 50,000 miles really inferior to a $20,000 battery pack that would last for 200,000 miles? GM keeps coming up with reasons for delay which make no sense.

They have had this vehicle on the drawing board since 1999. They are frittering away yet another opportunity to be a world automotive leader. One has to wonder why.

The car they build could be aimed at the niche markets (as is the Hummer and Corvette) and be wildly successful. They seem unwilling to build anything until it can have all the performance characteristics and serve the same market as the Buick. The niches made up of: the save the earth group plus the early adopters of any new technology, plus those who want to save fuel plus those who like the idea of an electric car plus those who are tired of the costly maintenance of ICE cars plus oil company haters plus other groups I haven’t thought about could insure that GM’s production for the first few years would be sold.

There is no magic in 40 mile range or 200,000 mile battery life.

Stop creating new excuses and start building cars. I will buy one. First new car since 1963.

A lot of people would prefer a sealed lead acid Volt at $20,000 to a Li Ion powered one at $35,000.

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